Porsche has reclaimed the title of fastest road-legal car to lap the Nürburgring with a new benchmark time of 6 minutes 40.3 seconds.
The Manthey-Racing-tuned 911 GT2 RS MR achieved the lap time, with driver Lars Kern behind the wheel. Although the 700hp machine has been set up especially for the Nürburgring by Manthey-Racing, it’s still road legal, so it still counts.
So, sorry, Lamborghini, your Aventador LP 770-4 SuperVeloce Jota (6:44.97) is no longer the ‘Ring record holder. But then, you did steal the time from the factory-standard Porsche 911 GT2 RS (6:47.25), so fair game…
Porsche owns a 51 percent share in Nürburgring-based Manthey-Racing, which now offers the GT2 RS performance kit for sale (there are modifications to both chassis and aerodynamics, but the firm insists its engineers still focused on road driving, not just in mastering the Nürburgring).
“In this test drive,” said Porsche head of motorsport and GT cars Dr. Frank-Steffen Walliser, “we simply wanted to assess the potential of the vehicle once more.”
It seems accidentally to have ended up with a new Nürburgring record. “The result is quite impressive,” said the understated Dr. Walliser. “It really is a fabulous time.”
Kern is a development engineer and VLN racing driver, and knows the Nürburgring well. “The drive was great fun. The balance of the car is very good with the new package. I did not have to take any great risks to be fast.”
Impressively, he had just one lap to set the time – this truly was a one-shot run. “It was already getting dark,” he said. “It worked out first time, though.” Manthey-Racing CEO Nicolas Raeder said the company is very proud. “It was a great challenge to make the already tremendously fast Porsche 911 GT2 RS even faster.”
Porsche adds the record car is exactly the same as the one customers can now order in 911 GT2 RS MR guise, apart from one modification: a racing bucket seat, installed for safety. “The modification did not provide any weight benefits,” adds the firm, as if to stem the internet haters before they start quibbling…