Rimac on Hammond, safety and their first ever FOS

The Grand Tour presenter had a lucky escape recently driving a Rimac car in ­­a Swiss hillclimb. Rimac’s test driver, Miroslav Zrncevic, tells GRR that Richard came off at a corner and flew 100m off the course, and 30m downwards, missing a house on his way. 

“It was the first crash test we ever did,” says Miro. “We didn’t want to do it but it happened and we are now going to learn so much about the car and the structure from that accident.” The car was a write-off but the cabin structure was barely deformed and Richard escaped with only an injured knee.  

Now Rimac is at its first Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard with its all-electric Concept 1, taking part in the Michelin Supercar Run – with Miro behind the wheel. 

“I was out this morning for my first-ever run up the Goodwood Hill and it was slippy so we are taking it easy,” said Miro. “It was great to be out there at Goodwood with all the other supercars for the first time.”

Concept 1 doesn’t give away anything in the supercar stakes: the car has two electric motors up front, two behind and a total power output of 1224bhp. Keeping it all together (we hope!) on damp Sussex driveways is a torque vectoring system that controls each motor one hundred times a second. 

Though called Concept 1, the car at FOS is, in fact, the first of eight production models that Rimac is now selling at $1.2 million each. Rimac, a technology company, makes the proud boast that the whole of Concept 1 was made in Croatia. 

Photography by Tom Shaxson and James Lynch