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Lamborghini Responds to the Haters

Lamborghini has given the world GPS telemetry of the lap that broke Nurburgring production car lap record, following internet speculation that the lap uploaded to YouTube (below) was fake.

The skepticism was fueled by a couple of key factors, like Pirelli’s admission that they had made special tires for the car, a speedometer that reads lower speeds than other cars’, and claims that Lamborghini had stitched the lap together from multiple takes.

Frankly, it’s not hard to see why people are skeptical. The Huracan Performante’slap is incredible. Supercars aren’t supposed to beat hypercars (the Huracan Performante took the lap record from the Porsche 918) around big tracks, but one by one the above doubts have been addressed by Lambo.

First, the tires are specially designed almost-slicks from Pirelli, but they’re also street legal and available to customers, so that’s kosher. That said, Jim Glickenhaus, no stranger to the Nurburgring, doesn’t believe that road tires can handle a lap of the Nurburgring at these speeds, citing “physics.”

The question of the speed, meanwhile, is a little more complicated, but it essentially boils down to the fact that the indicated speed at any given point, though persuasive, isn’t necessarily an honest appraisal of a lap time. A lap time is made up of 6 minutes and 52 seconds (or whatever) of ever changing speeds that may or may not be measured correctly, so the fact that the Aventador indicated higher top speeds at certain points isn’t all that damning.

Finally, there’s the stitching together a lap time theory (and associated video-trickery theories), which GPS telemetry that Lamborghini handed over to Roadshow on the floor of the Geneva Motor Show suggests didn’t happen.

At this point anyone who doesn’t believe that the Huracan Performante finished that particular lap in 6:52.01 is unlikely to have their mind changed and, honestly? That’s great. Either Lamborghini has made car that is literally unbelievably fast, or it’s publicly cheated, which is a) hilarious and b) one of the most entertaining episodes of automotive one uppery in recent memory.

Either way, we’ve achieved a point in the design of road cars where humans are capable of, according to Jim Glickenhaus, challenging the laws of physics. It’s the kind of thing that people look back on, wishing they had been there for.

[source: Roadshow]

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