Watch a Koenigsegg Jesko break four speed records in one pass

In 2017, Juan Pablo Montoya drove a Bugatti Chiron from standstill to 400 kilometers per hour (249 mph) and back to standstill in 41.96 seconds. A month later, Koenigsegg took more than five seconds off that record with an Agera S, and then, another month after that, pruned another three seconds with the same car, stopping the watch in 33.29 seconds. The Swedes, feeling they still had time to shave, took their hybrid Regera to an airfield in Orebro, Sweden, in 2019 and ran off a 31.49 time for the 0-400-0 test. Rimac jumped into the ring last year, using a test track in Germany to break 23 records in a day with its Nevera, along the way doing the 0-400-0 in 29.94 seconds. Koenigsegg couldn't let that stand, dusting off a Regera to reclaim the record with a 28.81. The headline of this post tells you what happened next: Koenigsegg hit up that Orebro airstrip with a Jesko Absolut fitted with Racelogic timing gear, and reeled off a 0-400-0 time of 27.83 seconds. And with that single pass, on top of breaking its own record, Koenigsegg broke three other records, too.  

It's interesting to note we're down to an all-wheel-drive battery-electric coupe with 1,888 horsepower and 1,726 pound-feet of torque against a rear-wheel-drive pure internal combustion coupe with a twin-turbocharged 5.0-liter V8 making 1,577 hp and 1,105 lb-ft on E85 (it makes 1,262 hp on regular pump gas). Both wore the same Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 R tires for their respective runs. Rimac says the Nevera's coefficient of drag in low-drag mode is 0.3, Koenigsegg reports effectively the same but with more decimals at 0.278. The marquee difference is that the Nevera weighs a claimed 5,071 pounds, the Jesko Absolut a claimed 3,064 pounds with fluids.   

The only changes Koenigsegg made to the Jesko for the run were adding a roll cage, and giving company development driver Markus Lundh a seat from the Koenigsegg One:1, which he prefers.

In addition to the 0-400-0 record, Lundh set records for hitting 400 kph (249 miles per hour) in 18.82 seconds, for hitting 250 mph in 19.20 seconds, and for the 0-250-mph-0 challenge of 28.27 seconds. 

Lundh touched 256 mph during the blast. Looking over the numbers, company founder and CEO Christian von Koenigsegg said, "This record run validated the accuracy of the simulated and calculated performance of the Jesko Absolut, which gives us great confidence in its ability to outright be the fastest fully homologated production car in the world."

We can also expect the track version of the same car, the Jesko Attack, to show what it can do soon enough.

By Jonathon Ramsey