Look away now, those who don’t care about lap times around the Nurburgring, because this is a big one. Having already claimed the official production car lap record (even if ‘production’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting there) a couple of years back, Mercedes-AMG has gone even faster still with its wild One: 6:35.183 has become 6:29.090 for the 20.832km Northern Loop.
In a roadgoing car that’ll need an MOT test in the UK before long. Less than six and a half minutes is staggering. The fastest lap of the 1983 Nurburgring 1000km was set by Stefan Bellof at 6:25.91, that being the same weekend he clocked the incredible 6:11.13 pole lap. The One is Group C pace with modern F1 technology. And CarPlay.
Maro Engel was again on driving duty for this lap, taking advantage of more favourable weather conditions than in 2022. This time around - his third timed lap of a stint, at 6:56pm on September 23rd - the air temp was 15 degrees and the tarmac was 20, with every bit of the circuit bone dry. It was said to offer ‘perfect’ grip for the Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 R tyres, so probably this is as fast as the One will go for now. Hopefully Maro enjoyed a beer after that.
The snippets of onboard that feature in the announcement vid (expect a full onboard soon) demonstrate the phenomenal speed of the One, the track seemingly narrower and the barriers even closer than usual. It’s past 200mph on the Döttinger-Höhe without the bridge in sight. This is a minute faster than a Porsche Carrera GT achieved 20 years ago. A minute!
Engel said of his drive: "Two years ago, the conditions were not ideal, and some sections of the track were still a little damp. We knew we could do more, and we wanted to show that. Today we were able to demonstrate the maximum potential of the AMG One. Many thanks to the whole team from Affalterbach for the trust they’ve placed in me. It was a great pleasure and honour to be able to drive this record lap with such a unique car." And doesn’t it look great in red?
Given this time puts the One so far ahead of the rest (even the really silly Porsches haven’t broken 6:40 yet), it’s hard to see this time being beaten for a little while yet. But never say never in the world of the Nurburgring record drives - that’s why we keep coming back for more.
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