McLaren P1 sets sub-seven Nürburgring lap

<pMcLaren has announced its all-new P1 hypercar has lapped the daunting 20.8km Nürburgring Norschleife in under seven minutes, and released this short teaser video with highlights of the feat.

However, the Woking-based car-maker has stopped short of revealing the precise lap time, so the question still remains as to whether it’s capable of beating the 6:57 lap that Porsche’s 918 Spyder recently clocked at the ‘Green Hell’.

While a second or two here or there makes not one iota of difference in the real world, the bragging rights to be gained (and subsequently trumpeted) by the marketeers are significant.

For now, all we know is that the P1 has circulated the dipping, diving circuit (which has 154 corners) at an average speed in excess of 178km/h.

McLaren goes on to say the benchmark was set in an unmodified production car shod with standard road tyres.

According to the company, the Nordschleife’s challenging mixture of off-camber corners and tight, technical sections followed by the 3.5km long Döttinger Höhe straight necessitates a compromise between high downforce for optimised cornering and low drag for improved top speed.

In its PR bumpf, the company quotes McLaren F1 driver Jenson Button as saying: “The fact that the McLaren P1 has posted a sub-seven-minute lap at the Nürburgring is unbelievably impressive.

“I’ve been an F1 driver for 14 years, and I’ve driven more than 240 Grands Prix and, although I’ve never raced an F1 car on the Nürburgring-Nordschleife circuit, because the last time the German Grand Prix was held there was before I was born, I know exactly how challenging, and daunting, a racetrack it is.

“I’ve driven the McLaren P1 on a number of occasions – including up the hill at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, where it was sensational – and I think it’s a truly superb machine: unbelievably refined yet unbelievably quick.

“But, as I say, for it to have recorded a sub-seven minute lap time around the Nürburgring is the icing on the cake: proof positive, backed by hard data, on the greatest racetrack of them all, that McLaren has created a genuine game-changer.”

McLaren says the latest feat is indicative of the all-around capabilities of the P1, which can accelerate to 300km/h in less than 17 seconds and top 350km/h, but will only be produced in left-hand drive.