DRIVING THE REVOLUTION

The penultimate corner of the Autodromo do Algarve is a harmless enough long, double apex right-hander – think Silverstone’s Luffield but with a downhill exit. In such corners, usually drivers find themselves twiddling their toes, trying desperately to summon the patience required to avoid over-driving the turn and messing up the all-important exit. Rarely, if ever, do they find themselves so physically exhausted from the effort of driving they simply can’t turn the steering wheel enough to negotiate the corner at decent speed.

But that’s the situation I found myself in after driving Phil Abbott’s new Revolution sportscar around this deceptively punishing Portuguese track. Having separated from the Radical Sportscars company he co-founded in the late-1990s, Abbott was determined to bring his own vision of a 21st Century Radical, using 21st Century technology, to life. He wanted to drag steel spaceframe sports-prototype racing into the carbon composite modern era; Radical co-management saw things differently; Abbott went his own way, and the result is the Revolution.

Developed using a wealth of high-level automotive