Maro Engel with the new Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series.
NURBURG, GERMANY – Mercedes-AMG’s most powerful road car ever has just gained a new claim to fame, pushing Lamborghini’s Aventador SVJ off its throne as the fastest production car around the Nürburgring Nordschleife.
But only just.
With GT3 racing driver Maro Engel behind the wheel, the new Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series made it around the Nordschleife section of the Nürburgring in just 6 minutes, 43.616 seconds, albeit that’s only marginally faster than the Lambo SVJ’s time of 6:44.97, attained in 2018.
But a win is a win.
The AMG’s officially measured and notarized lap time was recorded on the 20.6km section of the track measured without the T13 straight section. This is how the records were determined prior to 2019, but with the T13 strait added the GT’s time would be 6:48.047.
Faster than Maro’s race car
“That was a really impressive ride,” Maro Engel enthused after the record lap.
“With speeds of up to almost 270km/h in the Kesselchen section of the track and well over 300km/h on the long Döttinger Höhe straight, the AMG GT Black Series is significantly faster than my GT3 race car.
“To finally drive around the Nordschleife in 6:48.047 minutes with a production road car in these track conditions is really awesome. Like my GT3 race car, the AMG GT Black Series offers a lot of adjustment possibilities, all of which enabled me to create a setup that was tailor-made for me.”
Most powerful AMG ever
As mentioned, the Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series is the Affalterbach-based performance division’s most potent road car ever. Its 4-litre twin-turbo V8 produces 537kW between 6700 and 6900rpm and 800Nm from 2000 revs. This allows for a claimed 0-100km/h time of 3.2 seconds, while 200km/h is said to come up in just under nine seconds. Mercedes AMG quotes a top speed of 325km/h.
Power goes to the rear wheels only, through a modified Speedshift DCT 7G transmission, which is located on the rear axle for optimal weight distribution.
On the chassis front, the GT Black Series features a bespoke AMG coil-over suspension with adaptive damping.
There is plenty of race-derived aerodynamic trickery too, including a carbon fibre front splitter and large rear wing, both of which are adjustable.