At the recent Nurburgring Nordschleife race, the Mercedes-AMG One set a new lap record for a factory car. With an official lap time of 6:35.18, the AMG One beat the Porsche 911 GT2 RS Manthey to win first place two years ago. On the other hand, Mercedes thought there must be a faster time somewhere, so on September 23, 2024, it went back to the ‘Ring and set a new record with an amazing time of 6:29.09. In the end, the AMG One is the first road car ever to go faster than 6:30. Maro Engel, a Mercedes DTM driver who set both lap marks, said that the weather wasn’t great two years ago and that some parts of the course were still wet. “We wanted to prove that we knew we had more potential. Today, we successfully showcased the full capabilities of the AMG ONE. I’m grateful that the Affalterbach team believes in me. Giving me the chance to drive this record lap in such a great car was an honor. It was lucky for Mercedes that the track was in great shape this time, with a temperature of 68 degrees on the surface and 59 degrees in the air. Along the whole 13-kilometer length of the Ring, the asphalt was totally dry. So, unless a driver even more daring than Engel comes out of the AMG One, this is the fastest Mercedes is going to go. To give you an idea of how fast the Mercedes-AMG One is, the Porsche 918 Spyder Weissach Package broke the seven-minute mark at the Ring eleven years ago, in 2013. Basically, this means that the Mercedes-AMG One has a really great track record. It took almost ten years for a production car to reach a speed that was 30 seconds faster, and it doesn’t look like they will be able to do it any time soon. The AMG One is 3,736 pounds heavy and has a V6 hybrid engine that comes from Formula 1. It makes 1,063 horsepower. A mechanical drag reduction system (DRS) that works like an F1 is also on it. Think about what you need to do to do even better—that’s what it took to break 6:30. There is no doubt that this record will be broken at some point. It’s easy to guess how long it will take and what kind of machine will be used.
