Range Rover Sport sets record 'ring lap

A time of 8:14 around the northern loop of the Nurburgring track in Germany is respectable for any production car, let alone a hulking SUV.

But the vehicle that set that time is no ordinary SUV. It's the Range Rover Sport SVR.

Land Rover brought the Rangie Sport to the Nurburgring in standard form, albeit in SVR trim, with all the performance tweaks that go with the new hot-house sub-brand. Peak power from the SVR version of the 5.0-litre supercharged V8 is 404kW, a 29kW lift from the standard model. Nothing had been done to the vehicle's underpinnings for the record-setting attempt, since the Range Rover Sport SVR had been tuned for high performance driving on the Nurburgring during its development phase.

"The Nürburgring is a benchmark for vehicle development and testing, and cars become stronger, more durable and faster over its 13 miles and 70-plus corners," said Mike Cross, Chief Engineer Vehicle Integrity.

"We wanted to see whether an SUV could behave like a performance car in this challenging environment. The results are spectacular and the Range Rover Sport SVR has demonstrated outstanding on-road performance capabilities."

To put the Range Rover Sport's performance into perspective,  the time of 8:14 is 1min 17secs slower than Porsche's 918 Spyder and 20 seconds behind Renault's Megane RS 275 Trophy but five seconds faster than the time set by Holden's SS Ute a little over 12 months ago.

Land Rover claims that the SVR variant of the Range Rover Sport – and the car that set the new lap time in particular – comes with a dual-range transfer case and can wade up to 850mm. It will be launched globally next year.