The Nürburgring has itself a new production car king—the Mercedes-AMG One.
The German automaker’s performance division has just announced that its paradigm-shifting hypercar is the fastest production car in Nürburgring-Nordschleife history after circling the treacherous circuit in 6:35.183. The One didn’t just beat the old record, either. It shattered it by over eight seconds.
We knew AMG had its eye on the old mark, but it’s unlikely anyone expected the hypercar to best it in such resounding fashion. The new record was set on 28 October. Behind the wheel was Marco Engel, a Nürburgring 24-Hour winner and a previous record holder. In circling the winding 12.92-mile course in 6:35.183, he easily beat the previous mark of 6:43.300, which was set last year by a Porsche 911 GT2 RS Manthey, by 8.117 seconds. The gap between first and second is actually bigger than that between second and fifth (the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ).
Making the One’s record that much more impressive was the conditions it was set in. It’s autumn in Germany, so it was set on a chilly day with a light wind. In fact, AMG claims the track was actually damp and dirty when Engel officially set the record on his last run of the day.
“That was really an unforgettable experience,” the lauded driver said in a statement. “I didn’t expect that we would be able to set such a lap time with these track conditions. In some crucial areas of the track, it hadn’t dried completely yet and was therefore tricky. That was a special challenge.”
As impressive as the hypercar’s Nürburgring record is, it shouldn’t come as a complete shock. The One is basically a street-legal racecar. In the futuristic vehicle’s engine bay sits a Formula 1-derived 1.6-litre V-6. The mill is assisted by not one but four electric motors and the setup combines to pump out more than 1,000 horses and has a redline of 11,000 rpm. This is, plain a simple, a car that was designed to set records. Now, we’ll just have to see how long this mark, which has now been broken five times in as many years, lasts.
Previously published on Robb Report.
