Private Air New York

www.privateairny.com Private Air | Spring 2023 69 Monaco, as you might have heard, isn't a large country and like most small European towns has fairly tight roads and even tighter parking spaces, much to the constant chagrin of the locals I can assure you! Consequently, if your neighbour also has an SUV and has been slapdash in their parking, you'd better skip the dessert, or you may have trouble extricating yourself from the partially open driver's side door when you get home! Very careful navigation of parking garages will also be rewarded with less damage to the beautiful 21- inch wheels, and your clenched teeth! Urus come in many colors, and some accentuate the angular styling better than others. Our baby blue was a crowd pleaser and I've always enjoyed driving 'extreme machines' with happy, welcoming, and less aggressive hues, like the Avantador S in pearlesant white: it adds to the class and is more socially inviting. Back at the famous start / finish line, which is a public road (Blvd Albert 1er), with three bus stops and a 24 hour Casino supermarket opposite, we position the Urus at Charles Leclerc's pole position grid and attempt a brief launch control into the sharp right hander at St. Devote, named for the Christian Saint of Monaco, who is celebrated every February by residents and the Princely family with a burning boat ceremony, the same spot where the F1 drivers do donuts to return themselves to the track after out braking themselves into the second gear 60mph turn. With large spaghetti plate sized carbon ceramic discs all-round, there's zero chance of not making our apex and we power up the hill with the twin turbo's spooling up, reminiscent of the old 80's F1 turbo days. With the 15th My Yacht Monaco weekend successfully completed aboard a 180ft trackside super yacht and the many merry guests recovering from another epic race weekend, we point up towards the new Maybourne Hotel jutting out of the top of Roquebrune mountain above Monaco, like an enormous Blofeld villainous lair in a James Bond epic. Fully laden but with 665bhp it doesn't take long to reach the Italian border, and friends in the accompanying Ferrari Portofino are struggling to match the 70-140 acceleration of this beast from Bologna. Towards Alexandria there's a particularly welcoming stretch of highway and, with light traffic, it affords more enthusiasm to explore the higher limits of this 2.5-ton bull. Super sports utilities ought not to be able to go and handle in the manner of the Urus and, quite frankly, one doesn't need more of anything in a five door hatch back with room for kids, dogs, bikes and a week's worth of groceries behind you. e only other thing behind me was the waning prancing horse whose accomplished driver greeted us at the espresso stop with a mild look of disbelief – how could that thing be SO fast?! DRIVE

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