The Volkswagen I.D. R is on a record-breaking spree

Should Volkswagen Motorsport consider renaming its all-electric racecar to “I.D. R. Nürburgring”?

Next only to the Porsche 919 Hybrid Evo at Nürburgring-Nordschleife

6:05.336 minutes. That’s the time it took for the Volkswagen I.D. R to lap around the revered Nürburgring-Nordschleife circuit! Let’s take a moment for that to sink in. The Nürburgring-Nordschleife is one of the most difficult, if not, the most difficult track (according to the boffins in Volkswagen) on God’s Green Earth (it also has a nickname of Green Hell). The I.D.R holds the lap record for electric cars at Nurburgring. The all time record holder is still the Porsche 919 Hybrid Evo.

The record

While everyone was wondering if the I.D. R could outrun the previous lap record, the I.D. R put all those doubts to rest today. The Volkswagen I.D. R - with Porsche’s Factory driver and winner of multiple 24 Hours of Le Mans - Romain Dumas at the helm, shattered the previous all-electric lap record held by NIO EP9 (6:45.90 minutes, with Peter Dumbreck behind the wheel in 2017) by a staggering 40.564 seconds! Peter raced the car at an average speed of 185kmph back then. The average speed of the I.D. R was 204.96kmph!

Romain Dumas, after setting the record

 “For me, this is the best and most difficult race track in the world. I want to thank the team at Volkswagen Motorsport, who have once again done a fantastic job. The ID.R was perfectly prepared for the Nordschleife and it was so much fun to experience the blistering acceleration and rapid cornering speeds.”

Changes to the I.D. R

Volkswagen Motorsport had made many tweaks to the aerodynamics of I.D. R after the record-setting climb at Pikes Peak to suit the conditions at the Nürburgring. It took them a total of five months to prep the car for the record run. The company concentrated on achieving maximum speed rather than maximum downforce. They fine-tuned the chassis, energy management, and tyres after numerous simulations and test laps at the track. Powering the I.D. R are two motors with a system capacity of 670.5 horses and 650Nm.

It is a complicated track, the Green Hell. So much so that many manufacturers have made camp there to set new lap times. The track has played an important role in the handling and performance aspects of modern cars – from sports to hypercars. The 20.832km long Nürburgring circuit has 73 turns, with elevation changes of approx. 300 meters between the highest and lowest points on the track.

With this record run, Volkswagen Motorsport’s I.D. R has become the fastest emission free racecar around the Green Hell. It is a hat trick for the company after the all-electric racecar made its debut last year at the 19.99km long Pikes Peak hill climb (it was called the I.D. R Pikes Peak). It set a time of 7.57.148 (m.s.ms) sending shockwaves through the automotive fraternity – we are talking about an all-electric race car that has made its IC engine counterparts look like ordinary cars fitted with oversized front and rear wings. It was not an ordinary feat, as Romain Dumas became the first driver in 100 years to complete the run in less than eight minutes.

Carrying the same momentum forward, the I.D. R set its sights at the Goodwood Festival of Speed - which incidentally celebrated its 25^th anniversary in 2018 - to create another record. It did and how – it took just 43.86 seconds to complete the 1.86km run. It bettered the all-electric record, set in 2013, by 3.48 seconds. However, it could not beat the all-time record of 41.6 seconds set by former F1 driver Nick Heidfeld in a McLaren-Mercedes MP4/13 Formula 1 car, two decades ago.

Within a year, the I.D. R has created three records at three different iconic places steeped with motorsport history – the Pikes Peak, Goodwood FOS and the Green Hell. With another record in their kitty, Volkswagen Motorsport has demonstrated to the world once again the extreme nature of electric racecars.  

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