Has Maserati smashed Nurburgring record?

Maserati is claiming to have smashed the Nurburgring production lap record.

However the "production" status of its contender is questionable.

A report from Brit magazine Evo says their team took a Maserati MC12 around the 20km loop in just 7:24.29 minutes.

A German collector loaned his garage for the exercise, which resulted in a shoot-out between the Maserati, Ferrari Enzo, Koenigsegg CCX, Pagani Zonda F Clubsport and Porsche Carrera GT, with American Le Mans Series race driver, Marc Basseng, behind the wheels.

And although the Koenigsegg CCX was fastest in a straight line, it couldn’t fully unleash its 672kW on the Ring’s series of corners and hills.

The Pagani took second place in the shoot-out, followed by the Ferrari and then the Porsche – in which Basseng matched the time set by the legendary Walter Rohrl during the final testing of the Carrera GT.

According to a jubilant Maserati press blurb, the magazine concluded that while it was not the quickest on the straights, the Maserati MC-12 “triumphed thanks to the balanced chassis and race-bred aerodynamics and an engine that provided easily accessible power, a combination that enabled Basseng to get the power earlier and harder than its rivals”.

The Maserati MC12 is a grand tourer produced by Maserati to allow a racing variant to compete in the FIA GT Championship. The car entered production in 2004 with 30 cars produced (five of which were not for sale). A further 25 were produced in 2005 making a total of 50 cars available for customers, each of which were pre-sold for €600 000 … well over the million mark in Australia’s plummeting currency.

But this means the car's production status could be questioned, since it's not available for sale.

The MC12 carries a mid-rear mounted 6.0-litre Enzo Ferrari-derived V12 engine. Each cylinder has four valves, lubricated via a dry sump system, and a compression ratio of 11.2:1. These combine to provide a maximum torque of 652Nm at 5500 rpm and a maximum power of 465kW at 7500 rpm.

Power gets to the wheels via a rear-mounted, six-speed semi-automatic transmission, which is a retuned version of the one in the Enzo, called the Cambiocorsa in the MC12.

The car officially gets to 100km/h 3.8 seconds, although some testers have claimed to shave that by 0.01sec, and has a top speed of 330km/h.

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