This year's edition of the “Days of Speed” festival saw the Lamborghini Urus transform into the World's fastest SUV climbs the ice , reaching a top speed of 298 km/h.
Beyond a marketing ploy — what brand doesn't want to be associated with a speed record, no matter what surface? — this record set in Lake Baikal, Russia, hides other (good) reasons.
For Russian driver Andrey Leontyev, who was behind the wheel of the record-setting Lamborghini Urus, this trip to the ice of Lake Baikal is another opportunity for car engineers to see how their creations behave.
Andrey Leontyev, pilot“Automotive engineers can see how their products behave when pushed to the limit on a surface that is ten times more slippery than asphalt during torrential rain.
If you can maintain control of a car traveling at 300 km/h over irregular ice, going over bumps with the suspension constantly being pushed to the limit, then driving a car on wet or frosted asphalt at 90 km/h will not looks like a big deal."
According to Leontyev, records like this one help to show that safety technologies like those present in Urus don't reduce the fun behind the wheel, they just make it more accessible to everyone.
“Modern car designers and engineers make every effort to make vehicles as safe as possible while letting people enjoy the driving experience,” reveals Leontyev.
Lake Baikal, Leontyev's paradise
It goes without saying that Leontyev is a true “speed freak” and his dream has always been to set records in extreme conditions. “Records were being broken on places with high-quality asphalt or in salt deserts, but in Russia we don't have any of that. But on the other hand, we have a lot of ice,” he said.
Leontyev's wish was recently recognized by the FIA and Lake Baikal has become a legitimate record location where several official speed marks are set.
The last of which was precisely the mark established by the Lamborghini Urus on ice, which in addition to breaking the top speed record — it belonged to the Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk — also broke the start-kilometre record, achieving an average speed of 114 km /H.
“I have a lot of respect for what they [Lamborghini] have achieved: they have done something that no one has ever done before, just like I made a record,” shot the Russian pilot, who has already broken 18 records at this festival.