Koenigsegg and Michelin have confirmed that the record-breaking Agera RS could have hit 300 mph (482 km/h) if they wanted to.

Using an Agera RS, Koenigsegg set a a new production-car top speed record on a an empty piece of road near Las Vegas, averaging 277.9 mph (444km/h) late last year.

In an interview with Koenigsegg boss, Christian von Koenigsegg as well as Michelin Product Manager Eric Schmedding, The Drive revealed that both the car and Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires have more to give.

“If someone wants to set that record, it’s very doable. For the car we would need more RPM and a longer gear ratio, but we could hit 300mph right now. It’s doable, but it’s not our objective,” von Koenigsegg said.

As for the off-the-shelf Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres, Michelin itself was not sure of how the tyres would hold up as they were never designed for such extreme speeds. But according to Schmedding, the tyre manufacturer realised that the tyres were nowhere near their limits after analysing the data from the top speed runs.

“Heat buildup can run away very quickly at those speeds, and that’s when you’ll run into failure. A big part of the equation is how fast you can get there. If the car can get to 270 fairly quickly but it takes five minutes to get from 270 to 300, that’s not really going to work. So for a 300-plus mph run, we’d still want to do some additional validation,” he said.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj4gar5dKAU&t=14s