McLaren not planning any Nurburgring records

McLaren says it doesn’t plan on resetting any Nurburgring lap records with its upcoming crop of supercars and hypercars, despite being one of the best-placed manufacturers to do so.

The British marque is busy developing its next generation of models, which will include the 403km/h McLaren Speedtail (pictured) and an open-top hypercar that is set to deliver the mother of all driving experiences.

However, in spite of wanting to push the performance envelope, McLaren’s global marketing director, Jamie Corstorphine, told carsales.com.au that a record-breaking visit to Germany’s Nurburgring Nordschleife was not in its future.

“We don’t pursue them,” Corstorphine said of Nurburgring lap times. “There’s so many changing conditions at the track. It’s a good facility for engineering the cars but there are specific benchmark tracks that we use instead that are consistent and have better access.”

The 20.8km Nurburgring Nordschleife is still broadly accepted by manufacturers as an objective measure of a car’s performance. However, the validity of some manufacturer lap times has been subject to plenty of criticism in the past.

As of writing, Lamborghini’s Aventador LP770-4 SVJ, holds the production car record with a 6:44.97 post around the circuit.

Porsche holds the outright record, an incredible 5:10.546 lap aboard its Le Mans racer, the Porsche 919 Hybrid EVO.

Corstorphine said McLaren would continue to pursue its own internal benchmarks to evaluate car-to-car performance benchmarks.

“We certainly look at a variety of measures of cars across the piece. Some of those are used for external marketing and some aren’t. As much as the on-paper specification, it’s about that subjective driving experiences in the car,” he said.

The marketing boss declined to say whether the supercar segment was approaching a new set of benchmarks, given the influence of electrification.

“We’re focussed on delivering the maximum that we can and achieving what we set out at the beginning of the project,” he said.

“I don’t see that there’s a new tipping point. We’re looking at providing the specification that customers want.”