What is the fastest car in Forza Motorsport 8?

The question of what is the fastest car in the latest Forza Motorsport is a complicated one. Unlike in Forza Horizon, your car is often limited by the track it is on and not by the speed that it can do. While we see some crazy top speeds in Forza Horizon 5, that’s not going to happen as often in Forza Motorsport.

So we’re going to answer both questions. What’s the outright fastest car around a lap, and what’s the fastest car in a straight line?

What car has the highest top speed in Forza Motorsport

Perhaps unsurprisingly, if you know your cars, the category R Bugatti Divo is the car with the highest top speed in Forza Motorsport. I was able to clock it doing 408km/h (253mph) down the old Mulsanne straight of Circuit de la Sarthe, which is the longest straight in the game. Though theoretically, the stats menu does claim that the car can do 421km/h (261mph), that’s not much good if we can’t find a place to reach it though.

But that begs the question: if the Bugatti Divo has the fastest straight line speed, does that make it the fastest car on circuits with long straights? Or even circuits with lots of corners?

What is the fastest car around a lap in Forza Motorsport

The highest rated cars in Forza Motorsport are the 1988 McLaren MP4/4 Formula 1 car, the Ferrari 641 Formula 1 car, and the Porsche 919 endurance hypercar. All three of which are the only ones, at the time of writing, to be in the highest X category.

All three cars have perfect 10/10 scores for braking, handling, and acceleration, but the Formula 1 cars edge the Porsche in speed with 6.8/10 compared to 6.7/10. That pales in comparison to the Bugatti Divo with a perfect 10/10 for speed. However, it only has 4.8 for braking, 4.6 for handling, and 8.9 for acceleration.

To find out which car is fastest, I decided to take the Bugatti Divo and McLaren MP4/4 around two different circuits. One that should offer a balanced challenge and one that should benefit the Bugatti. I chose the McLaren because, with the same stats, there’s not likely to be any significant difference between it and the Ferrari. If you’re a Tifosi, feel free to take that instead.

To start, I went to Circuit de Barcelona Catalunya, which is a well-rounded circuit often used in motorsport testing. I did one out lap and one flying lap in each car to see which could set the fastest lap.

So that’s not even remotely close. Around the Circuit de Barcelona Catalunya, the McLaren MP4/4 makes the Bugatti Divo look like grandma’s Kia.

That’s because the immense downforce the McLaren produces effectively sticks it to the track, hence the perfect 10 score for handling. The McLaren blasts through corners at speeds the Bugatti could only dream of. But how about a circuit that should suit the Bugatti?

This result was actually quite surprising to me. The Bugatti Divo has a nearly 100km/h (60mph) advantage over the McLaren down the straight, and it’s an incredibly long straight at 3.7 miles. There are plenty of other straights around Circuit de la Sarthe where the McLaren is hitting the rev limiter, too.

However, there’s just no getting away from the McLaren’s cornering speed. Whatever time it may have lost down all of the straights, it more than made up for through the first and last sectors of the track. The McLaren absolutely flies through the final sector in particular, where the Bugatti seriously struggles.

So the fastest car in Forza Motorsport BY FAR is the McLaren MP4/4 (or the Ferrari 641 if you’re an Alain Prost fan). There’s no doubt that if the McLaren can beat the Bugatti Divo around Circuit de la Sarthe, then it will beat any car around nearly any track in the game.

The Bugatti Divo’s highest top speed will probably make it the fastest car around some of the oval circuits, but for anything else, Ayrton Senna’s championship winning car is the way to go. Now, Turn 10. Can we please get the Mercedes AMG F1 W11 in the game too?