If you thought the Lamborghini Huracan had no teeth, think again. A new super-high performance version of the Italian supercar has just reset the record for the marque at the Nurburgring.
Dubbed the Huracan Performante, the new car has even been rumoured to have knocked of the 6min57.73sec lap time of Porsche’s mega-dollar hybrid 918 Spyder!
The Performante is a new lightweight, aero-optimised version of the ‘baby’ Lambo. And looks set to land on the podium of all-time fastest production cars at the legendary road course.
And it uses cutting edge aerodynamic technology to do so.
Maurizio Reggiani, Lamborghini's head of research and development, confirmed that the hard-charging V10 Huracan Performante is already faster around the Nurburgring than its Aventador Superveloce (SV) counterpart.
The SV is a $925,300 mind-melting V12 weapon of a car that recorded a time of 6:59 around the benchmark circuit. That lap makes it the fourth fastest road going car vehicle of all time. The three faster cars are: Radical SR8LM 6:48.00; Radical SR8 6:56.08; and, the abovementioned 918.
Talking to motoring.com.au at the Lamborghini Aventador S international launch in Spain this week, Reggiani said the Performante’s details will be revealed at the 2017 Geneva motor show in early March.
"In Geneva you will see a product that will come. It's clear that during the development we have a reference track, mainly for the sporty version of our cars [and] for me Nordschleife [Nurburgring] is like a benchmark. It's where I measure everything," he stated.
"We succeeded in something that is much more [advanced] of what I expected," he continued.
motoring.com.au understands the new Huracan flagship employs an innovative active aerodynamics setup, the likes of which has never been seen before on a road car.
"I can tell you we discovered something that is big news, it doesn't exist [yet], we invented it," Reggiani teased.
The new aerodynamic system is understood to be able to increase the vehicle's top speed significantly on long straights. But it doesn’t use movable wings a la F1 cars’ DRS (drag reduction systems).
"What we achieve is something unique and fantastic. And, yes, you can say that it's better than Aventador SV," he said, clarifying that the Huracan has a faster Nurburgring lap time than company's previous best of 6:59.
Another way the new Huracan Performante (the spiritual successor to the Superlegerra models) has slashed 30sec seconds off the Huracan's previous 7:28 lap time is via an intense weight-loss diet.
Making use of carbon-fibre body panels and possibly even swapping out metal structural elements for stiffer, lighter carbon fibre, the stunning racetrack focussed model is rumoured to be as much as 100kg lighter than 1422kg Lamborghini Huracan.
It will also generate more power than the current 5.2-litre V10 engine's 448kW/560Nm thanks to a bit of spanner work.
Stefano Domenicali, CEO of Lamborghini, said the Nurburgring is the "the church of rock and roll" for car manufacturers.
"To be there and to be strong, it's very important. It gives the pedigree. It's like a 0-100km/h time. It's important to give credibility to a product, to give a story," the Lambo boss stated.