Geneva Motor Show | Lamborghini Huracán Performante record at the Nürburgring

Watching onboard laps of the Nurburgring Nordschleife used to be a serious time investment.

Increasingly, however, it’s becoming less of a lunchtime activity and more of a quick cup of coffee affair. Lamborghini was a late comer to the party, probably because wrestling a Diablo or Murcielago around the high-speed circuit wasn’t much fun, but it’s now the new king of the ‘Ring.

Its Aventador SV raised eyebrows with an impressive 6min59sec lap in 2015, just two seconds slower than the mega-dollar Porsche 918 Spyder, however now its forthcoming Huracan Performante, set for a public debut at the Geneva Motor Show, has knocked off the hybrid hypercar with a stunning 6min52.01sec lap.

This makes the Huracan Performante the fastest production car ever around the Nurburgring, beaten only by super-focused track cars like the Radical SR8LM. The driver, as with the Aventador SV, was Italian racer Marco Mapelli.

While the Performante adheres to the traditional recipe of more power and less weight, the real key to its speed is its clever new active aerodynamics setup. Using three electrically-operated flaps the car can shed drag on the straights (hitting a maximum of 304km/h) while adding downforce when it’s needed most.

It’s amazing that production road cars are now not far off the ultimate race car records for the Green Hell. Stefan Bellof still holds the record on the current 20.8km loop, his pole position lap for the 1983 Nurburgring 1000km race taking just 6min11.13sec.

Niki Lauda holds the F1 lap record at 6min58.2sec, however that was set on the longer 22.835km circuit. Which car will be next to lower the record mark? Porsche 911 GT2? Koenigsegg One:1? Or will lap record attempts be outlawed once again?