Gumpert Apollo sport sets new Nurburgring record

Posted: Friday 21 August 2009 by Alison

Gumpert Apollo at Nurburgring

The Gumpert Apollo Sport has set a new record at the Nurburgring of 7:11,57. The video comes from German magazine SportAuto and the car was driven by Florian Gruber. After the jump is the video and below, some details from the press release.

It is August, 13th. The air has a temperature of 20 degrees Celsius and the sky is clouded. At 12:55 p.m. professional race driver Florian Gruber (age 26) crosses the line of the Nurburgring Nordschleife and unleashes the 700 hp of his GUMPERT apollo sport. He has set off into a race against the clock. His only objective: To break the record for road legal cars on the legendary 13 mile racetrack, once felicitously entitled “the green hell” by racing legend Sir Jackie Stewart. And to beat the existing official record of the Donkervoort D8 RS06 set almost 4 years ago.

7 minutes, 11 seconds and 57 hundreds of a second later Gruber crosses the line again. He has proven: The GUMPERT apollo sport is officially the fastest road legal factory car ever to circle the Ring until today. With an average speed of sport around 106,78 mp/h (171,84 km/h) the apollo was by 3,32 seconds faster than the former record holder. And – by the way – more than 13 seconds faster than the Maserati MC 12 in 2008. “And, well - I even could have gone a little faster”, said the pretty unimpressed driver after coming back into the pits. And not even one drop of sweat on his brow after the record lap. The apollo sport in standard factory specification was equipped with road legal MICHELIN Pilot Sport Cup tires and an adjustable suspension by KW suspensions.

“The conditions were good, but not perfect – so we have still got potential to go faster”, concluded Florian Gruber. From his point of view, the apollo has the potential to even break the 7 minutes mark. And Roland Gumpert, former Head of AUDI SPORT and managing director of the GUMPERT Sportwagenmanufaktur, adds with a wink: “It is great that we broke the record and that we were able to show the potential of the apollo – but at this stage there is no need to go faster. We don’t want to demoralize our fellow competitors by now…”