HENNESSEY VENOM F5

Like your hyper cars a bit... hairier? Hennessey’s 1,817bhp, 300mph+ Venom F5 is the one we’ve all been waiting for. Get ready to grill some tyres and fry your brain

WORDS JACK RIX

PHOTOGRAPHY GREG PAJO, MARK RICCIONI

You join me sweating like a brisket in the Texas sunshine, despite the aircon’s best efforts. A quarter mile of wobbly heathazed tarmac stretches out in front of me, behind an idling V8 burbles away like a T-Rex puffing on a pack of B&H. The whole car rocks back and forth on its springs as I stare, brow furrowed, at the mannetino-style toggle in front of me. In the distance, the Venom F5’s entire development team waits patiently, wondering whether I’ve fallen asleep or had a coronary.

For every extreme pursuit – be it big air snowboarding, bullfighting, aerobatic piloting or, as it turns out, driving a lightly disguised dragster with 1,817bhp – there’s a ‘hold my beer’ moment. An unavoidable plank walk into the unknown. Your first solo loop the loop, first step into a ring patrolled by an angry cow, or going full send into the space between land and sky – you know what to do, but you can’t be sure what’s going to happen. It’s here you find me, considering my next move, because in the hunt for the purest first encounter possible I haven’t driven the F5 at all until now and my mind is doing its best to paralyse me. There are stories of less potent Hennessey creations doing unexpected things on this very strip – unwanted wheelspin in fourth gear at 140mph, for example – hence the gnawing anxiety.

Going to those antenatal classes with Mrs Rix is paying off nicely right now

£1.9m and you have to pour the petrol in yourself... Jack’s shoes were a write-off

“CLIMBING INTO THE F5 FEELS LIKE YOU’RE WILLINGLY STRAPPING YOURSELF TO A ROCKET”

No distractions inside the Hennessey cabin so as to better contemplate your mortality

Said toggle on the yoke steering wheel selects your driving mode, – there are five in total, but only two you’ll care about. Sport limits boost, capping power to around 1,200bhp. Enough for the school run, sure, but for the hit of the whole 1,817bhp fruit you need F5. Ah sod it, in for a penny, in for a pound. I select F5, gun it in first and the squeal of rear tyres clawing for purchase is matched only by the unholy rolling thunder from the exhausts. Second gear, we hook up, hit 5,000rpm and just take off. Upshift into third just below 8,000rpm and BOOM more of the same. I watch the speedo tick up towards 150mph and set that as my arbitrary target. Then I’m on the brakes, on the brakes a bit harder... oh dear the end of the runway is approaching at speed. I’m standing on the pedal now, ABS getting a full workout and steering the car down the escape road to the left. Judged to perfection, in case anyone asks.