FAKING NURBURGRING LAP TIMES

Nurburgring racing circuit has been the benchmark for automakers to put their cars to the test and show off their lap times proving technological advancement and capability. But recently quite a few supercars have been in the news for their record making and record breaking lap times surprising the car community. Automakers prove their competitive advantage by making lap record and flaunting the numbers and that makes sense as car enthusiasts are more likely to buy high performing machines. Due to which some automakers have been in the news by FAKING lap times.

The genuine record breaker

Porsche 911 GT2 RS

The Porsche 911 GT2 RS was unveiled long ago at good-wood, since then it has been a matter of discussion in the car world, and it was all sold out just after launch with people paying about $150,000 over sticker. Few months go by and our dear Porsche is still in the news breaking all records at the Nurburgring race track. And now some people suddenly realize its value and start putting deposits for Porsche GT2 RS , and not to mention its value will appreciate to about $750,000 - $800,000 when it lands in the market while it's still not clear how many cars will be made. GT2 RS which broke the record had the Weissach package. Porsche has genuinely made the record by lapping it in 6:47.30 breaking the Lamborghini Huracan Performantes record which has been controversial, the 911 GT2 RS is also faster than the 918 by 10 seconds. GT2 RS which broke the record had the Weissach package.

Faking Lap times

Lamborghini Huracan Performante

Well it would be fair if I used the word “faking” but the Lamborghini Huracan Performantes record has led to a controversy because of the fact that they used “slicks” rather than the stock tyres and reported the numbers due to which the people feel deceived because the car is not capable of that performance on stock settings.

Some people who have analysed the released data claim that the speedometer data in the video was being overlapped by the  Lamborghini Aventador LP 750-4 SV’s Nürburgring lap time from 2015. Another peculiar thing happened when at around time of 4:28-minute mark in the Performantes video (shown above), the speed inexplicably jumps from 131 kph to 160 kph and then to 190 kph “in just two frames, or 0.08 seconds, if we should believe the timer.” Which means they also increased the frame rate of the video.

Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio

 Another car in the news for faking the lap time is Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio (SUV), this has led to a controversy again because there are cuts in the footage of the camera in the cabin, earlier the SUV was in the news for being the fastest SUV around Nurburgring beating the Porsche Cayenne Turbo S, with only a 505 HP producing Turbocharged V6 which looks like it can’t even do that on paper  :P

The Solution

Nurburgring has decided not to allow automakers to test cars at the circuit unless they set up a committee to check the frauds and see that all the tests are being conducted in a fair manner, i.e they will perform checks that the cars are using regular tyres, the engine is stock and not specially tuned and perform other regular check ups.



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