Rumble in the Green Hell
Late last week, Porsche announced that it had utterly smashed the longstanding Nurburgring lap record with their modified (derestricted) LMP1 racer, the 919 Hybrid Evo. The record fall came soon after the same car broke the all time record for Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium in early April.
It was a monumental achievement to undo any lap time that has been standing for over 30 years which, ironically, was set by another Le Mans-spec Porsche back in 1983: the Rothmans 956 C driven by Stefan Bellof. But to beat it by a 51.58 seconds is truly astounding.
That said, not everyone’s impressed. Christian Horner, one Team Principal of Red Bull Racing, is one such example. At the Austrian Formula 1 Grand Prix that same weekend, he mused to attendant race fans that the Aston Martin Valkyrie, which was developed with the racing team and designed primarily by Adrian Newey, the team’s Chief Engineer, could be in with a shot at beating it.
Although admitting doubts that a Formula 1 car could wind up beating it due to race restrictions and the inherently unideal nature of open wheel racers with relation to aerodynamics, Horner did say that “certainly the track version of the Valkyrie [AMR Pro] — could be a contender.”
A no-compromise hypercar in its own right, the Valkyrie (previously known as the AM-RB-001) still needs to conform to some basic parameters for it to be deemed road legal, which is probably why he tempered expectations by specifying the potential record beater to be a race-prepared Valkyrie.
It’s still much too early to say, though, how much credence we should lend to this claim given that the world still knows precious little about the final car aside from some beautifully shot photographs and some details on its hybrid powertrain.
Slated to cost upwards of 4.5 million Australian Dollars when it is finished, no expense has been spared in developing the Valkyrie, the culmination of years of collaboration between Aston Martin and the UK-based Red Bull Racing team.
Mixing both company’s knowledge of motorsport to design its uniquely contoured and aerodynamically active body, with some claiming it to produce over 1,800kg of maximum downforce, the Valkyrie’s thrust is supplied by hybrid powertrain with tech lifted straight out of Formula 1, melding a naturally aspirated V12 with a powerful electric motor and high flow battery system for a combined output of over 750kW.
Should the Valkyrie succeed in snatching the Nurburgring title away from Porsche, no small bragging point for the Brits, it could be at risk of holding on to it for period just as brief as F1 rivals Mercedes-AMG also have a hybrid hypercar in development stuffed full of know-how borrowed from their racing efforts.
More that that, the Mercedes-AMG Project One will actually be powered by a slightly modified version of the M08 EQ power unit that powered Lewis Hamilton’s winning W08 racer to the 2017 F1 driver’s championship and Mercedes-AMG Petronas to that year’s constructor’s title.
But who knows, perhaps they’ll shy away from needing to prove themselves fastest around the Nurburgring and take the record back to Germany? Not likely.
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