Audi defends Lamborghini

The head of Audi Sport’s development team has weighed in to support Lamborghini in the wake of accusations the Italian supercar maker fudged its production car record lap of the Nürburgring.

Lamborghini should have been on a high when it launched its Huracan Performante at the Geneva motor show, but it was instead forced to defend the 6:52.01 lap time on the Nürburgring’s Nordschleife circuit after blog criticism.

Skeptics suggested the footage had been sped up from a frame rate of 24fps to 25, suggesting the “authentic” lap time would have been closer to 7:08. James Glickenhaus, the owner of ultra-low volume supercar maker Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus, even called for the circuit to hold a special day to verify production car lap times.

“Why would we (cheat)?” Lamborghini president Stefano Domecali asked, incredulously.

“We have all the data, all the GPS data. It’s verified. It’s already verified.

“The simulation we did before we did the lap was already better than the previous time (set by Porsche’s hybrid supercar, the 918 Spyder).

“What we saw was the great potential of active aerodynamics. The Nürburgring is a lot of partial throttle and long corners. The SV (Aventador) was for sure faster on the straight, but the lap (by the Performante) was all recorded.”

A Lamborghini spokesman counterattacked, suggesting the entire controversy was rooted in “one blogger’s business model paying for clicks”.

Audi Sport development head, Stephan Reil, also weighed in during last week’s Audi RS 3 launch, insisting Lamborghini would have had no reason to cheat at anything, and that its active aerodynamics would have more than made up for any power shortfalls.

“We also know that architecture well (the Huracan shares its platform with Audi's R8). We know what it’s capable of,” Reil said.

“The Performante ‘Ring time is absolutely credible. Active Aero makes a huge difference.

“We did a TT production racer for the ‘Ring with about 380 horsepower and gave it maximum wing. It was so slow down the straight that everybody passed it, but the overall lap time was very, very fast. Much faster than without the aero downforce.

“So I know how much real aero downforce gives you and Lamborghini worked out how to get it without paying for it down the straights.”