Porsche 918 shatters Nurburgring record

Look out Ferrari and McLaren, Porsche's new 918 Spyder hypercar may have blown you out of the water.

Freshly unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show, Porsche revealed the plug-in 918 has absolutely demolished the lap record at the infamous Nurburgring, setting a time of... 6m57s.

That's an astonishing time for a car on road-legal tyres, and one that's just nine seconds slower than the official 'production car' yardstick set by the hard-core, track-prepped Radical SR8LM.

More to the point, it’s a time that should have Ferrari and McLaren shaking in their boots.

Reports last week suggested the McLaren P1 had clocked a time of 7m04s at the 'ring, with the Ferrari LaFerrari expected to be in the same ballpark.

The 918's time in even more impressive when you consider, that on paper at least, it's at a significant disadvantage to the P1 and LaFerrari.

Weighing in at over 1650kg the 918 is not only heavier than the P1 (1400kg) and lightweight LaFerrari (1270kg) but is down on grunt too.

Porsche says the 918's superior technology, like sophisticated torque vectoring and advanced four-wheel drive are the keys to its success. And looking at its lap time, its hard to argue with the result.

So the race of the new hypercars is on. Can Ferrari and McLaren do better?