A Nürburgring record is newsworthy on its own. Two in the same week, from two manufacturers nobody would have listed as obvious collaborators on a leaderboard, is worth paying attention to.
The Porsche 911 GT3 RS fitted with the Manthey Kit set an official lap time of 6:45.389 on the 20.832-kilometer Nordschleife, with Jörg Bergmeister behind the wheel — nearly four seconds faster than the standard GT3 RS’s 6:49.328. Getting there required two years of development and a package that treats the GT3 RS’s already serious aero as a starting point rather than a ceiling. The kit generates over a metric ton of downforce at 285 km/h with no corresponding increase in drag, and introduces a new semi-active suspension developed specifically for this car. On the sections where road cars typically have to lift, the Manthey GT3 RS does not. Through Flugplatz and Mutkurve, Manthey claims performance comparable to a slick-tire race car, and Bergmeister’s 6:45 from a naturally aspirated 525-horsepower flat-six on street-legal Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 R tires, with a notary certifying the time, makes that claim credible.
The Mustang GTD Competition, driven by Dirk Müller, Ford’s factory and Multimatic driver, posted a 6:40.835 — more than 11 seconds quicker than the standard GTD’s previous benchmark and sixth fastest in the Nürburgring Pre-Production and Prototype class. Ford got there by touching nearly everything. Output was pushed beyond the base car’s 815 horsepower through hardware updates and aggressive calibration, rear wing modifications, secondary front dive planes, and carbon fiber aero discs were added, and weight came down through magnesium wheels, carbon bucket seats, and a lighter damper system. On the same trip, Ford Racing engineer Steve Thompson drove the GTD Competition to a 6:49.337 — faster than Müller’s original GTD record — having logged fewer than 40 total laps at the Nordschleife before that session.
The two cars run in different classes, so the four seconds between their times is not a head-to-head result. But a supercharged Mustang running quicker than a Manthey-kitted 911 on the same circuit in the same week is the kind of context Ford’s performance program has been building toward since the GTD launched, and this lap is the clearest statement of that yet. The GTD Competition will be sold as a limited, serialized special edition, with the application window reopening today.
Ford’s week at the Green Hell started earlier this month, when the GT Mk IV lapped in 6:15.977, the fastest time ever recorded by an American manufacturer and third fastest overall. If you haven’t seen the onboard, fix that.
Manufacturers have been chasing Nürburgring records for as long as there have been fast road cars, and the appetite for it clearly has not dimmed. A Manthey Porsche and a supercharged Mustang rewriting the leaderboard in the same week says more about the competitive state of high-performance road cars right now than any press release either company could write.
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