It’s official! Volkswagen ID.R is the fastest electric vehicle on Nordschleife. Romain Dumas drove the 13-mile course in 6:05.336 minutes, beating the previous record by 40.564 seconds.
In 2017, the Chinese Formula E race car NIO EP9 completed its fastest lap in 6:45.90 minutes.
To prepare for its record run, Volkswagen’s engineering team spent 4 mounts developing an entirely new body and aerodynamic package for the vehicle. Volkswagen Motorsport spent May in Nurburg, testing and tuning the car at the track.
Volkswagen Motorsport Director – Sven Smeets commented:
“This impressive success story is the result of meticulous preparation by our engineers, the flawless work by the whole team during testing and of course a perfect driving performance by Romain Dumas.”
The record is the 3rd one for ID.R in the last 12 months, after setting the outright world record at Pikes Peak and the EV record at Goodwood Festival of Speed.
For all intents and purposes, Volkswagen has completed their goal. They came for the electric lap record and they secured it with absolute dominance.
Romain Dumas achieved an average speed of 127.35 mph, which is 85% of the ID.R’s top speed. The onboard video shows he was flat out on the throttle most of the time, going as fast as the car will allow him to. We didn’t expect less from the 4-time winner of the 24 Hours of Nurburgring race.
However, he was ultimately was 45.79 seconds slower than Timo Bernhard. Last year, Porsche’s test driver piloted their LMP1 race car – 919 Hybrid EVO in 5:19.546 minutes, setting an outright world record.
For Volkswagen, the limiting factor was the car. ID.R lacks 464 horsepower and has some 600 lb in excess compared to 919 EVO. The batteries capacity and discharge are limited and it’s thanks to regenerative braking that Dumas is even capable of reaching the finish line.
At the same time, Porsche shares some of the advantages of electric propulsion, while keeping the battery size and dependence to a minimum.
It was never going to happen. But it will happen in the future.
Porsche 919’s turbocharged V4 is preceded by more than a century of technological evolution. If not already, we will soon reach the limit of the internal combustion engine, whereas battery technology and electric propulsion are yet to unfold their full potential.
With automakers turning increasingly towards electrification, the internal combustion engine is living out its last decade of motorsports supremacy.
Second best on the world’s most difficult track is still an incredible achievement. Congratulations to Volkswagen Motorsport and Romain Dumas for the amazing performance!