Ride onboard the VW ID.R as it sets a new ‘Ring record

This isn’t the fastest car to have ever lapped the Nürburgring. That honour rests with the Porsche 919 Evo – less a racing car, more a technical exercise in outright, bludgeoning speed.

No, this is the second fastest car to have ever lapped the Nürburgring, and it’s the Volkswagen ID.R. Thing is, the ID.R’s an all-electric racer, packing 670bhp from twin-electric motors.

Sounds like a lot of power, right? It’s considerably less than the electric car it snatched the EV lap record from, NIO’s 1,340bhp EP9. The EP9 did a lap in 6m45.9s. The ID.R? 6m05.3s, some 40 seconds quicker.

“It’s a good lap time, we didn’t expect it,” driver Romain Dumas told TopGear.com last week at the attempt. “We were aiming for 6m15s. Lap after lap we just went quicker though – I pushed myself more and the engineers understood the car better. I think the team deserves this lap time.”

The ID.R has already claimed track records for an EV at Pikes Peak (7m57.148s), and the Goodwood Festival of Speed (43.86s). Now, watch how it battles the ‘Ring’s 20.8km circuit…