Just a day after hinting at something “monumental” on the Nürburgring, Mercedes-AMG has announced the new record lap time set by the Mercedes-AMG One on the Green Hell. With a blistering 6:35.183 minutes recorded, the AMG One is officially 8 seconds (8.117 seconds to be precise) faster than the Porsche 911 GT2 RS on the 20.832 km lap of the Nürburgring-Nordschleife.
Set on October 28, 2022, the new lap record was achieved in not the most perfect of conditions – still damp and partly dirt in some areas, typical of the autumn season. The ideal racing line had not completely dried and there wasn’t much time left before the track’s closing. To make full use of the ‘good’ weather and time, Mercedes-AMG GmbH brought two Mercedes-AMG One hypercars to the track.
Piloting the record-setting Mercedes-AMG One was racing driver and brand ambassador, Maro Engel. Maro had already broken the 911 GT2 RS’s 6:43.300-minute time at the early stages of the attempt with a lap time that has not been disclosed by Mercedes-AMG, but the team decided to take things further.
With track conditions getting better towards the end of the day, the Mercedes-AMG team took advantage of the remaining time and pushed themselves to set a new 6:35.183-minute time. Besides setting a new production car, the Mercedes AMG-One is also the first hypercar on the Green Hell, spearheading a new “super sports car” lap time category.
Maro Engel said, “That was really an unforgettable experience. 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.”
“We tried to find the optimal deployment strategy during the pre-tests. Like Lewis Hamilton and George Russell on their race weekends, I also had to deploy the electrical energy of the hybrid drive in the best possible way. That’s not easy, especially with this length of track. In addition, the DRS function had to be used optimally. But that’s also a real Formula 1 feeling. I would like to thank you for this opportunity and the trust you’ve placed in me. It was definitely something very special to drive this incredible car on the Ring.”
To recap, powering the Mercedes-AMG One is a hybrid system with a 1.6-litre V6 engine and 4 electric motors on each wheel that makes 1,063 hp (metric). The front wheels are purely electrically driven while the rear wheels are turned by a hybrid system. The transmission in use is a 7-speed automated manual gearbox and the Mercedes AMG-One gets an AMG Performance 4MATIC+ all-wheel drive (AWD) system.
With only 275 units made and all of them already spoken for, Mercedes-AMG One comes as standard with technically everything that the record-breaking unit had. Customers of the AMG One get the Formula 1 hybrid technology, the carbon monocoque, and the carbon body. Mercedes says the AMG One’s powertrain has a “lightning-quick response, faster than a naturally aspirated V8 engine”.
Mercedes-AMG GmbH Chairman of the Board of Management, Philipp Schiemer said, “I’m proud of the whole AMG team – everyone who was involved in this project. The various departments in Affalterbach as well as our colleagues at HPP in Brixworth never gave up and continued to push the dream of this vehicle.”
“This success is the well-deserved reward for their hard work. Even though the AMG ONE is certainly more at home on a Grand Prix circuit than on the Nordschleife – as is so often the case with this project – we’ve simply gone one step further. We’re the first ever to have taken on the challenges of the Nürburgring with a super sports car. That’s also what makes this project so unique and I’m very happy about this fantastic lap time.”
The fastest production car Nürburgring-Nordschleife 20.832 km lap times at the time of writing are as such:
- Mercedes-AMG One – 6:35.183 minutes991.2 Porsche 911 GT2 RS (Manthey Racing) – 6:43.300 minutesMercedes-AMG GT Black Series – 6:48.047 minutes992 Porsche 911 GT3 RS – 6:49.328 minutes
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Keyword: Mercedes-AMG One reclaims Nürburgring throne – 8 seconds faster than 911 GT2 RS!