Nicky Catsburg breaks WTCC Nurburgring lap record

The new time to beat for a World Touring Car Championship lap of the Green Hell is 8m 34.813s.

In Polestar Cyan Racing’s Volvo S60-based WTCC car, young Dutch driver Nicky Catsburg set the record lap time during the second practice session for the fourth round of the 2017 season.

Though the WTCC version of the track includes the GP circuit, and is therefore longer, it’s appropriate that the record was broken just one day after Volvo’s announcement that it had held the Nordschleife record for a four-door car for a short while.

With a time of 7m 51.110s, the S60 Polestar made it around the track faster than any production car with four-doors before it. Until the manual Alfa Romeo Guilia QV came along and blew it away by about 12 seconds.

Of course, that was then beaten by a Porsche Panamera, until the Alfa came bac as an auto and blew it out of the water again. The fastest lap for a sedan now stands at 7m 32s, almost 20 seconds quicker than the Polestar.

Still, it probably would have been beneficial for Volvo to have been able to announce that the S60 Polestar held a world record.

This still doesn’t diminish the effort put in by Catsburg on his incredible lap. We found an onboard video from a slightly slower lap he undertook.

The track is hazardous at the best of times, and though it’s apparently quite sunny during this run, getting a time so low would certainly leave the adrenalin rushing.