Big on brutality is what the Lamborghini Aventador is - the rightful successor to the Murcielago's throne. And when you get to drive it around the brilliant Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia, all hell breaks loose

“The pitlane speed limit here is 60 km/h, so you stay easy on the gas till just about now when you cross this white li……” And that was all I heard as the highly Americanised English-speaking Chinese Lamborghini test driver sitting at the controls beside me floored his right foot and the massive V12 snug behind my eardrums opened up in a brute symphony of thoroughbred Italian stallions – wailing in unison down to the last of the 700 ponies on tap. First corner. 3rd gear. Tight right hander. Hit the apex. Stay at the centre of the track. Squeeze just a little more power in on the exit as you brake hard again for Turn2. Still in 3rd gear.

Tight left leading on to the long right hander in 4th gear powering up for the short straight before braking hard for the tight right of Turn4. Another flowing section and you then brake for the tight left of Turn9, climbing uphill into another twisting section before hitting the back straight and then the tight left hairpin before the start-finish straight. The Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia had just been lapped and I had heard nothing but the wail of the Aventador’s engine, the odd lock-up under braking and the satisfying screech of wheelspin exiting the corners. But the buzz going through my brain had started way before I had even stepped into the white supercar.






The bus ride to the Sepang International Circuit had been uneventful – till the time we found ourselves just behind the pit building and stepping up to the briefing room. When you hear a car way before you can see it, you know it has to be something exceptionally special, and the Lamborghini Aventador truly is. An otherwise calm day at the track was broken by the distant echo of the V12 on full song bouncing off the empty grandstands that are usually packed to the hilt on a Formula 1 or MotoGP weekend. And then it rolled in – sinisterly sneaking up the pitlane before it gently parked out front. Mixed feelings of pure awe and intimidation followed turning into fascination and appreciation at the way Lamborghini’s flagship had evolved over past decades.

The supercar shape that we know today may have been engraved by the Miura, but it is the later generations of the Countach onwards that you really begin to see a connect that has now perfected itself in the form of the Aventador. From there to the Diablo to the Murcielago, Lamborghini’s styling division was probably living in a wind tunnel and feeding off a diet of physics textbooks for the main course and Michelangelo’s art for dessert followed by deep conversation with extra-terrestrial life forms when they came up with the Reventon in 2008. Or maybe they were all just trained pilots of the Lockheed-Martin F-22 Raptor! Either ways, the Reventon was what finally gave birth to the Aventador and it’s hard to think what the next Lamborghini supercar would look like if not the way this does.






But all’s not well in the land of the Raging Bull purists – dilution and adaptation to modern ways has in a way toned down the Lamborghini aura of yore. Having German bosses might be cause for that and we see the Aventador show off an Audi shadow in bits and pieces. Flamboyant interiors (for their time) have always followed Lamborghinis around and we thought the Reventon’s innards were straight out of a science fiction fantasy that merged aeronautics with automobiles, but the Aventador’s set also throws in practicality in that mix. Now that itself isn’t too much of a bad thing because it also means there’s high quality materials in there highlighted by an array of switches running across the centre console that cascades down the dash and between the seats. As if to warn whoever will be in the driver’s seat that he’s going to have his mind blown in the next few seconds, the ignition button comes with a red flip-open cover.