On October 28, 2022, the Mercedes-AMG One, with DTM racing driver Maro Engel behind the wheel, achieved the fastest lap time for a road-legal production car at the Nürburgring-Nordschleife circuit in Germany.
Despite the lap being conducted in sub-optimal conditions, with air and asphalt temperatures sitting just below 20°C, the AMG One achieved an official lap time at the 20.832km circuit of 6:35.183 minutes, eight seconds faster than any road-legal production car before it.
The Mercedes-AMG One hypercar features Formula 1 hybrid-drive technology and benefits from a combustion engine and four electric motors. The vehicle’s E Performance hybrid delivers a total of 1,078ps with a limited top speed of 352km/h.
Additional motorsport technologies feature such as a carbon monocoque and carbon body, attached to the engine and transmission unit as a stressed member. AMG’s Performance 4MATIC+ all‑wheel drive system also features with a hybrid-driven rear axle and electrically driven front axle with torque vectoring.
When conducting the record lap engineers set the vehicle’s suspension to its maximum camber values and the Race Plus driving program was selected by Engel, ensuring the vehicle delivered maximum active aerodynamics and tight chassis tuning in combination with the vehicle being lowered by 37mm at the front axle and 30mm at the rear. The Race Plus program also enables full power from all motors.
During the lap Maro Engel had to be sensible with the AMG One’s energy management, meaning he did not accelerate to the vehicle’s maximum potential on certain sections of the track to conserve power. This was achieved by using the vehicle’s four-stage Energy Flow Control and lifting and coasting during some sections of the track. In the braking sections energy recovery was used and on the Döttinger Höhe section of the circuit the high-performance battery delivered enough power to achieve a speed of 338km/h.
“That was really an unforgettable experience,” said Maro Engel after completing the record lap. “I didn’t expect that we would be able to set such a lap time with these track conditions. In some crucial areas of the track, it hadn’t dried completely yet and was therefore tricky. That was a special challenge. We tried to find the optimal deployment strategy during the pre-tests. Like Lewis Hamilton and George Russell on their race weekends, I also had to deploy the electrical energy of the hybrid drive in the best possible way. That’s not easy, especially with this length of track. In addition, the DRS function had to be used optimally. But that’s also a real Formula 1 feeling.”
“Even though the AMG One is certainly more at home on a Grand Prix circuit than on the Nordschleife – as is so often the case with this project – we’ve simply gone one step further. We’re the first ever to have taken on the challenges of the Nürburgring with a super sports car. That’s also what makes this project so unique and I’m very happy about this fantastic lap time,” said Philipp Schiemer, chairman of the board of management, Mercedes‑AMG.
