388km/h is not fast enough! Castrol EDGE and the Bugatti Veyron are chasing the land speed record for road-going production cars

With 1001HP, 4 turbo-chargers, 8-litre cubic capacity, 16 cylinders and 64 valves there can be only one target for the sheer unadulterated power lurking within the combustion chambers of the Bugatti Veyron when it is unleashed on the 5th of November: breaking the Guinness land speed record for road-going production cars. The venue for the record showdown is the Ehra Lessien racetrack at Wolfsburg/Germany - a track where the Veyron already gained a reputation as the most advanced production car in the world. The technical partner of the legendary sports car marque is Castrol, whose high performance motor oil Castrol EDGE flows within the Veyron’s impressive oil circuit.

With Castrol EDGE Bugatti is trusting in the best high performance motor oil from Castrol’s current product range. Like Bugatti, Castrol can also boast a unique track record in high performance motor sport. No other motor oil manufacturer can look back on a similar history of world record involvement. Since 1914, vehicles using Castrol oils have broken speed world records more than 20 times. Castrol are the current holders of the overall land speed record having broken the sound barrier with the legendary run of the rocket-powered SCC Thrust (1.228kph), now Castrol is chasing the production car record.

Wolfgang Schreiber, chief development engineer for the Bugatti Veyron, explains: “When developing the Veyron, it became evident that a perfect oil supply to the engine was one of the most critical success factors. The car’s massive power puts an extreme load on the engine components. We therefore designed an oil circuit, which with its four-stage cavity-type oil pump, is very similar to the systems used in Formula 1. Extensive testing has confirmed that in Castrol EDGE we have created a lubricant that not only deals superbly with the requirements inside the Veyron engine but also makes an important contribution to increasing the performance of the unit.”

Motor sport insiders and car enthusiasts are certainly well aware that power statistics alone are only half of the story when it comes to attaining high performance. It is the sum of vehicle, driver and technical support that counts. In Pierre-Henri Raphanel, a driver has been found who has the necessary combination of experience and class. The Castrol EDGE-technology has a proven combination of first class qualities, as was demonstrated in an extensive test programme. An acceleration test, for instance, was conducted whereby an engine was accelerated to nearly 260km/h and 14,000rpm – more than twice the engine speed of a normal production car. Compared to conventional motor oils, the top speed was reached more than one second quicker by
the engine with Castrol EDGE-technology. On a race track, that translates into an advantage of 85 metres.

From the race track to the motorway

Castrol EDGE was developed inside three years in close co-operation with leading manufacturers and with a research investment of more than €15m. The results of this research – the motor oils of the Castrol EDGE product range – have recently reached the shelves in German stores, meaning that the performance and expertise of high performance motor sport are also available for everyday use.

“We asked car enthusiasts and discerning drivers worldwide what they expect from an engine oil. We subsequently identified seven criteria that motor enthusiasts considered as requirements for optimum engine performance – we call them the 7 CRITICAL ENGINE FACTORS,” explains Martin Redzanowski, Technical Director Castrol.

Castrol EDGE consequently orients by those “7 CRITICAL ENGINE FACTORS”:

1. Protection against wear
2. Long lasting oil
3. Performs under extreme conditions
4. Cleaner engine
5. Power protection
6. Fuel economy
7. Thermal control

To meet these seven criteria, the Castrol EDGE range was subjected to a worldwide series of extremely severe tests, which were conducted both by company - internal experts and by independent test institutions. In these tests, Castrol EDGE proved that, compared with conventional engine oils, it lasts longer under extreme conditions, accelerates better and is less sensitive to extreme temperature. The oil’s endurance, for example, was proven in a long-term experiment in which two identical vehicles had to continuously drive up a 6.5 percent incline at a speed of 120km/h – equivalent to climbing Mount Everest once every 70 minutes. The engine with conventional oil broke down in the end, but the Castrol EDGE unit simply kept on running. Even in the refrigeration chamber at -15 degrees Celsius, Castrol EDGE flowed three times quicker to where it was needed in the engine block and allowed a 32 percent faster ignition process.