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Following Lamborghini’s announcement that its new Huracan Performante set a record lap around the 12.9-mile Nürburgring Nordschleife, Ferrari’s chief technical officer told Top Gear that the Italian automaker couldn’t care less about those lap times.
When talking to Top Gear in Geneva during the big auto show this week, CTO Michael Leiters said that Ferrari will not join in on the record lap time frenzy following Lamborghini’s announcement.
“I don’t want to follow this announcement”, Leiters said to Top Gear. “We never announce times [for our cars]. For me, the Nürburgring is a technical target, an engineering target. It is the most challenging circuit, and it’s true, if you are quick at the ‘Ring, your car will tend to behave very well on normal streets, because you need a set-up that’s less hard than a racing set-up.”
He added, “[But]…there are so many things that can have an impact, and so many variables you can play with to set a lap record…I don’t like that. For me, a lap time is just an internal engineering target. I’m not thinking about setting records.”
Lamborghini’s 6:52 lap time stirred controversy after being analyzed by several ‘Ring experts. After a closer look, it appeared that Lamborghini’s digital speedometer that was overlayed on the automaker’s YouTube video did not match up with the actual speedo on the car’s gauge cluster.
The Nordschleife lap time discussion also came up with Ferrari in August 2016 when the company was being pressured to release a ‘Ring time for the FXX K.
Leiters also said that the company would not be making a habit of pumping out fresh new hypercars just to compete with the likes of Aston Martin’s Valkyrie or the Mercedes-AMG Project One.
“Our philosophy is not to present a new LaFerrari every ten years” Leiters said. “We want to present a new supercar when we have defined a new roadmap of innovations and technology. And only if we are convinced that the combination of this innovation will create the new stage of Ferrari performance, will we develop a new supercar.”
Find the whole talk with Leiters on Top Gear’s website.
