Shocking nobody, GM has gone on record this week saying that Nürburgring lap times still matter. When you’re spending millions of dollars on something, that says plenty on its own. But if you’re paying somebody as talented as Bob Sorokanich to do your talking for you, you might as well let the man cook.
I won’t rehash his points here; they’re precisely what you’d expect from a company that is locked in an expensive development battle with a cross-town rival. And say what you will about the current state of the automotive industry, but this game of lap time leapfrog is a breath of fresh air in an industry that is facing what amounts to a crisis of passion. But there’s hope on that front, even if it comes in unusual forms.
So long as there are engineers who want to be the best at what they do, that hunger will always manifest itself. We don’t need the ‘Ring to keep the automakers passionate. We need it to keep them honest.
Say what you will about what ‘Ring-focused development has done to the modern luxury car. No, really. You’re right. For the vast majority of cars developed at least in part at what amounts to Germany’s least efficient toll road, the lap time itself is entirely irrelevant. If anything, many automakers are trying to stretch their time on track in an effort to learn as much as possible about the real-world performance of the cars they’re testing. Save for a precious few, the countless prototypes we see testing somewhere in or around the facility will never grace its record board.
And many things we now take for granted are a product of the ‘Ring, its green hills rising like a high-performance tide, lifting the collective expectations of buyers who have been trained that newer must be bigger, faster, and more expensive. It’s a mixed bag, I’ll readily admit. I hate putting new summer tires on 20- and 21-inch wheels just as much as you do.
But in an information climate where corporations are being empowered to set narratives as they see fit, the ‘Ring remains a reliable anchor point. Words are cheaper than they’ve ever been; paying Bob to say Chevy believes in the ‘Ring costs a lot less than actually taking a car there to prove it, that’s for sure.
So, as long as automakers remain willing to put their money where their mouth is, I say hell yes, ‘Ring times still matter. And you should too.
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