Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series takes Nurburgring lap record

The £335,000 Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series has claimed the Nurburgring production car lap record. Affalterbach’s most extreme coupe recently set a time of 6:43.616 minutes, beating the previous record holder – the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ – by more than a second.

Mercedes says the record-setting AMG GT Black Series was only fitted with components that are available from the factory. However, in an effort to give the car an edge over the Aventador, the German firm’s engineers made the most of the GT’s adjustable chassis and aerodynamic settings to optimise the car for the Green Hell.

The standard AMG GT Black Series leaves the factory with manually adjustable suspension and manually adjustable aero. So, Mercedes set the anti-roll bars to their stiffest setting and cranked the camber up to the maximum (3.8 degrees up front and 3.0 degrees at the rear) to keep the car’s tyres in contact with the undulating surface of the track.

Mercedes also set the GT’s adjustable front splitter to its most aggressive setting which, combined with a middling angle for the rear wing, promoted sharper turn-in response – important on a track littered with 170 corners. The added benefit of running a little less downforce at the rear was a significant reduction in aerodynamic drag, which can compromise a car’s top speed.