This very sideways hot lap with Mad Mike Whiddett and his four-rotor twin-turbo Miata isn’t just a display of unbelievably good driving, it’s a cinematic masterpiece.
Whiddett looks pretty comfortable on his home turf at New Zealand’s Highlands Motorsport Park. This car looks more like a toy getting pushed around a rug by a careless kid than actually being driven. And yet it’s exactly where it needs to be at every moment.
I don’t even get excited about drifting that often, usually looks like a waste of perfectly good rubber to me. But wow. This Miata moves through turns so quickly, at such absurd angles, it’s impossible not to admire the car control we’re watching here.
Quick cameras do a great job keeping up with the flyin’ Miata to make some colorful, smokey eye candy and if you haven’t hit play yet hurry up and bring your headphones to the office bathroom already!
I promise the audio’s worth it; it’s all engine and tires, no dubstep.
Once you’ve seen it from the outside, you can actually go for an interactive ride in Mad Mike’s car with a 360º video. Not as nice to look at, but pretty neat too:
That 2014 Miata is Mazda-factory backed and completely custom-built, running a 26B rotary engine with two turbochargers which Red Bull reckons is good for 1,500 horsepower. But you know it’s really legit because the wing clears the roof.
If you still can’t get enough, there are even more videos about how the car was built.
Images via Red Bull
Contact the author at andrew@jalopnik.com.