AMG Project One Could Beat The 919's 'Ring Record, But Mercedes Isn't Keen To Try

When Porsche set an astonishing 5min 19sec Nurburgring time - smashing the all-time record - the motoring world was astonished. So busy were we watching the onboard footage with mouths agape, that we didn’t even consider if that time might ever be bettered by anyone else. Who else actually could?

Well, Mercedes-AMG reckons it could eclipse Porsche’s heavily-modified LMP1 car’s effort with the incoming 1000bhp+ Project One hypercar. There’s just one problem: Merc doesn’t want to.

“Could we beat the Porsche’s ‘Ring time? We could, probably,” AMG boss Tobias Moers told Motoring. “Theirs is a racing car that isn’t actually fit to race anywhere, in any class, anywhere. It doesn’t have any rules,” he said, adding, “We have to meet full homologation rules. We could do some things to the aero and take out the air-conditioner and fit some slightly different tyres and then I’d be confident about it.”

So it’s possible, Moers reckons, but there seems to be little will in the company to attempt the feat. “I just don’t know what we’d do it for,” he concludes. It’s highly likely we will see the F1-powered monster at the Nordschleife at some point, but if you see any videos of it popping up on YouTube, that’ll most likely be for testing rather than a record attempt. But who knows, perhaps AMG will change its mind…