Seven minutes for the Nordschleife? Sabine Schmitz could have done that with a van.

But honestly, ther are a Lot of production cars that went considerably faster. And the non-production Porsche 919 Hybrid EVO did it in 5:19, which is an entirely different league.

> Porsche 919 Hybrid EVO did it in 5:19

If anyone hasn't seen this, I highly recommend it, even if you're not a car fan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQmSUHhP3ug

Insane. 368 top speed, I can't even watch it without flinching. The first time it hit seventh gear I was like: "what, one more?".

That just looks unreal. I wonder if this is reaching the point where a driver can't keep up anymore.

They study the cars and the track in and out for years beforehand - this isn't top power level of even most Nordschleife specialists

They can do better

what is "boost"? my car does not have that

It's the KERS (kinetic energy recovery system). It's battery power that's collected from braking (perhaps some other additional sources) that can be released by the driver when they choose. Similar to F1 car systems in the early 2010s.

It's not that. You only see the "BOOST" indicator when coming out of curves; if this were a turbocharger you'd see it all along the straightaways.

Someone else mentioned KERS (kinetic energy recovery system); that seems a lot more likely.

It’s the amount of boost provided by the turbocharger. Your car very well may have that.

This is why the Ring is the absolute benchmark of how well rounded a car is.

>of how well rounded a car is.

For performance applications. None of these cars are great daily drivers.

The Taycan is

… to quote James May!

That's not the point of the Nordschleife :-)

A lot of the cars for which lap times are an marketable feature are at least decent daily drivers.

These are not those cars though.

and here we learn that fast and a straight line does not necessarily mean fastest round the track.

There is a “car” in my hometown in Coventry that goes (I think) 700 mph, but I can only do it in a straight line because it’s powered by two turbo jet engines

It broke the sound barrier too! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThrustSSC

Oh, it's still the fastest car in the world!

That's really cool, I thought it was surpassed :D

And it is very difficult to fine a straight road that is long enough to reach the top speed. At the Volkswagen test track the Bugatti had to leave the oval with 200km/h to reach top speed on the connected 9km straight track.

> Seven minutes for the Nordschleife? Sabine Schmitz could have done that with a van.

Sabine Shmitz did the 19,100m length in 10:08.49 using the ford transit van.

That's a far cry from 7:14

I did not expect that anyone would take the first part of my comment seriously, but here we go.

However, this year a Ford SuperVan 4.2 made the Nordschleife in 6:48.393, so even without Sabine Schmitz a van was faster than the BYD.

There’s no point comparing apples to deep fried oreos for caloric density. The 919 Evo is a fully de-restricted prototype based off a legendary homologated race car, not remotely in the same category. The BYD U9 is a road-legal EV, comparing the two doesn’t mean much.

Funny you mention the Ford SuperVan because that’s much closer to the 919 Evo in the "no homologation no limits" category than anything you could register and drive off a lot. A fairer and much more impressive benchmark is the road-legal Ford Mustang GTD running a 6:52. That's still far quicker than the BYD, with roughly two thousand less horsepower.

Its a Van shell on a racecar. Real unofficial Van record was beat this year by DannyDC2 in a VW Caddy https://dannydc2.com/blogs/news/we-unofficially-beat-a-nurbu...

> I did not expect that anyone would take the first part of my comment seriously, but here we go.

> However, this year a Ford SuperVan 4.2 made the Nordschleife in 6:48.393, so even without Sabine Schmitz a van was faster than the BYD.

You are spouting such absurdities, that is a van in name only:

https://carbuzz.com/nurburgring-ford-supervan-42-lap-record-...

And it was driven by Romain Dumas someone far more qualified to set such a record than Sabine Shmitz - despite your "even without Sabine Shmitz" disingenuous wording. Sabine is half television personality half racing driver...

It's the fastest EV lap currently.

On the one hand this is quite an achievement, but on the other hand it shows that EVs are not (yet) superior to ICEs in every aspect except range.

I was watching the U9 speed record and the driver only really puts his foot down for 20 seconds or so. I doubt the car can sustain that power for a whole lap without something going wrong - overheating or flat battery or something.

The downforce to weight ratio is quite different between the U9 and Porsche also. Apparently the Porsche weighed 850kg and probably produced as much as that or more in downforce. The U9 is more like 2500kg and not especially downforce orientated.

There's another eclectic design though, the McMurty that laps thing faster than petrol cars due to having a fan up the downforce https://youtu.be/5JYp9eGC3Cc I don't think it has a Nurburgring time yet.

They'll perhaps never be faster due to weight limitations from the battery. Gasoline is just so light compared to batteries, and the car becomes lighter as the lap goes further and gasoline is used.

Here's Sabine Schmitz falling to break 10 mins in a van https://youtu.be/5KiC03_wVjc Although with a slightly quicker van maybe.

Weight matters. Electric cars are generally heavier.