How Pagani Cheated Britain's Ariel Atom Out Of Top Gear's Lap Record

Here's everything you need to know about how the 730bhp Pagani Huayra supercar cheated the featherweight Ariel Atom V8 out of the world's most-watched motoring show's lap record.

Last month, Top Gear power tested the Pagani Huayra. As usual, the test climaxed with a Stig power lap, which saw the Pagani score a 1:13.8, blitzing the Atom's 1:15.1.

The Pagani is over twice the weight of the Ariel, and has an inferior power-to-weight ratio. So how'd it manage such a blistering time? Simple. Racing tyres.

TG's rules state only road-legal cars with road-legal tyres go on the power lap board. That stipulation is what got the Ferrari FXX kicked off the top a few years ago.

Some members of supercar forum TeamSpeed.com got suspicious about the Pagani's time, and dug around for pictures of the test car. Sure enough, the Top Gear lap time car was photographed wearing these cut-slicks...

...when it should officially have worn these road-friendly Pirelli P-Zero Corsas.

The dimpled, barely treaded P-Zero Trofeos on the TG Huayra were actually just slicks from the (non road-legal) Zonda R with hand-cut grooves. During Hammond's test, the car was on road-legal tyres, incidentally - you can see them in the detail shots. So, a swap had to have been made...

When Jalopnik quizzed Pagani about the tyre swap, their excuse was that Pagani has a deal to market Pirelli's tyres to the media, so always quotes its press car as wearing the showroom-spec Corsas. But, for the Stig, they switched to illegal tyres, figuring it was the same tyre brand, no-one would notice, and they'd win the day. And they did, for a while.

TG's Huayra was the international press car. That carbon front splitter marks it out as a Track Pack car - the same one lent to CAR magazine for their Performance Car of the Year test, and evo Magazine for eCotY.

AutoBlog had a go in it too, and guess what? For all their dynamic testing, road-legal P-Zero Corsas were fitted. Customers who spec a Track Pack Huayra can't spec the cut-slicks either. Fair play to Pagani for at least admitting fault after being caught, but the fact remains, they cheated, and they've been exposed.

In the grand scheme of the universe, this doesn't really matter. Supercars aren't to be taken seriously, and in any case, hybrid monsters like the McLaren P1 and Ferrari F150 will one day re-write the TG supercar lap time records. Still, it's worth knowing the world's most famous lap record is still held by a tiny go-kart lookalike from Somerset.