Video gallery: ten of the lairiest Nürburgring laps

We suspect Marco Mapelli's face may have been attached to a few dartboards in Stuttgart and Woking.

This is because Marco Mapelli drives for Lamborghini, and managed to drive a specific Lamborghini around the 12.9-mile Nürburgring Nordschliefe in just 6m 44.97s. The Lamborghini in question? The Aventador SVJ.

That time makes it two seconds quicker than a 911 GT2 RS, and a massive 15 seconds faster than the old Aventador SV. Thank new ALA v2.0 (active aero), four wheel steering, 40 per cent more downforce, retuned 4WD and suspension, plus another 20bhp from the 6.5-litre V12 for a 760bhp total.

A canary yellow, modified 964-era 911. A power output of 496bhp. A 0-60mph time of 3.7 seconds. A kerbweight of 1150kg. A ‘Stefan Roser' on board, and a beautiful, sunny Nürburgring to play on.

No helmet. No gloves. No fireproofs. Just the ultimate expression of the Lairy Nürburgring Lap. Can this video ever be topped?

Andreas is the chief instructor for the Nürburgring driving academy. From this we can deduce he is possessed of some talent.

And here he demonstrates just how many cubic inches his gentleman onions occupy on planet earth as he navigates a rain-soaked Nürburgring at full chat in a single-seat formula racer.

Suffice to say, the car wants to dance. Constantly.

Watch and weep, Internet. Watch. And. Weep. Oh, and Andreas is also pretty handy in the snow, too.

Six minutes, 48 seconds. That's how long it took Michael Vergers and the Radical SR8 LM to smash through the Nürburgring's then production car lap record.

A custom Powertec 2.6-litre V8 powered the British-made Radical into the record books. That and the size of Vergers' massive... talent, naturally.

It's two wheels short of a full set, and is therefore infinitely more terrifying. Wobbling on top of the modified Yamaha was Brit Andy Carlie, who rode round in 7m10s.

Oh, and he bought the bike - crash damaged - for just £4000.

Step forward Leh Keen and his Porsche GT3 R. With a camera strapped to his helmet, Keen recorded several flat-out laps of the Green Hell during the 24 Hours of Nürburgring. In pitch black. With barely any visibility.

He claims to have survived the rain soaked track by using the guardrail as a reference. Conditions were so bad that, immediately after, the red flag came out for nine hours.

For sheer fearless insanity, Leh earns a deserved place on our list.

Nick Heidfeld doesn't scare easily, does he? Not content with piloting a McLaren Formula One car up the Goodwood hill in 1999 for an all-time record, Quick Nick later strapped himself into a BMW Sauber F1.06 and raced around the Nürburgring.

Heidfeld clocked an apparently tardy lap of 8m34s, but remember the attempt was slowed because it was a publicity stunt. BMW engineers reckoned that an F1 car could do a lap in under 5m15s. And Heidfeld has always wanted to go back to set the, um, record straight...

It's Hans Joachim Stuck, on the Nürburgring, in a BMW M3 GTR. It sounds astonishing. It looks even more so. Enjoy.

A Top Gear favourite, the Zonda R, and for good reason. It's completely useless in the real world because you can't drive it on the road and it doesn't qualify for any race series.

But it does qualify as bloody mad, because it's got a 740bhp 6.0-litre AMG racing V12, the gearbox from a racing car, and enough noise to bring down a mountain.

Small wonder the very-much-non-road-legal Zonda R managed a lap time of 6m47s. That makes it ten seconds faster than the Ferrari 599XX. Yowser.

A visit to the internet-comment-baiting Nordschleife determined the Alfa Giulia's place in the modern performance car hierarchy. A rather committed looking 7m 32s lap – with test driver Fabio Francia at the wheel – once made it the fastest saloon on sale, beating the 40bhp more powerful Porsche Panamera Turbo by a full eight seconds.

And it's as lairy as they come.