Tag: Nurburgring

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Porsche

Porsche 918 Spyder claims Nürburgring lap record

Porsche 918 Spyder Weissach Package

Last week Porsche took a pair of production-spec 918 Spyders to the Nürburgring and created history. The 887hp/652kW petrol electric hybrid has just been officially launched at the Frankfurt Motor Show and Porsche used the occassion to announce the 918’s Nordschleife lap time.

Factory racing driver Marc Lieb was at the wheel of a 918 Spyder ‘Weissach Package’ for the record time and lapped the Ring in 6 minutes 57 seconds. Proving the record was no fluke fellow Porsche drivers Timo Kluck and the legendary Walter Röhrl also lapped in less than 7 minutes.

Previously, a prototype 918 had lapped the Ring in 7 minutes 14 seconds. The new mark is, according to Porsche, the fastest time ever for a production-based car homologated for road use.

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Porsche

Derek Bell reunites with a Porsche 956 at the Ring

Derek Bell at the wheel of a Porsche 956 on the Nurburgring

As part of the formalities for the naming of the Stefan-Bellof-S corner at the Nürburgring, Porsche legend Derek Bell was on hand to drive the 956.007 around the Nordschelife. A teaser video has been posted to Facebook, with the promise of more to come.

In the meantime, why not check out the video after the break where Bell talks us through a lap of the Nordschleife filmed during practice for the 1983 1000km race. Incidentally, the lap time from Bell was 6:37, some time off Bellof’s 6:11 record, but it is believed to be the fastest full lap recorded on camera.

[Pic: Frozenspeed]

UPDATE: A number of amateur videos of Derek Bell’s Porsche 956 drive at the Nürburgring have been added below.

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Formula 1 Mercedes-Benz Red Bull Racing

2013 German GP: Qualifying report

2013 German Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton has added to his Mercedes AMG’s excellent qualifying performances this year by claiming pole position for the German Grand Prix. The silver arrows have started from P1 six times this year, split evenly at three apiece for each driver.

Hamilton’s best lap (1:29.398) edged out the Red Bull Racing pairing. Home town hero Sebastian Vettel (1:29.501) will start from P2. Mark Webber (1:29.608) will line up on the clean side of the grid from P3, with Kimi Raikkonen (Lotus, 1:29.892) on P4.

Starting from the the third row are Romain Grosjean (Lotus, 1:29.959) and Daniel Ricciardo (Toro Rosso, 1:30.528). The two Ferraris will line up on the fourth row with Felipe Massa (1:31.126) ahead of Fernando Alonso (1:31.209).

Ricciardo’s P6 position equals his career best qualifying result, which was set last weekend at Silverstone. At the Nürburgring he will start 10 places ahead of his teammate, Jean-Eric Vergne (1:31.104) who was the slowest of the drivers knocked out at the end of Q2.

Daniel’s stocks are rising as the race for Mark Webber’s Red Bull seat in 2014 hots up. Both he and his team admit P6 is a result they weren’t expecting.

“I’m really delighted with the way qualifying went and it’s very encouraging to be sixth fastest for the second race in a row, which means we are seeing signs of progress and consistency,” the 24-year-old Australian said. “However, it was not as straightforward here as in Silverstone last week and we definitely had to pull something out of the bag to do the time and get into Q3.

“We exceeded our expectations today, as in FP3 we did not look so strong. I was particularly pleased with my Q2 lap. I think we did the best we could today and now we look ahead to the race.”

The great thing is Daniel expectations of what’s possible on Sunday have also changed these last few races, as he later explained.

“Last weekend I felt there was a better result than eighth waiting for me and I would like to go for better than seventh, which is my best finish so far. If there’s a chance of a podium, let’s go for it! Nothing’s impossible.”

As usual, you can read the thoughts of the top three drivers after the break.

[Pic: Red Bull/Getty Images]

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Formula 1

Drivers threaten German GP boycott over tyre dramas

2013 British Grand Prix

The Grand Prix Drivers’ Association has threatened to boycott this weekend’s German Grand Prix if there is a repeat of the tyre dramas seen at Silverstone last week.

Pirelli says it has identified the four main factors responsible for the spectacular tyre failures in the British Grand Prix and will use kevlar-belted tyres at the Nürburgring.

If the new measures don’t work, the GPDA has put Pirelli on notice. “The drivers of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association wish to express their deepest concerns about the events that took place at Silverstone,” said a GPDA statement.

“We trust that the changes made to the tyres will have the desired results and that similar problems will not occur during the German GP weekend.

“We are ready to drive our cars to the limit, as we always do, and as it is expected by our teams, sponsors and fans.

“However, the drivers have decided that, if similar problems should manifest themselves during the German GP, we shall immediately withdraw from the event, as this avoidable problem with the tyres endangers again the lives of drivers, marshals and fans.”

We’ve no reason to believe that the drivers wouldn’t follow through with their threat to withdraw, but if tyre problem do re-occur we’d also not be surprised if the drivers backed down and raced, perhaps with special conditions. It wouldn’t be the first time drivers threaten to withdraw from a race on safety concerns, only to renege at the last moment.

[Source: Autosport | Pic: Ferrari]

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Holden Video

The world’s fastest ute?

Holden VF SSV ute at the Nurburgring

When we first saw pics of the Holden VF ute circulating at the Nürbugring we sensed it was little more than a marketing gimmick. And it looks as though we were right. With the VF SSV Redline ute Holden is claiming the title of the world’s fastest utlility vehicle at the Ring, a title which, until now, never existed.

Holden test driver Rob Trubiani was at the wheel during an industry pool test day and posted a lap time of 8:19.47, around 11 seconds better than their 8:30 target time. Holden says the car is a “product-correct engineering test vehicle” with its speed limiter removed and increased negative camber at the front wheels.

You can expect to see and hear a lot more about this lap when the VF ute goes on sale. For now there’s a decent gallery of pics and four videos for you to watch.

The main video shows the full lap with commentary from Trubiani, it’s actually quite a decent effort we have to say. Despite Trubiani’s claims that the ute’s electric power steering is the duck’s guts, to our untrained eye it looks a touch light and requires too much turn to reach full lock.

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Formula 1 News

A look inside the F1 movie ‘Rush’

F1 movie Rush

The official YouTube channel for Ron Howard’s F1 movie Rush brings us a 3 minute long preview. It includes interviews with the noted director, as well as actors Chris Hemsworth (James Hunt) and Daniel Brühl (Niki Lauda).

We’re loving the previews we’re getting—the film looks great—but the more we see the more we want the whole movie. There’s still three months to go!

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Aston Martin Audi BMW Mercedes-Benz Motorsports Porsche

2013 Nürburgring 24 hour race in pictures

Porsche at the 2013 Nurburgring 24 hour race

If you didn’t follow the 2013 Nürburgring 24 hour race over at AUSringers on Monday here’s your chance to catch up, pictorially at least. After the break you’ll find a huge gallery of photos with thanks to Aston Martin, Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche.

In the end, thanks to heavy rain and fog during the night session the race was red flagged. Around nine hours were lost in total, and while that was a shame, the race still provided all the drama and excitement you would expect from a 24 hour race around the Green Hell.

For the record the #9 Black Falcon Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 won the race. At the wheel was Bernd Schneider, Jeroen Bleekemolen, Sean Edwards and Nicki Thiim. Amazingly it was the first ever Nürburgring 24 hour race win for Mercedes-Benz and Bernd Schneider. Indeed, after several attempts it was the first time that Schneider had finished the race.

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Holden

Holden VF Commodore ute at the Nürburgring

Holden VF Commodore ute

A quick shout out to Holden for going to the trouble of sending their VF Commodore ute to the Nürburgring for final chassis tuning ahead of its imminent release. Of course, with the car being so close to market launch you’d expect there won’t be too many opportunities to tweak the set up in any meaningful way.

Hey, you don’t think this was a marketing exercise by Holden just chasing a few clicks and publicity do you? No, they wouldn’t do that, there must be more to it than that.

[Source: Carscoop | Pic: CarPix | Thanks to Matt and John for the tips]

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Audi Motorsports

Audi claims an historic 24 hour triple crown

Audi R8 LMS ultra wins 2012 Spa 24 hour

We’re a bit late with this news, but we couldn’t let it go unmentioned. A couple of weekends back Audi completed its third 24 hour race victory in 71 days when it won the Spa 24 hour race.

The Spa success sits alongside Audi’s 11th Le Mans 24 hour race and first Nürburgring 24 hour title. We reckon that’s good enough to label it an unofficial 24 hour triple crown.

At Spa it was the #16 Team Phoenix car driven by Andrea Piccini, René Rast and Frank Stippler which won the day. They were joined on the podium by the #1 Team WRT R8, crewed by Christopher Haase, Christopher Mies and Stéphane Ortelli, who came home in second place.

Head of Audi Motorsport Dr Wolfgang Ullrich was pretty happy with what he saw: “Winning three 24-hour races within just 71 days is another milestone in the successful motorsport history of our company. The field at Spa was unique and enormously competitive. There were more than 20 vehicles in contention for victory. In the end, the combination of quality, reliability and speed for which Audi is known prevailed yet again.”

It was a typically wet day in the Ardennes and at times the rain was so heavy the Safety Car was brought out until conditions improved. Audi’s official word along with a dozen pics of the winning car can be viewed after the break. They’re complemented by an unofficial highlights package thanks to Mattzel89.

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McLaren

McLaren MP4-12C laps Nürburgring in 7:28

McLaren MP4-12C

One of the world’s newest supercars, the McLaren MP4-12C, has unofficially lapped the Nürburgring in 7 minutes 28 seconds. The time was recorded by respected German magazine Sport Auto.

Perhaps McLaren would secretly wish for a faster time, as the mighty Mac is around 16 seconds slower than the Dodge Viper ACR, 12 seconds slower than the Lexus LFA and 10 seconds slower than a Porsche 911 GT2 RS. At least it’s four seconds faster than a Ferrari 458 Italia.

UPDATE: Official video from McLaren Automotive has been added below, which confirms the Sport Auto lap time and includes a few words from their noted test driver Horst von Saurma.

[Source: Teamspeed]

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BMW

Lightweight BMW M3 EVO continues testing

BMW M3 EVO prototype

The lightweight BMW M3 “EVO” is less than a month from its official launch, so it’s no surprise to see a development mule being sent to the Nürburgring finishing school to undergo last minute testing.

Understood to fill the hitherto unknown gap between the regular M3 and the limited-run M3 GTS, the EVO is expected to use a variant of the 4.0 litre S65 V8 with power likely to sit—you guessed it—somewhere in between 309kW of the M3 and 331kW of the 4.4 litre GTS.

We’ll have all the official details of M3 EVO and its CFRP body panels, lightweight interior bits and more some time on 23 June 23, or perhaps a shortly after, allowing for time differences.

[Source: M3Post]

Categories
McLaren

McLaren MP4-12C goes off chasing Ring record

McLaren MP4-12C

Word on the street, via Bridge to Gantry, says the McLaren MP4-12C had a bit of an off at the end of an industry pool testing day last week. Apparently the 12C went out at the end of the session, with the track to itself and a TV crew in chopper chasing overhead, indicating a possible lap record attempt.

The feisty Mac had almost completed its lap when it went past the tourist entry gates at full noise on the Döttinger Höhe straight. Moments later, however, tyre screeches were heard and some nasty impact sounds were also reported.

Soon after, a covered recovery truck was seen on track, presumably to collect the wreckage. Unsurprisingly McLaren has yet to confirm the incident and it’s not clear how badly damaged the car was, or if the driver sustained any injuries, but we hope all is okay and the Mac is back on track soon.

[Source: Bridge to Gantry]