Two years ago, Honda had a crack at breaking the front-wheel drive production car record at the Nurburgring with the Civic Type-R and managed to do so in a time of 7 minutes 43.8 seconds. However, the Civic has just had to hand over the crown to Renault’s Megane RS Trophy-R.
The official record for front-wheel drive cars, around the 20.6 kilometre track at least, now stands at 7 minutes 40.10 seconds, beating the Civic’s time by more than three seconds. The official time for the whole lap length of the 20.832 km Nordschleife, however, is 7:45.389. The man who was responsible for setting this new Nurburgring record was Laurent Hurgon. Hurgon isn’t unfamiliar with the notorious German track, as he did a lap time in the previous-generation Megane RS Trophy-R in 7:54.36.
What powered the Megane RS Trophy-R to its victory at the ‘Ring? Well, the car has the same 296 horsepower (220 kW), 1.8-litre turbo engine that you find in the normal RS Trophy, however, the R has gone on a diet and as a result, weighs a significant 130 kilograms less than the Trophy. The people at Renault also fettled with the chassis to ensure the Trophy-R is as track-focused as possible.
Renault will only be making” a few hundred units” of the R version of the Trophy, so perhaps a handful will be making their way to South Africa.
Watch the record-breaking lap in the video below:
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