Racing the future: fifteen years of combustion, one lap in an Aero X

I went to the Aero X launch expecting a fast car with no soul. That is the honest position of most people who have raced properly, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. What I found was a car that is worse than a race car in exactly one way and better in about four.

The acceleration is the least interesting part

Everybody leads with 0–60. It is 2.6 seconds and it stops being remarkable on the third launch. Instantaneous torque is a party trick; what matters over a lap is whether the car does the same thing twice, and this one does.

The revelation is the braking. Regenerative braking blended with friction gives you a pedal that does not fade, lap after lap, in a way no combustion GT car I have driven manages. On the eleventh lap of a hot session the bite point was exactly where it was on the first. That is worth more than a second a lap to a driver who trusts it.

I have spent my career managing brake temperature. In the Aero X I stopped thinking about it entirely, and I did not notice that I had stopped until the session ended.

Where it falls short

Weight. The Aero X carries 480 kg of battery low in the floor, and while the centre of gravity is superb, direction changes cost you. Through a fast chicane you feel every one of those kilograms and there is no software fix for inertia.

And the sound. I do not want a synthesised engine note and ELECTRA has resisted adding one, which I respect. But there is real information in an engine at the limit, and losing it means learning to read the car through the seat instead. That took me two full days.

What it means for racing

Consistency is the currency of a race weekend, and electric powertrains are structurally more consistent. No heat soak, no fuel load changing the balance across a stint, no cold-tyre gamble on the outlap that depends on engine temperature. The best drivers will adapt in a weekend. The ones who rely on feel over data will take longer.

I was wrong about the soul, and I was wrong in a specific way. It is not that the Aero X has the same character as a combustion car. It has a different one, built on trust rather than drama, and I would take it around a circuit on a wet afternoon over anything I raced professionally.