While the US market has to wait another year for the Mazda6 diesel, in Europe the Japanese sedan is breaking speed records.

Mazda announced that three of its diesel-powered sedans “shattered” 20 FIA speed records at the ATP test oval in Papenburg, Germany, during a 24-hour marathon run. While the records are subject to FIA homologation, Mazda is pretty confident they will stand.

Equipped with the 175PS (173hp) 2.2-liter SkyActiv-D clean diesel engine, the three Mazda6 sedans completed the 24-hour run, with the front car achieving an average speed of 221.072 km/h (137.368 mph) and the other two close behind.

That’s significantly quicker than the current record of 209.824 km/h (130.379 mph) for diesel-powered production cars with displacements between 2.0 and 2.5 liters. Furthermore, each of the three Mazdas also set several other average speed records over a variety of distances.

The cars covered more than 5,300 kilometers (3,293 miles) during the 24-hour period and were driven by 23 drivers from seven EU countries. The driver lineup included professionals as well as journalists and car enthusiasts, who could apply to take part as part of a campaign started by Mazda last May. Interestingly, the pit teams were made up of employees from various Mazda dealerships.

During the 1.5-hour stints spent behind the wheel, the drivers were not allowed to follow in the slipstream of a preceding car and needed to be “exceptionally careful” in the steeply banked curves at each end of the oval to avoid losing speed.

In the end it appears they did a really good job, as only 0.89 km/h (0.55 mph) of average speed separated the three Mazda6s after 24 hours.

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