It seems as though chasing the lap record at the Green Hell has become the order of the day for manufacturers. The current production car lap record at the Nurburgring was set not so long ago by the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ and already competitors are out for blood. Tesla boss, Elon Musk for one, is confident that the new Roadster will break Lamborghini’s record.
Quite recently, news broke out that a Tesla Model S prototype lapped the notorious Green Hell significantly faster than Porsche’s Taycan Turbo. Soon after this, a curious Tesla fan went on Twitter to try to find out what the Roadster will achieve on the German circuit, asking if it will beat the Aventador SVJ’s time of 6:44.97 and luckily Musk gave her a very short yet confident response and tweeted “Absolutely”.
Unveiled as a prototype nearly two years ago, Tesla’s new EV will hit production lines boasting the ‘Roadster’ nameplate. It is set to take to the Nurburgring with at least three electric motors and a rather enormous 200 kWh battery pack good for up to 1,000 km of driving range. The powertrain is set to produce around 1,341 hp (1,000 kW) and 1,200 Nm of torque to result in a claimed 0-100 km/h sprint time of 2.1 seconds with 160 km/h being dealt with in just 2 seconds anon before topping out at 410 km/h. Tesla also promises an even quicker version of the Roadster topping the range with rocket thrusters – but let’s take this with a pinch of salt for now.
As mentioned earlier, there’s quite a few manufacturers looking to own bragging rights of the Nurburgring. Aston Martin, for instance, has sought help from Red Bull Racing to bring a 1,160 hp (865 kW) Valkyrie. The Red Bull racing team principal Christian Horner says the full-on track version of Aston’s new hypercar “could be a contender” chasing the 5:19.545 record set by Porsche’s 919 Hybrid Evo. Speaking of British brands, Lotus also considers summoning its forthcoming all-electric 1,973 hp (1,471 kW) Evija to the Green Hell. And let’s not forget that there’s also the Mercedes-AMG One which is worth losing sleep over for challengers.
It is almost obvious then that the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ’s days as king of the ‘Ring are numbered. With Tesla being so optimistic about the Roadster beating Lamborghini’s record, it will be interesting to see how much faster it will be against the Raging Bull.