The Nurburgring is famously known to be the place where all the big names in the automotive industry converge, ready to show that their new machine is better and obviously faster than the others. And while the ‘others’ are more than happy to be able to clock a time within the seven-minute range, McLaren believes that they can do better than that in their new 916-horsepower P1 hybrid hypercar.
And it seems that they have come really close in accomplishing their goal as the P1 was recently spotted blasting through the Green Hell, and some reports are stating that it had clocked a time of 7 minutes and 4 seconds. That is actually very close indeed to their target.
In case you are wondering how fast is 7 minutes and 4 seconds around the legendary German track, the Pagani Zonda F Clubsport made its lap in 7:24.44, the Chevrolet Corvette C6 ZR1 in 7:19.63, and the Lexus LFA Nurburgring Package in 7:14.64. There are only a handful of production cars that had managed to break past the seven-minute barrier, but cars like the Radical SR8 (6:48) is not really what you will see rolling down the streets every day.
Then again, McLaren is very determined to reach the sub-seven minute mark, as stated by McLaren’s Paul Mackenzie, the Program Director of the P1. So even if the 7 minute 4 second time recorded earlier might be true, it is in no doubt that they will try again until the goal is reached. But it seems that we will see the true prowess of the P1 as the new hypercars like the Ferrari LaFerrari, Porsche 918 Spyder and Koenigsegg Agera R had yet made their rounds at the Nurburgring. This will definitely be an interesting showdown to behold!
