- Rimac Automobili
- Rimac Nevera R
Rimac Hypercars and Engineering Help Red Bull Athlete Dario Costa deliver a World-First Aviation Milestone in Türkiye
When Red Bull athlete Dario Costa touched down on top of a moving cargo train travelling at 120 km/h, he became the first pilot in aviation history to land a plane and take off from a moving train. Behind that world-first feat was months of meticulous preparation, and at the heart of it, Rimac's Nevera R and Nevera hypercars as a training tool.
Executed on 15 February 2026 on a 2.5 km railway track in Afyonkarahisar, Türkiye, the project required Costa to approach a moving train container at near-stall speed – just 87 km/h – while simultaneously managing severe wake turbulence, a disappearing target on approach, and a 50-second operational window in which to land, and take off again. There was no margin for error. There was also no precedent.
To prepare, Rimac worked with Costa on a three-day test program at Pula Airport, Croatia. The Nevera R — the fastest accelerating car ever built — and the Nevera hypercar were used as high-precision moving reference platforms, giving Costa a real-world moving surface against which to rehearse the cognitive and physical demands of landing almost completely blind on a moving target.
At speeds directly comparable to those required during the actual landing approach, the hypercars allowed Costa to train speed synchronization, alignment judgement and reaction timing.
This project is the perfect expression of what Rimac stands for. Dario needed to train something that had never been done before, which meant there was no established method and no existing solution. Our hypercars gave him a real, moving, high-speed reference point; something only a handful of vehicles on the planet could provide at that precision and speed. When you are pushing into completely unknown territory, you need tools that match your ambition. We were proud to be part of that.
Mate Rimac
Founder and President of the Rimac Group, CEO Bugatti Rimac and Rimac TechnologyRimac's contribution extended beyond the vehicles it provided. The company's engineering team, experts in composite structures, and precision ergonomics from the work on Nevera, designed and produced a fully custom-fitted seat for Costa, developed from scratch to fit the extremely limited space of his aircraft cockpit.
The seat was molded precisely to Costa's body shape and calibrated to his performance requirements: maximum stability, optimal control feedback, and reduced fatigue during extreme maneuvers. In a discipline where pilot input must be precise to within fractions of a second, the seat represents a meaningful engineering contribution, and, as far as is known, the first application of this level of precision seat engineering in a race aircraft.
Rimac engineers are also working with Costa on aerodynamic optimization of his aircraft canopy using the company's CFD expertise; a collaboration that will continue into his upcoming projects.
Red Bull and Rimac share the same spirit of pushing boundaries and exploring the impossible. This project was another bold idea born from that shared mindset, and a chance to do something truly unprecedented. At Rimac, innovation and performance are part of our DNA, so we were thrilled to collaborate with Red Bull by supporting Dario Costa during the preparation phase and contributing our technical expertise to elevate the project.
Roni Kert
Head of Sales and Marketing, Bugatti RimacAbout Rimac Automobili
Rimac Automobili is one part of the world’s ultimate hypercar company, Bugatti Rimac. With Rimac Group as its majority shareholder, Bugatti Rimac brings together Rimac’s distinctive agility, technical expertise and relentless innovation in the EV sphere, with Bugatti’s 100-plus-year heritage of designing and engineering some of the world’s most iconic hypercars. Founded in 2009 by Mate Rimac, the Rimac Automobili brand created the world’s first all-electric hypercar, the Concept_One, in 2011. Fast forward to 2021, Rimac unveiled its next-generation all-electric hypercar – the Nevera, which has since set over 27 world performance records. Bugatti Rimac's global headquarters is at the Rimac Group’s current base on the outskirts of Zagreb, the new >€200M, 100.000m2 Rimac Campus, also serving as the home of Rimac Technology.
