Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series sets Nurburgring record

Fresh from snatching the luxury car lap record at the Nurburgring Nordschleife from the Porsche Panamera with its latest GT 4-Door, Mercedes-AMG has now nabbed the new outright production car lap record at the infamous German road circuit.

The new mark of 6:43.616 was set by the brand-new Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series, which is already sold out in Australia despite an eye-watering price tag of $796,900 plus on-road costs for each of the 28 examples that will come here.

The new production car lap record betters by just over a second the previous mark of 6:44.97 set at the 20.6km toll road (measured without the straight at track section T13) by the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ in 2018.

Curiously, however, there’s no update on the Nurburgring lap record attempt announced back in August for the limited-edition, $5 million Mercedes-AMG ONE hypercar, just 275 examples of which will finally be delivered – including eight in Australia – from March 2021 (all of them also sold).

Meantime, the all-new Aston Martin Valkyrie, which will be its direct competitor on both road and track next year, is also slated for a Nurburgring record attempt.

Toyota has also suggested it’s ready for a tilt at a Green Hell lap record – but not with its upcoming GR Super Sport hypercar.

Instead, it says its Le Mans-winning LMP1 TS050 Hybrid racer is good enough to beat the outright lap record of 5:19.546 set in 2018 by the Porsche 919 Evo, which won Le Mans in 2015, 2016 and 2017.

For the record, the front-wheel drive production car lap record at the Nurburgring is held by the Renault Megane RS Trophy-R at 7:40.100, the EV record of 6:05.336 is held by the Volkswagen I.D. R concept racer and the SUV record of 7:49.369 is held by the Mercedes-AMG GLC 63.

Mercedes-AMG says the new production car yardstick was set by 35-year-old GT3 racer Maro Engel in an unmodified GT Black Series with standard ceramic composite brakes, soft-compound Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 R MO tyres and the Track Package including rollover protection system and four-point safety belts.

However, its carbon-fibre front splitter was extended to ‘Race’ position, the lower and upper wing blades of the rear spoiler were each adjusted in the middle position, the adjustable coilover suspension was lowered by 5mm at the front and 3mm at the rear, and wheel cambers were adjusted to a maximum of negative 3.8 degrees at the front and negative 3.0 degrees at the rear.

Engel also chose the hardest of three adjustable anti-roll bar settings, and adjusted the nine-stage AMG traction control between positions six and seven, depending on the section of the track.

Maximising the Black Series’ 537kW/800Nm 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 – AMG’s most powerful production engine ever – Engel set the record time despite less than ideal track conditions including an outside temperature of seven degrees Celsius and a track that was not totally dry in some sections, said AMG.

“With speeds of up to almost 270km/h in the Kesselchen section of the track or well over 300km/h on the long Döttinger Höhe straight, the AMG GT Black Series is significantly faster than my GT3 race car,” said Engel after the record run.

“To finally drive around the Nordschleife in 6:48.047 minutes [measured with the straight at track section T13] with a production road car in these track conditions is really awesome.

“Like my GT3 race car, the AMG GT Black Series offers a lot of adjustment possibilities, all of which enabled me to create a setup that was tailor-made for me.

“It’s really impressive how much downforce the Black Series generates and how confident and reliable it can be driven, even at the absolute limit.”