That’s twice in a row!
The Prodrive-tuned Subaru WRX STI has broken its own lap record around the Isle of Man TT course, which is the second out of a total three attempts driver Mark Higgins is due to make around the street course.
His lap time, the new record, stands at 17 minutes and 35.139 seconds to finish the 60.37km course, with average speed of 206km/h. During Higgins’ first go ‘round, he posted a time roughly 5 seconds slower than his faster second attempt.
Upon completing the record run, Higgins remarked to Autocar UK that there was scope to improve the time even further. Conditions were less than ideal with a higher ambient temperature that caused the car to “move around a bit towards the end of the lap.”
Despite sharing the basic body shape with the Subaru WRX STI, there very little of the original car that has been allowed onto the record-breaking Isle of Man Time Attack Car. Heavily modified by famed tuning outfit and WRC collaborator Prodrive, the WRX STI here has been entirely revised to deliver 447kW and 542Nm of torque from the 2.0-litre turbocharged flat-four Boxer engine.
All that power is delivered to all four wheels through a WRC-spec sequential transmission and has to propel a car lightened to just 1,200kg. It’s little wonder that the car was able to achieve such a high average speed over the TT course, having spending at least 75 percent of it at full throttle.
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