Carmakers don’t use the famous Nürburgring Nordschleife circuit only for testing prototypes, as you’ve seen many times in our scoop section, but also to time their cars and claim some bragging rights against their rivals.
This is one of those stories with the protagonist being the new McLaren MP4-12C sportscar that made its debut run on the Nordschleife with Horst von Saurma, Editor-in-Chief of German magazine Sport Auto, sitting behind the wheel.
The video shows the 592HP-strong British sportscar lapping the ‘Ring in 7 minutes and 28 seconds – but bear in mind, this was not an official run.
At the end of the clip, we see the times recorded by Horst von Saurma in other vehicles including that of the Ferrari 458 Italia (7 minutes and 38 seconds).
According to the Nordschleife lap times listed on Wikipedia, the MP4-12C was 5 seconds faster than the Ferrari 458 Italia, but more than 8 seconds slower than the 2012 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1.
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