We’ve become familiar over the years with Porsche conjuring up Nurburgring lap times bordering on the unbelievable. From the 918 Spyder lapping under seven minutes to GT3s embarrassing cars with hundreds more horsepower, Porsche knows what it’s doing when it comes to really racy road cars. Now that extends to the Taycan EV as well: a new model has just lapped in 7:07.55.
You read that right. Just ten seconds off that 918 Spyder lap, within a fraction of the Rimac Nevera (7:05.298) for fastest production EV ever, and a huge 26 seconds faster than the previous Turbo S with performance pack, this is an obscenely fast Taycan. It’s taken almost 18 seconds off the previous best time set by a Model S Plaid Track Package last year. We’ve all heard enough by now of events being unprecedented, though surely nobody (outside of Porsche at least) expected such a leap to be made.
While the lap time is official, there’s precious little info about the Taycan itself just yet. Porsche describes it as a ‘pre-series’ model, so presumably it’ll enter production at some point - it isn’t really Porsche’s thing to produce one-off record breakers. Compared to a Turbo S this car is notable for the body kit, with both rear spoiler and front splitter more aggressive than standard. They will surely have helped with high-speed stability on a circuit where that can really pay dividends. (Porsche says the gap between old and new is so large that this one finished its lap 1.3km ahead of the Turbo S.)
We don’t know how much power this car makes just yet. Having 915 in the number plate would surely be too obvious a giveaway for horsepower, though clearly this Taycan must be significantly more potent than a standard (761hp overboost, 625hp otherwise) Turbo S given time laid down. How close exactly to 1,000hp it’ll be remains to be seen.
“Twenty-six seconds is half an eternity in motorsport. Lars’ (Kern, driven for both Taycan attempts) lap time of 7:07.55 minutes on the Nordschleife is sensational, putting the Taycan in the same league as electric hypercars,” said head of the Taycan model line, Kevin Giek. “And the impressive thing about it is that over several laps, Lars clocked almost exactly the same time.” Sadly there’s not a video of Kern’s exploits just yet, though one is said to be coming in mid March. Which will presumably be when we find out a little more about just what this incredible Taycan actually is.
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