Ferrari have broken the 7 minute barrier around the Nordschleife with their limited 599XX hyper car. The time set was 6 minutes 58.16 seconds. At the wheel was long time Ferrari factory test driver Raffele De Simone.
Ferrari claim this is a new lap record for production-derived sports cars. That’s a wink and a nod to the Radical SR8LM, which set a lap time of 6 minutes 48 seconds in August last year.
The 599XX features a specially developed 6.0 litre V12 engine, producing around 540kW of power, and is a track-only car based on the 599 GTB Fiorano. The 599XX also inspired the recently launched 599 GTO.
Let’s leave the semantics over rights to be claiming records to one side for a moment and simply revel in what is a truly stunning lap. Doesn’t matter who makes them, what their daily capabilities are, anything that can lap the Ring in under 7 minutes is a very special car.
Video of the lap can be seen after the jump, along with extra pics, all accessible as wallpaper-friendly 2000px super images.