Hennessey Venom F5-M: The Full Interview with Nathan Malinick

Few cars attracted a crowd quite like the Hennessey Venom F5-M at Goodwood Festival of Speed 2026. With 2,031hp and a manual gearbox in an era when almost every hypercar rival has gone electric or paddle-shift only, the F5-M is a deliberate statement of intent.

DriverReviews caught up with Nathan Malinick from Hennessey at Goodwood to hear directly from him about why building a manual hypercar mattered so much, how the car was made approachable despite its numbers, and why Michelin was the only real choice of tyre partner. His full account is below.

Watch Nathan Malinick on the Venom F5-M here.

Nathan Malinick, in his own words:

"So, the vision behind creating the Venom F5-M was to create the world's most powerful, fastest six-speed gated manual hypercar. The reason why this car is so important for us, and important for us to build a manual when everything is kind of moving towards EV, although you have seen a bit of a regression in that a little bit, but for us it was really important to maintain the spirit of what we all love about hypercars, which is man and machine, horsepower unadulterated through a manual six-speed gearbox. It doesn't get any better. And then you take the roof off the car and it's just the cherry on top.

So, this has 2,031 horsepower, and you would think, oh, that must be very intimidating to drive. The way that we've developed the car, it's actually quite an approachable car to drive now. You have to respect the car, it's like a racehorse, so you can get on it, but you have to be respectful of the horsepower and really what you're doing with your right foot. But it is a very approachable car to drive, and a lot of fun, especially with the six-speed box.

So, the importance of tyre selection for a car like this cannot be overstated. For us, having a partner like Michelin was paramount, because the only thing that is connected to the car with this amount of horsepower is the tyre. And for us, Michelin was the obvious choice.

Engineering challenges, and things that kept us awake at night, how much time do you have? There's, a, what can I say, it's got 2,031 horsepower through a six-speed manual gearbox. There's a lot of challenges, and rear-wheel drive only, a lot, a lot, a lot of development. Our engineering team is amazing and incredible, take a lot of time to develop it, but it's a package that again is very approachable. I think if I had to boil it down to one particular challenge, I'd say getting all that power down to the ground, you know, in first gear, very challenging. But you can absolutely stomp on the gas pedal and go.

If there's one thing that I would want people to take away from the Hennessey stand and seeing the very first Venom F5-M, is that everything really is bigger and faster in Texas."

 Breaking Down What Malinick Told Us

A manual gearbox as a statement, not a compromise

Malinick is direct about why Hennessey built a manual hypercar at a moment when the rest of the industry is moving the opposite direction. The Venom F5-M's six-speed gated manual is the point of the car, not a retro afterthought, built to preserve what he calls the spirit of man and machine at a time when that connection is becoming rarer in this class of car. The roofless variant only adds to that, described by Malinick as the cherry on top of the concept rather than a separate feature.

2,031 horsepower, made approachable

The number itself is enormous, but the more interesting claim from Malinick is what Hennessey did with it. Rather than leaning into the intimidation factor of over two thousand horsepower, the development goal was to make the car genuinely approachable to drive, with Malinick comparing it to a racehorse: capable of being ridden hard, but only if the driver respects exactly what is happening under their right foot.

Why Michelin was the only choice

With this much power reaching the road through only two rear tyres, Malinick is unambiguous that tyre selection was one of the most important decisions in the entire project. His reasoning is simple and specific: the tyre is the only point of connection between a car with this much horsepower and the ground, which made a partner with Michelin's engineering credibility essential rather than optional. The Venom F5-M is fitted with Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres, chosen to handle the extreme demands of putting 2,031 horsepower down through the rear wheels alone.

The real challenge: first gear, not top speed

Asked what kept the engineering team up at night, Malinick didn't point to top speed or aerodynamics. He pointed to putting 2,031 horsepower down through a manual gearbox and rear-wheel drive alone, particularly in first gear, calling it the single most challenging part of the entire development process. That the car can still be driven flat out despite that challenge is, in his words, down to an engineering team he describes as amazing and incredible.