Range Rover Sport SVR takes on the Nurburgring – and wins (video)

Land Rover has taken the new Range Rover Sport SVR to the Nurburgring to set a quick lap and have come away with a Nurburgring record for a production SUV.

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We’re not sure at what point a car actually becomes a ‘production’ car, but that’s a tag Land Rover are putting on the new Range Rover Sport SVR as it takes to the Nurburgring and comes away with a time of 8 minutes 14 seconds – the fastest by a production SUV.

Land Rover are keen to tell us the lap by the RRS SVR was in a standard production car, by which we assume a car that’s built to the specification announced for the Sport SVR when it arrives next year.

That means the full fat 542bhp from its 5.0 litre V8 and performance that is clearly impressive, although Land Rover still hasn’t given us specific performance figures, and certainly enough – together with suspension tweaks – to make it very impressive on road.

To give the lap time of 8:14s by the Range Rover Sport SVR some perspective, it’s about the same as the Honda NSX managed in 1990, the BMW M5 (E60) in 2004, the Megane RS R26 R in 2008 and the Mercedes C63 AMG in 2009.

It’s also quicker than an unofficial lap time by the BMW X6 M (which is reported to have done 8:24s) and it even scrapes in front of an unofficial lap time of 8:15s set by the new Porsche Macan Turbo in April.

Mike Cross, Jaguar’s chassis man, said:

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. 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.

It’s an impressive performance from Land Rover to push the new Sport SVR round the Nurburgring so quickly, we just hope it still works off-road when it arrives despite its enormous on-road prowess.