Nürburgring lap records used to come less frequently than presidential elections. The Jaguar XJ220 held the mantle of the fastest street-legal car around the 13.7-mile-long Nordschleife for no less than eight years, but in these impatient modern times the benchmark is under constant attack. So we?d barely heard about the 6:45.90 time that the Nio EP9 set in May?making it the first electric car to break the record?before McLaren announced that its P1 LM had gone 2.7 seconds faster.
?It was a bit annoying,? said Gerry Hughes, the leader of the EP9 project, ?especially as it was broken by my best friend, Kenny [Brack]. He told me about it before the official release. He wouldn?t tell me the exact time they had done, but said that we?d have to go back there. Like all these things, it just happens to be the timing. The days when you can get an exclusive [on the track] are limited, and we only had one day this year when we could go and break the record, so we had to use it.? While we?ve already given you the official details on the EP9 project?a Chinese-funded electric hypercar intended to reflect some glory onto its parent company, NextEV?the back story behind the Nürburgring record is just as interesting.
The original target, achieved last year, was simply to set an EV lap record at the ?Ring. But although impressive, the 7:05.12 time was nothing close to the car?s ultimate potential. The driver was Peter Dumbreck, a hugely experienced sports-car racer who survived a spectac...