Kings of the ’ring

There is no place that establishes best-of-the-best status like the Nürburgring Nordschleife. For decades, the legendary German track, nicknamed “The Green Hell”, has been the ultimate test of a sports car’s power and handling prowess. The Nordschleife (“North Loop”) track was built in the 1920s around the village and medieval castle of Nürburg and has 154 corners that undulate through the Eifel mountains.

The north loop is 20.8km long with an elevation change of more than 300m from its lowest to highest point. The track is used by motoring media and vehicle manufacturers for testing, with lap times accepted as true measures of a car’s performance. Shaving off seconds is a symbol of pride and a marketing tool for the car’s manufacturer.

The outright lap record around the ’Ring is held by the Porsche 919 Hybrid Evo at five minutes 19.546 seconds. It was set by Timo Bernhard in June 2018 in a modified version of Porsche’s Le Mans-winning race car and smashed the 35-year track record held by Stefan Bellof in a Porsche 956 C racer by almost a minute.

In so doing, Bernhard attained an astonishing average speed of 233.8km/h. The Porsche 919 Hybrid Evo was a development of the Le Mans LMP1 prototype with which Porsche won the Le Mans 24-hour race in 2015, 2016, and 2017 and the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) three times in a row.

Porsche wanted to see what the 919 was capable of without the WEC’s performance-limiting rules, so power in the 919’s all-wheel-drive, petrol-electric powertrain was hiked to over 860kW and the aerodynamics tweaked. The second-fastest car around the ’Ring — and the quickest electric car — was Volkswagen’s ID R purpose-built racer, posting a 6:05.336 lap time in June 2019.

The all-wheel-drive car is powered by the 500kW motor and 44kWh battery pack of VW’s Formula E race car. The quickest street-legal production car is the Mercedes-AMG One, which set 6:29.090 in the hands of DTM driver Maro Engel in September 2024. The Mercedes-AMG One brings Formula 1 hybrid-drive technology from the racetrack to the road. Powered by a 1.6l V6 hybrid petrol-turbo engine and four electric motors, the all-wheel-drive car delivers a total output of 782kW with top speed capped at 352km/h.

The Mercedes-AMG One was the first road car to beat the magic mark of 6:30 minutes. It quashed the 6:43.30 time set in June 2021 by Lars Kern in a Porsche 911 GT2 RS with a Manthey Performance Kit. Packing 515kW of power, the 911 GT2 remains the fastest two-wheel-drive production car around the track.

The third-quickest production car is the Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series, which set 6:48.047 in November 2020, driven by Engel. The rear-wheel-drive, two-door coupé produces 537kW from a 4.0l V8 biturbo engine. The electric production-car record is held by the Rimac Nevera with a time of 7:05.298 set in August 2023. The record was set by racing driver Martin Kodrić. With 1 427kW supplied by four electric motors, the Croatian supercar accelerates from 0-100km/h in just 1.8 seconds and has a reported top speed of 412km/h. 

Other notable Nürburgring Nordschleife production-car records

Four-door sedan:

Jaguar XE SV Project 8:

7:23.164

Station wagon:

BMW M3 Touring:

7:34.39O

SUV:

Audi RS Q8 Performance:

7:36.698

Front-wheel-drive car:

Honda Civic Type R:

7:44.881

From the March edition of Wanted, 2025