By Jeff Glucker
Way back in 1999, Nick Heidfeld drove the wheels of a McLaren MP4/13. He was racing along the Goodwood Hill Climb course during the Festival of Speed. Heidfeld set an amazing time of 41.60 seconds. That time stood tall as the fastest run… until 2019, when it’s been unseated by an electric race car.
The Volkswagen ID.R, which has already done amazing things at the Nürburgring and Pikes Peak, has a new notch in its title belt. Romain Dumas has once again done a bit of wizardry from behind the wheel. The new fastest time is now 39.90.
Click play on the video above to watch how it all went down.
I saw a comment that for safety reasons (provided by straw bales) they have not let cars run that would go below 45 seconds, but for $ome rea$on made an exception for the VW this year.
I did wonder about that…not that an MP4/13 is slow, but it seemed a bit odd to me that nothing in the 20 years between then and now was able to top it until, suddenly: electric prototype.
Then again, how do they determine that they’re dealing with a sub-45-sec car in order to be able to ban it…?
Probably not too hard as they have plenty of other examples to compare it against. Anything really fast (eg newer F1 cars) doesn’t go for flat-out speed.
I was thinking the same thing. When are they going to ban the VW. Otherwise we are going to see some really extreme electrics that are going to start to roll up the hill and I don’t mean on their tires.
I was thinking the same thing. When are they going to ban the VW. Otherwise we are going to see some really extreme electrics that are going to start to roll up the hill and I don’t mean on their tires.