All hail the newly crowned king of the infamous Green Hell. Mercedes-AMG’s stunning One hypercar, piloted by Nurburgring 24-Hour winner and DTM racer Maro Engel, just lapped the 12.92-mile (20.832-kilometre) Nurburgring Norschleife in an astonishing 6 minutes and 35.183 seconds, over 12 seconds faster than the prior record-holder, the AMG GT Black Series. It makes the 3,737-lb AMG One the fastest production car ever to lap the Nurburgring circuit.
To put this in perspective, a Porsche 911 GT2 RS – a car some would consider the actual previous record-holder – last year covered the same distance in 6 minutes 43.300 seconds. Even then, that Porsche was all kitted out with a host of Manthey Performance upgrades, which meant, strictly speaking, that it wasn’t a “production” car, just a street-legal one. The Mercedes-AMG One also blitzed the slightly shorter 12.8-mile (20.8-kilometre) variant of the track in 6 minutes 30.705 seconds, eight seconds faster than the Porsche.
The Mercedes-AMG One has had a rather bumpy ride on the way to full production. The ambitious project was plagued by several delays, with AMG engineers admitting they did not realize how difficult adapting an F1 engine for road use would be. Now, though, all that seems to have been put in the past, with the Nurburgring feat proving the Mercedes-AMG One is the real deal after all.
The Mercedes-AMG One and veteran test driver Maro Engel Photo by Mercedes-Benz
The Mercedes-AMG One being prepared for a lap of the Nurburgring Nordschleife circuit Photo by Mercedes-Benz
The Mercedes-AMG One on the infamous Nurburgring Nordschleife circuit Photo by Mercedes-Benz
The Mercedes-AMG One on the infamous Nurburgring Nordschleife circuit Photo by Mercedes-Benz
The record-breaking run is even more impressive when you consider that conditions were less than ideal on the day of the attempt. It was a chilly autumn day, and sections of the circuit were still wet when Engel set out for his run in the 1,063-hp hypercar, mere minutes before the track was closed for the day, to boot. It is scary to think the hybrid monster could go even faster still in better conditions.
Mercedes-AMG is building 275 examples of the AMG One, each priced at around US$2.7 million. All units are, unsurprisingly, already spoken for, and the first customer deliveries are expected to start before the end of 2022.
Keyword: Mercedes-AMG One is new fastest production car around Nurburgring