Maro Engel beats previous record for road-legal production cars by a remarkable eight seconds despite less-than-ideal track conditions
The Mercedes-AMG ONE (fuel consumption weighted, combined: 8.7 l/100 km; CO2‑emissions weighted, combined: 198 g/km; electricity consumption weighted, combined: 32 kWh/100 km)[1] is the king of the Nürburgring-Nordschleife: with an officially measured and notarised time of 6:35.183 minutes for rounding the 20.832 kilometre track, the hypercar with Formula-1™ technology set a new record for road-legal production vehicles as well as in the super sports car category.
The record-breaking drives on October 28, 2022 were hard to beat in terms of excitement: at exactly 17:14:31, racing driver and AMG brand ambassador Maro Engel took to the track for the last attempt of the day and burned the new, fabulous time into the legendary and demanding Eifel asphalt. This was truly not a minute too early, because the track would have been officially closed at 17:15. Although Maro Engel had already set a new best time beforehand, the DTM driver was not yet satisfied. Towards the end of his track slot, the conditions were getting better by the minute. Thus, Maro Engel took advantage of the very last opportunity and improved the lap time to the new official record of 6:35.183 minutes. Based on the track variant known from the sport auto Super Test, the lap time is 6:30.705 minutes.
“That was really an unforgettable experience,” said Maro Engel after completing the record lap. “I didn’t expect that we would be able to set such a lap time with these track conditions. In some crucial areas of the track, it hadn’t dried completely yet and was therefore tricky. That was a special challenge. We tried to find the optimal deployment strategy during the pre-tests. Like Lewis Hamilton and George Russell on their race weekends, I also had to deploy the electrical energy of the hybrid drive in the best possible way. That’s not easy, especially with this length of track. In addition, the DRS function had to be used optimally. But that’s also a real Formula 1 feeling. I would like to thank you for this opportunity and the trust you’ve placed in me. It was definitely something very special to drive this incredible car on the Ring.”
