AMG One sets stunning new Nurburgring lap record
Didn't think AMG would let Porsche have it for long, did you?
The speculation was accurate, then - AMG really has been lining up a Nurburgring lap record attempt for the One. Some lap, too, even if this really is stretching the ‘production car’ interpretation to its limit: the One set an officially notarised time of 6:35.183.
The Nurburgring has created a new category for it, in fact - the ‘super sports car’ - separating it from the mere ‘sports cars’ where all the previous record holders used to feature. That includes the 911 GT2 RS with Manthey Performance Kit, the old fastest production car (and we thought that was pushing the rules a bit!) with a 6:43.3 lap. Those with keen memories might recall the Porsche surpassed a previous AMG record breaker, the GT Black Series setting a 6:48.0 at the end of 2020. So there’ll be some happy folk in Stuttgart, even if it did take a car with an F1 engine to beat the pesky 911.
There could well be more time in the One, too, as AMG says there were damp and dirty sections of the Nordschleife when Maro Engel was lapping. That’ll happen doing record attempts at the end of October! Apparently there was just an hour of good time, with the air and tarmac temperatures at around 20 degrees, so only four fast laps were recorded in Race Plus mode. Don’t be surprised if the time falls with warmer weather, basically. Six and a half minutes would be quite the milestone to surpass, and the One was actually very close to doing so on the old layout - its time on the Super Test configuration was 6:30.705. It hit 338kph, or 210mph, down the Dottinger Hohe, too…
Engel described the lap as an “unforgettable experience”. He added: “We tried to find the optimal deployment strategy during the pre-tests. Like Lewis Hamilton and George Russell on their race weekends, I also had to deploy the electrical energy of the hybrid drive in the best possible way. That’s not easy, especially with this length of track. In addition, the DRS function had to be used optimally. But that’s also a real Formula 1 feeling. I would like to thank you for this opportunity and the trust you’ve placed in me. It was definitely something very special to drive this incredible car on the Ring.”
Makes for one heck of an onboard, too, as you’ve probably already watched by now. The One laps like a fast car played at 1.5x speed, such is its ability to hoover up the 12.9 miles. The ferocious acceleration seems matched only by the immense force of the braking. But they really weren’t joking about the wet parts around Kesselchen - rather you than us there, Maro. Bring on that lap in sunnier weather…
Quite the lap, regardless of whether it's relevant or not... this is cool.
Also interesting to see that the top speed on the straight peaked and then dropped down as it ran out of electrical energy
Amazing if pointless car - but then all Supercars are pointless and the automotive world would be less interesting without them
Anyway, back to the car / lap. Yep, awesome. But it sounds like there's someone in the passenger seat scrunching up crisp packets.
And it surely shares the record with an E220d Estate. That's what they used as a camera tracking car for the action shots, right?
Mercedes wrote Maro's name in their press release and presumably PH writers proof read each other's work for obvious errors. Other publications seemed to have avoided the autocorrect pitfall.
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