BAC Mono Cup review – flat-out in the £333k British featherweight
BAC is taking the Mono racing with the new Mono Cup car – and a road version will follow. We test the Cup at the Red Bull Ring
The BAC Mono Cup is a new, race-spec version of the remarkable BAC Mono, which will compete in its own one-make race series. And, excitingly, a road-legal version is expected to follow. evo’s first meeting with the Mono Cup car is at the Red Bull Ring race circuit in Austria, to get behind the wheel at an exclusive track test.
Since the Mono was first introduced to the world in 2011, its creators (brothers Ian and Neill Briggs, BAC standing for Briggs Automotive Company) have been interested in taking it racing. ‘It’s something we’ve always wanted to do,’ says Ian Briggs. As he explains, the Mono has always been built to motorsport standards in terms of safety and performance. Its steel safety cell and rollover structure fit racing safety standards, its gearbox is a derivation of a Formula 3 transmission, and its lap times in standard form are already competitive with bespoke racing cars. As a sort of unique blend between an open-wheel single-seater and a closed-wheel sports car, however, the regular Mono doesn’t quite fit into an existing formula.
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The BAC Mono Cup is therefore both a model and a racing series in one, BAC creating its own one-make championship with an arrive-and-drive set-up. A fleet of Cup race cars will be operated by a central BAC motorsport squad, each prepared for entirely equal performance. The series aims to fill a gap in the market between one-make series from Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini and so forth on one side, and single-seater formula racing on the other.
BAC Mono Cup race series: the details
The series will debut in Saudi Arabia and continue at venues across the Middle East in the latter part of 2026. It’s a key market for BAC and the climate enables a winter series schedule, so drivers will be able to combine racing in the Mono Cup with other championship calendars. The format is still being finalised but BAC is currently planning a heats and finals system, a little like many karting series. Drivers will likely have a chance to start at the front, back and middle of the grid in different heats before a grand final at each round, guaranteeing close racing and battles throughout the pack.
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An international racing licence will be required for entry, so drivers will have prior racing experience, but many are expected to be amateur and gentleman drivers rather than seasoned pros. Once the Middle East series is up and running, BAC may expand the formula to other territories. With the Mono sold in 47 countries to date, you can imagine a Mono Cup USA, Mono Cup Europe and so on.
Pricing for the inaugural Mono Cup arrive-and-drive championship package is being finalised, but should a customer buy the car on its own, its price is £330,000.
BAC Mono Cup: the car
Customers are already asking about buying a Cup they can take on the road, too – and so in the future it will be possible to buy a Mono Cup with numberplates. The modifications to make it road-legal are relatively straightforward: altered headlights, the addition of a handbrake, exhaust silencer, etc. So it’s a perfectly logical move, especially as BAC’s fastest model, the Mono R, has finished its 40-car production run, leaving some headroom in the range for a harder, faster kind of Mono to be sold alongside the regular car. The Cup car shares many of its components with the R, including its carbon-ceramic brake discs and Ford-sourced, Mountune-developed 2.5-litre in-line four-cylinder engine as a partially stressed element. A naturally aspirated, dry-sump unit, it can rev to 9000rpm and develops 338bhp in race trim.
This eye-catching day-glo yellow machine is BAC’s development car, which has all but completed testing, with the final specification signed off. For today it’s ours to experience on track. And, to my eyes, it looks fantastic. Its bodywork is virtually identical to the Mono R’s. The composite front and rear crash structures are already of the required safety standard for motorsport, and BAC has elected not to add aero-generating wings to the car. Whilst it does generate some negative lift, Ian Briggs explains that it remains a driving experience more about feeling the level of mechanical grip than trusting aerodynamic downforce. Sounds good to me.
It sits on all-new, all-carbon wheels – the first to be approved for motorsport – weighing 3.9kg each at the front and 4.1kg at the rear. Their mix of aerodynamic surfacing and neat graphics is very much in keeping with the Mono’s overall aesthetic. Some racing cars, particularly hard-worked development cars, look a little rough and ready up close. That’s not the case here. Since the transition from road to race hasn’t meant compromising the shape, it’s still a kind of sculptural objet d’art as well as a competition car.
Like the Mono R, it has a rocket-launcher-style air intake on the left-hand side of the engine cover, a little like that of F3 cars. For the Cup, it’s a new, sleeker design and, within, the air inlets and filter have been revised. BAC has also engineered an extra oil cooler, though it’s required only for racing in very hot temperatures, such as the car might encounter in the Middle East. We won’t trouble it today in chilly Austria.
The suspension has been given new geometry and a revised scrub radius to counter increased steering efforts from the bespoke Pirelli slicks and stiffer springs all round (with damping to match). The dampers are four-way adjustable units from Öhlins, as opposed to two-way adjustable in the Mono R. While the R goes without driver aids, the Cup has been given motorsport-spec ABS and traction and stability controls. Overall the car is 15kg lighter than the R, and 40kg less than the regular 2025-gen Mono. Losing the silencer deletes 6kg alone, and other savings are made by the carbon wheels and changing the fuel tank to an FIA-standard bag-tank. Dry weight is 540kg, and only something like 25-30kg is estimated on top of that with fluids.
The driving experience
Without any halo or additional roll-cage required for the Cup, climbing aboard is a bit like stepping into the bath: one leg, then the other, before placing your hands either side of the cockpit and lowering yourself down into the car’s structure. The bodywork extends above your shoulders, and you lie with your torso dramatically reclined at a 45-degree angle – the same as in an F1 car. The Mono is built around a tubular chassis but, with carbon panels covering it, it looks and feels as if you’re ensconced within a carbonfibre monocoque.
To your left and right are zip pockets, as in the road car, for stashing keys and so on. Ahead of you, the F1-style steering wheel is as per the road car too, albeit with a cool new feature. Its grips are made from an organic-looking 3D-printed structure, by Carbon 3D in California, the company that supplies the same substance to Adidas for running shoes and Specialized for mountain bike saddles. BAC reckons it’s a bit too squidgy on this prototype; the next iteration will be firmer, but I think it already feels and looks great, in keeping with the Mono’s high-tech, form-meets-function ethos.
Steering column and pedals adjust manually, not via a lever but via Andy, development engineer for the Mono Cup. Each Mono’s controls are custom-fit to its driver. The engine fires into a bassy, buzzy idle. I immediately regret forgetting to put my earplugs in. You need the clutch pedal to select first gear in the paddleshift transmission, and it’s best to use the clutch for changes at pitlane speeds; once you’re up and running, you can just use the paddles. The clutch is forgiving, and it’s easy to pull away into the pitlane, then accelerate out onto the circuit with the nose aimed at the National Geographic scenery on the horizon.
The alloy-block engine is stone cold, so it’s important to let it warm up fully. I’m waiting for the blue lights on the steering wheel display that warn of cool oil and water temps to go out, and keeping the revs below 4000rpm until they’ve done so. Thing is, the flyweight Mono reaches those revs almost instantly, so my first few minutes are a case of lapping the (surprisingly narrow in real life) circuit slowly while staying out of the way of the other cars present on this Pirelli test day, including high-end supercars from the likes of Ferrari, McLaren and Porsche, and GT4 racing cars such as Porsche Caymans and McLaren 570s and Arturas. Once the blue lights disappear, the boot is on the other foot: the Mono Cup becomes the quickest car here. By a long way.
So, this is where we came in. With engine and tyres warm, the Mono Cup is mighty. Acceleration is one thing; with so little weight to propel and synapse-swift shifts from the six-speed sequential Hewland gearbox, it piles on speed very quickly indeed. But it’s the way it sheds that speed that’s most impressive. With the motorsport-spec ABS to lean on, you can hit the brakes as hard (and pretty much as late) as you like. If you were to stand on one leg and push down into the ground to hop as high as you can, that gives some idea as to the kind of force you can put through the pedal. There’s still skill involved; if you simply mash the brakes, the Mono will stop seriously quickly but the pedal will also push back at the sole of your foot, and the chassis will shimmy subtly from side to side as the system apportions brake force to where it’s needed most. If you feel the point at which this is beginning to happen and slightly trim the amount of pressure accordingly, you’ll stop even quicker.
The best places to try this here are the first two big braking zones at the beginning of the lap, with steep uphill approaches and lots of tarmac run-off area. The first sector of the Red Bull Ring is tremendously confidence-inspiring, especially in the Mono, which uses its anti-dive geometry to great effect under braking, turns in as keenly as you could wish, and finds plenty of traction on exit. The car’s narrow overall width gives you more space to play with, too.
There are four switchable modes on the steering wheel, these pairing the ABS and traction control together and incrementally reducing their effects. It’s possible to switch everything off, apart from the ABS. Even with the traction control switched off, apart from squirming a little when they’re cold, the rear Pirellis give you plenty of purchase. In the longer corners, the way they lose grip is approachable, and since this isn’t a high-downforce car you’re constantly making tiny corrections at the wheel, with the option to blend into a subtle four-wheel drift in fast turns.
The steering is relatively heavy when the car is loaded up at speed, and I find myself wishing I’d asked for the steering wheel to be set a little further away, to put my shoulders into the effort a little more. Particularly in the second half of the lap, where the Red Bull Ring gets really challenging. A bumpy, downhill braking zone into a gravel-fringed almost-hairpin is followed by a series of long, fast, unsighted sweepers. The Cup’s steering tugs in your hands if you touch the kerbs, which can pull the car into oversteer; something you can use to your advantage in places, nibbling an inside kerb to help pivot the Mono slightly at speed. But despite the buzzy vibrations and initially disorientating ground-level viewpoint, once you’re fully acclimatised, it’s a truly friendly car to drive.
Quite a zen experience, in fact. I’ve never driven an F3 car but, given the Mono’s DNA, I imagine it shares some of the same characteristics, albeit with lower downforce and the more forgiving handling characteristics of a sports car. It’s an addictive blend of focus and forgiveness.
Later, as the tyres get hotter, I encounter some frustrating understeer through the final sector’s fast right-hand curves, but this could no doubt be dialled out with some set-up tweaks, and by being a little braver and braking later for greater weight transfer – all part of the fun of dialling yourself and a car into a circuit. The pedals are positioned to allow either right- or left-foot braking. Before too long the latter feels more natural, and you even find yourself blending in the accurate, drive-by-wire throttle with your right foot while easing off the brakes with your left.
Funnily enough, it’s a very easy car to drive at low speeds too. In the lunch break, we head out to the distinctive steel bull sculpture above the circuit. Navigating the access roads, the Mono’s turning circle is usefully small, the gearchanges are butter-smooth as long as you use the clutch pedal, and all-round vision isn’t the challenge I’d expected. This is the first time I’ve driven a Mono, but I can imagine it being a talented package on the road, too.
It certainly turns heads. When we’re not on track, even at an event packed with mouthwatering supercars and purposeful GT racers, the Cup gets attention like nothing else. Appearing like a solid form from some angles and a hollow one from others, it’s a little like walking around a high-end motorcycle with its components on display, while also blending elements of science fiction, sculpture and robotics. I wonder if, after a season’s racing, any mods will be made to the car’s surfaces – racing always uncovers things that testing doesn’t.
So far, one of the only things BAC has had to change is the front towing eye. Given the higher aerodynamic loads and additional braking force the Cup experiences at maximum-attack, the team noticed an oscillation in the surface of the front splitter. It has therefore been reinforced, and the towing eye has been extended to act as a brace. In typical BAC fashion, the new component has a sculpted shape and looks great, even in bare titanium as a prototype part.
With low downforce, drivers should be able to follow each other closely and, with compact dimensions, run side by side easily on track. I think the Mono Cup could well offer some truly exciting racing. And it could be a series that’s easy to watch from home, or catch up on: three antennae on the Mono’s nose feed Racelogic’s latest Live Drive Data system, allowing drivers to live-stream races onto YouTube or Twitch, with real-time data on the screen. Similarly, it can be fed to a driver coach, who will be able to give advice in real time during testing.
Because the one thing you can’t do in a Mono is take a passenger with you. And I find myself wishing I could, because to be at speed in this car, operating at its potential, is such an extraordinary experience you feel compelled to share it. But all of the Mono’s strengths – its light weight, compact dimensions and total sensory engagement – come from being a single, central-seat package. The Mono Cup class of 2026 are going to have an awful lot of fun.
This story was first featured in evo issue 340.
