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It’s a Grand Prix weekend, at none other than the Spa Francorchamps circuit in Belgium, home to the famous Eau Rouge sweeping righ hand bend. It’s only fitting then that Infiniti chose this week to introduce their Q50 Eau Rouge concept car to the corner it was named after, with F1 world champion Sebastian Vettel at the helm.
As part of a social media campaign, Vettel raced around the circuit against professional race driver Parker Kligerman and Nine-Ball world champion snooker player Pan Xiatong. A short film, Chasing the Edge, was released about the event, which we’ve provided for you below:
On Vettel’s run around the track, Spa’s fickle weather provided heavy rain, no match for the Q50 Eau Rouge’s all-wheel drive system. The showcase was also used as development testing with Vettel citing that several improvements will be made subsequent to evaluations of this week’s testing. He says that there have already been huge improvements since the early testing phases at the beginning of the year, but noted that the Eau Rouge was by no means short on power.
With power coming from the Nissan GTR sourced 3.8-litre twin-turbo V6, we’d be worried if it were short on power. The power outputs stand currently at 417kW and 600Nm, driving all 4 wheels through a 7-speed automatic transmission. Helping the effectiveness of the potent engine, several aerodynamic upgrades have been made to the standard Q50 saloon, including F1-inspired wings and splitters.
The decision on whether or not to put the Q50 Eau Rouge into production is still under consideration, but with ongoing testing becoming a regular occurrence, we predict an Infiniti M3 competitor by mid-2015.
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