What's Bentley's Pikes Peak Continental GT3 like to drive?

By topgear, 12 July 2021

Hold on tight, it's time for a go in the maddest - and smelliest - Bentley ever made

Hang about, you drove Bentley’s Pikes Peak car, but on an oval?
An oval with an infield section. After five laps I had a newfound respect for Nascar drivers, and feel I’ve been driving a car that gives me a bit of that flavour. Because, boy, does it makes a good noise, this wild and bewinged Bentley Continental GT3.

It’s a four-turn oval, so I guess I’m at turn 2, but the way the car crawls back up the banking as I power on to the back straight never fails to alarm me. I can’t fight it – well, I could but it would be unwise – it’s just what happens as the angle reduces and the car takes its natural path out towards a convergence with a very unforgiving concrete wall. It moves fast, this wall, seeming to descend to meet me as I rise, then to steam alongside like a frantically puffing runaway locomotive until I gladly peel off into the friendly infield corners.
 

So where are we?

Welcome to the Pikes Peak International Raceway. You can see the mountain from here – it dominates the skyline over Colorado Springs – but trade descriptions could have something to say about its distant positioning relative to the mountain.

But then that shouldn’t be called Pikes Peak in the first place. Explorer Zebulon Pike never reached the summit in 1806. Edwin James did in 1820, but the Spanish were there well before either, naming it El Capitan, and if we really want to get picky about it, we should refer to it as Tava or Heey-otoyoo, depending on which tribe you give precedence too, the Tabeguache or Arapaho.
 

Thanks for the history lesson, now let’s get automotive.

This car is not for an oval obviously. And compared to what it’s designed for, an oval is a stroll in a meadow. Yesterday it was blasting up the mountain, aiming to set a hill record in the super-competitive Time Attack 1 class.
 

So where are we?

Welcome to the Pikes Peak International Raceway. You can see the mountain from here – it dominates the skyline over Colorado Springs – but trade descriptions could have something to say about its distant positioning relative to the mountain.

But then that shouldn’t be called Pikes Peak in the first place. Explorer Zebulon Pike never reached the summit in 1806. Edwin James did in 1820, but the Spanish were there well before either, naming it El Capitan, and if we really want to get picky about it, we should refer to it as Tava or Heey-otoyoo, depending on which tribe you give precedence too, the Tabeguache or Arapaho.
 

Thanks for the history lesson, now let’s get automotive.

This car is not for an oval obviously. And compared to what it’s designed for, an oval is a stroll in a meadow. Yesterday it was blasting up the mountain, aiming to set a hill record in the super-competitive Time Attack 1 class.
 

It must be a big ol’ thing though?

Yeah, but if you want to make a Continental GT look small just fit it with preposterous aero devices. The regulations permit them to extend way beyond the usually imposing bodywork, enabling sticky downforce at lower speeds. This car started life as a GT3 racer, so uses a production chassis and bodyshell before the weight reduction begins. The doors tickle me most. The original interior handles have been retained, but they seem adrift, floating over single-skinned carbon. There’s only one seat inside, usually occupied by New Zealander Rhys Millen, who’s competed at Pikes Peak 26 times, winning outright twice.
 

How much power are we talking?

The motor is relatively familiar – the twin turbo 4.0-litre V8 from the racing GT3 and road car programmes. But open the bonnet and you won’t believe where it is, tucked so low down and far back it seems to peak timidly out from under the bulkhead. Don’t let that deceive you. It’s been entirely reengineered to cope with a massive power boost. In GT3 race trim it runs about 550bhp. Here, where there are no limits, Bentley is being coy. All they’ll say is that it develops 750-1000bhp thanks to new pistons and conrods, higher pressure turbos and a new and far more extensive cooling system. Those big ducts behind the doors gulp air down for a new boot-mounted radiator pack in addition to the one up front.
 

How did Pikes Peak pan out for Bentley?

Colorado had recently basked in mid-30s celsius, but the night before the race the temperature dropped well below zero. Snow fell, ice developed on the tarmac. Ironically, before the top section’s dirt surface was paved over, this wouldn’t have been such an issue. But it meant the start line was brought down from the summit to Devil’s Playground, three miles and 400 metres lower.

Then, towards the end of Millen’s run, a backfire into the inlet manifold was explosive enough to tear the thick carbon, resulting in pressure loss about a mile from the finish. An expected easy class win over the Porsche 911 GT2 RS of Romain Dumas turned into a five second deficit, a potential win into fourth place overall out of the 55 starters.
 

The altitude must be a killer.

The Pikes start line is at 2862 metres (higher than the top station in plenty of European ski resorts) and the finish at 4302 metres. Plenty of cars, including the Bentley, carry a green triangular ‘O2 on board’ sticker, meaning the driver is using oxygen to keep their wits about them. Just walking around the pit area can have you panting. An ill-advised 20-metre jog at the summit, just to see what would happen, had me developing tunnel vision.

This affects the cars in the same way. Neither man nor machine can get enough air in. It’s not there for the engine to ingest, nor to flow over the cooling packs. Tuning for the ‘Race to the Clouds’ is a dark art, there’s muttering about turbos and manifold pressure, but no-one speaks openly. Hence Bentley’s power claims. So let’s assume 750bhp is what it develops on the hill, against 1,000bhp at sea level.
 

What about at the Raceway?

It’s well over a mile in the air still, so let’s say 850-900bhp. But that’s not what struck me first. Even on the oval’s open apron and with a breeze to carry it away, the Conti stinks on start up. At the Peak, Bentley’s paddock spot was next to the portaloos (don’t think it’s glamorous at Pikes, it’s basically a one-day farmer’s market for high octane machinery) and initially I assumed the whiff came from there, a weird, chemically smell. Renewable biofuel, it turns out. An 85 per cent greenhouse gas emission reduction over standard fuel, an 850 per cent worse nostril assault.

Once warmed through the smell improves, so Rhys Millen took the car out to check the new inlet manifold, replaced overnight. The car sounded like a thunderclap. Proper old-school V8 fire and brimstone erupting from exhausts that exit behind the front wheels. From the pitlane I can not only hear but feel every piston detonation bouncing off the retaining walls, and when Rhys lifts off for Turn 1, flames lick up the sides of the car. Angry, harsh and unfiltered ,it’s a long way from Bentley’s refined, cultured norm.