MOTORSPORT: Record breaker aims for Bathurst top 10

The first man to lap the legendary Nurburgring Nordschleife in less than seven minutes in a production car goes to this weekend’s Bathurst 1000 declaring his ambition to be a top 10 finisher.

Factory Porsche driver Marc Lieb created worldwide headlines in September when he set a 6:57 lap time in the new petrol-electric 918 Spyder hypercar, smashing the existing record by 14 seconds.

The short and long versions of the official Porsche video of the lap have generated more than one million views on YouTube.

Now the 33-year old German faces his first outing at Mount Panorama in the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000, co-driving with Jonathon Webb in the Darrell Lea-sponsored Tekno Autosports Holden VF Commodore.

“The circuit looks stunning and I can’t wait to go out there,” Lieb told motoring.com.au just hours after landing from Europe.

“It is just the whole thing; how close the walls are, how fast you go into the corners, the ups and downs, going down Conrod Straight. The whole thing together is very exciting.

“To be realistic a top 10 finish at Bathurst is always good, it is very important. In this championship anything can happen. You can be on the podium or last on the same weekend.”

“I will enjoy the experience and soak everything up on the weekend and enjoy driving at Bathurst. That will be my main goal, and for sure at the end we will go flat-out and try to be in the front as much as possible. The main goal is to perform well and get the maximum out of the package.”

There is another reason Lieb should be of interest to Aussie motoring and motorsport fans as he is being heavily linked to a promotion from LMGTE to Porsche’s new LMP1 World Endurance Championship program, which Mark Webber has signed up for in 2014.

“There is some stuff on the news and we will see how it ends up next year,” Lieb said. “It would be nice but I think it is a little bit too early to talk about it. But yes for sure it would be nice and a good thing to do next year.”

Bathurst 2014 will be Lieb’s fourth V8 Supercars outing. He drove in the Gold Coast 600 in 2011 and 2012 when international co-drivers were mandatory, firstly for Stone Brothers Racing and then with Webb in 2012, impressing with second place in the opening 300km race.

Lieb’s 2013 WEC racing schedule and testing the 918 – a program he has been involved with for two years – has meant he was unable to get to Australia to test the 2013 Commodore, which is built to the new Car of the Future technical regulations, before last month’s Wilson Security Sandown 500.

Lieb admitted he struggled at times in the PIRTEK Enduro Cup opener, but he and Webb fought through handling problems to finish 13th.

“Basically Sandown was my test before Bathurst and it was tough,” Lieb admitted. “I struggled to get on pace there a little bit and just getting better and better every session. At the end everyone needs a little adjusting time. But now I know the car and now I have to learn the track.”

The new Car of the Future retains a lot of commonality with its predecessor even if there have been some significant changes such as the shift to a transaxle and bigger wheels and brakes.

“I find the new gearbox a very nice shift up and down and the new brakes are I think a little bit better. But grip-wise in the corner it is still hard to fight with and it is good fun and very hard to get a 100 per cent lap in. It is not easy and definitely one of the toughest cars I have ever driven.”

Perhaps surprisingly, Lieb said he found some commonality between the 918 and the V8 Supercar.

“They are both heavy cars, they run on not the best tyres, the 918 was on street tyres and the tyres of the V8 Supercars are not the best grip level. But apart from that they are completely different with completely different driving styles.

“The 918 is a four-wheel drive car and the V8 Supercar is an old-school rear-wheel drive with a spool -- so completely different.”

Lieb said he completed his record Nurburgring lap in the most performance-oriented of the 918’s five driving modes. Called Hot Lap, it utilises the maximum outputs from the 4.6-litre V8 engine and two electric motors, which tallies up to 652kW and at least 800Nm.

“It is amazingly good to drive,” reported Lieb. “It’s so quick, but it handles so well and you never fighting with all that power and it is really comfortable to drive. It was also very comfortable on the Nurburgring which is definitely one of the toughest tracks in the world to drive. So it was really nice to drive.

“We were running without traction control and even out of the second gear corners traction was always very good. And also the fast corners with rear wheel steering the car was very stable.

“Grip level was impressive for street tyres and the car was never oversteering on that lap. The car had quite a bit of understeer as you can see from the video and so the car was really well balanced.”

Footnote: Lieb’s 6.57 time finally eclipsed the fastest ever lap by a Formula One car in competition at the Nurburgring Nordschleife. That was a 6:58.6 set by Niki Lauda in a Ferrari 312T in qualifying for the 1975 Grand Prix in August 1975. F1 abandoned the circuit the following year after Lauda’s horrific crash.

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