It was only when I got back to the UK that I understood why Qatar might be the best place in the world to drive a Bugatti 16.4 Grand Sport and a Lamborghini Murciélago LP670-4 SV. I was doing my expenses and stumbled upon two receipts. One was for eight cans of fizzy drink, some crisps and fruit, the other for Super Unleaded to feed the 8.0-litre W16 quad-turbo Bugatti engine. I checked and double checked but every time the same result: the fuel was virtually half the price of the Fanta and Quavers. How does Rs 10 per liter sound? Welcome to the weird world of Qatar. Welcome to our day with two of the most extraordinary cars I’ve ever driven. 
It’s 6am, the light is soft and the air cool. By 8am it’ll be about 35degC, the sun pouring heat down to the pavement until the place feels like one giant hotplate. But for now it seems like a good idea to take the Bugatti Grand Sport’s roof panel off and leave it at the Ritz Carlton, Bugatti’s base for their time in Doha. They’re here primarily as an opportunity to flog some more cars, but CAR tagged along to reacquaint ourselves with the Rs 10 crore 1015PS open-roofed Grand Sport and its second cousin once removed, the wonderful 670PS Murciélago SV, a bargain at Rs 1.5 crore. In the Supercar World Cup, surely these are the favourites…
Around here oil isn’t a dirty word. In fact thanks to vast oil reserves and even bigger natural gas stores (14% of the world’s total) Qatar has the highest per capita income on Earth. Somehow this leads you to expect Bugattis on every street corner, Ferraris used as taxis… it isn’t like that. There are signs that Qatar is a coming nation – the whole place is a sprawling building site, the new Pearl-Qatar resort, an island built on reclaimed land north of Doha, is dripping with opulent hotels and pretentious shops – but in the main it’s chaotic, grubby, barren and the largely immigrant population looks, well, not wealthy. It is, we decide after a few days, the armpit of the world.
For now though, where we are doesn’t matter. We have a Grand Sport and an SV, a fistful of notes that amount to very little money but lots and lots of fuel and a crumpled map of Qatar. We’ll head north first, tantalisingly close to the Losail race circuit (who wouldn’t entertain us unless we paid Rs 4.7 lakh. Spoilsports), in search of long quiet straights, then back through Doha and to the south of the country where the dunes rise up and flow all the way to Saudi. After the sun dips behind the soft mountains of sand and the only light is provided by the vast flames venting out of the nearby refinery towers, we have an appointment with the Qatar Racing Club dragstrip in Doha’s industrial area.
Bugatti’s Pilote Officiel, Pierre-Henri Raphanel, calmly runs me through the controls as we slide slowly out of the suffocating traffic of Doha. I’ve driven a Veyron before but I’m happy to be reminded, not least because swimming through the rapids of Doha’s teeming streets in a Grand Sport seems awfully intimidating. The car itself isn’t. In fact I’d forgotten how simple the Bugatti is – how refined, how intuitive, how conventional it can seem. The cabin is beautifully appointed but, um, plain. I don’t mean that in a derogatory sense, but there’s no fussy detailing or outlandish shapes and materials. It’s simply comfortable, effortless and quietly restrained.
