Monday 5th September 2011

Lexus LF-A Posts Blistering Unofficial 'Ring Time

Good times for Toyota, as LF-A blitzes Nurburgring competition, and electric car sets its own 'Ring record

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Seems there's records tumbling all over the place at the moment, albeit unofficial ones. As well as the Koenigsegg's attempts at accelerative dominance, the production car lap record at the Nurburgring apppears to be under threat.

According to a Tweet last week by EVO's Chris Harris, the Lexus LF-A Nurburgring, driven by Gazoo Racing driver Akira Iida punched in a lap of 7mins 14secs, comfortably beating his own time of 7mins 22.85secs, posted during an 'exhibition lap' at the Nurburgring 24 hours in June.

Well, we say records are tumbling - there are still three 'production cars' which are faster around the Nordschleife, but since these are two Radicals and a Gumpert Apollo, they can hardly count as everyday road cars. More to the point, this puts the LF-A Nurburgring ahead of the Porsche 997 GT2 RS and the Corvette ZR1 (not to mention the Nissan GT-R).

Official records for ToMoCo too...
Toyota has nabbed a pukka Nordschleife record recently, however. They've become kings of the EV 'Ring, posting an impressive time of 7mins 47.794secs in the TMG EV P001 prototype, a Radical-based chassis modified by German electric sports car specialists e-WOLF.

The 800lb ft, 160mph car puts the Peugeot EX1's time of 9mins 01.338secs firmly into second place. You can see the video below...

 

 

 

[anonymous-user]

Are all the batteries in the front of that car?

[Oddball RS]

30 seconds in, bored of Kenwood food mixer sound.............. sorry i tried

[nightSpirit]

So odd to hear no engine noise....still impressive to watch although I couldn't shake the image of a milkfloat from my mind.

[SR06]

La Liga said:

Are all the batteries in the front of that car?

Exactly what I was thinking!

[SR06]

Now a Sub 10 second milk float - That would be impressive!

[cosdog]

Eeerie without your traditional internal combustion soundtrack. The pace that thing picks up with just a hint of whirring makes for a very surreal affair.

Less pointless priuses, more of this type of tech to showcase the potential of electrons in motoring.

now if only those pesky zeolites would start behaving so that they could be used in fuel cell manufature and we could ditch those heavy batteries, things might become even more exciting.

[Snoggledog]

After watching that video I was half waiting for an announcement of "Please mind the gap between the platform and the train."

[SR06]

Oddball RS said:

30 seconds in, bored of Kenwood food mixer sound.............. sorry i tried

You hear



I hear

[Guvernator]

I'm gald the LF-A finally seems to be getting a bit of recognition and the performance numbers it deserves. Brand snobbery, it's huge price tag and slightly dubious looks got in the way of what in my mind is an excellently engineered car and that high revving V10 is just awesome, probably my favourite current engine at the moment. Glad to see that these ring times might rescue it from relative obscurity now.

[205007]

I would like to know how many hard laps that thing will do to a full charge please

Because my R35 will only just do 4 laps of the ring on a full tank of fuel (including the GP circuit)

And the price of it made me cry....

:-)

[boolay]

SR06 said:

Oddball heard



SR06 hears

I hear

[dublet]

Oddball RS said:

30 seconds in, bored of Kenwood food mixer sound.............. sorry i tried

I agree, it's just so boring to watching a vehicle go around the Ring in under 8 minutes.
</sarcasm>

[North West Tom]

I'd rather have a GT2RS.

[ZeeTacoe]

800lb/ft is that factoid included to impress idiots who don't know how a gearbox or electric motor work?

[Varsity]

How much will this LFA cost? Let alone the GT2, there's only one star, bang for buck on that road. GTR!

[ian_cab28]

Agreed about the noise, thought it sounded pathetic at first but it was also interesting to hear the tyres on the limit a a bit easier, made me appreciate the skill of the driver a bit more. Looked a bit of torquey understeery handful tho, I guess that's ev sportscars ??

[kikiturbo]

funny how no one from the radical brigade commented that the electric car in question is in fact a radical with "toyota" drivetrain..

Edited by kikiturbo on Monday 5th September 14:55

[lsclayton]

Apparently the electric motors are english also

[BSC]

Wonder why the LFA didn't do better in the 24hr race on the same track, even the qualifying times were not on the same level as Audi/Porker/BMW/Ferrari. No comparison between race and road cars but when LFA puts in a new record the other cars should be able to do better.

[FraserLFA]

Guvernator said:

I'm gald the LF-A finally seems to be getting a bit of recognition and the performance numbers it deserves. Brand snobbery, it's huge price tag and slightly dubious looks got in the way of what in my mind is an excellently engineered car and that high revving V10 is just awesome, probably my favourite current engine at the moment. Glad to see that these ring times might rescue it from relative obscurity now.

I LOVE the engine noise from the Lexus. I'd have one if i could afford one.