Last year the team broke the production-car lap record with this very Zonda F. Now they’re back to go faster

Inky black nimbus clouds sail menacingly low across the sky, so low they almost shroud the castle parapets on top of the hill behind us. There's aI heavy autumnal feel to the evening. A chilling wind blows in gusts hard enough to bend the tops of the ash trees over the track and strip healthy leaves from branches, and yet the aroma of hot friction- plates still fills the air.

The Nürburgring public session finished some ten minutes ago, but no one’s heading home. There’s no queue at the souvenir hut either – car stickers and T-shirts can wait. Instead there’s an animated buzz from the crowd now shuffling over to the catch-fence to claim a vantage point. Excited chatter dies down; watches are checked. Everyone looks left, peering a kilometre back down the Döttinger-Höhe straight, eyes fixed on the tarmac beneath the distant gantry.

There. A small, dark shape emerges just left of centre. At first it’s hard to assess its speed as there’s no sound, the V12 wail washed far away in its wake. It bucks and bobs over bumps, working the already downforce-compressed suspension hard as it reaches the bottom of the dip and begins its climb towards us.

It’s 500 metres away now and, although there’s still no soundtrack, you sense this thing is really travelling as its size grows inexorably. In spite of the low evening temperature there’s a vortex haze over the dart-shaped carbonfibre bodywork, a combination of the heat accumulated from a flat-out lap of the world’s most demanding race track and the air forced around the car’s curves at over 275kph. It’s a Zonda F Clubsport, fully lit.

We don’t hear the highly tuned 7.3-litre, 640bhp AMG motor until the final hundred yards, but the volume builds rapidly as the Zonda rips towards us, erupting into an F1-style high-pitched yowl as it flashes past and drops out of sight again. Just as it does so, the pure, smooth and incredibly loud scream is briefly interrupted by the staccato beat of what sounds like a slight misfire. Members of the Black Falcon crew look at each other. It shouldn’t have done that.

They’ve been here before. Last year the team, with the help of Horacio Pagani himself, broke the production-car lap record with this very car. In the hot seat then, as now, was ALMS racer and Ring specialist Marc Basseng. Immediately after setting that record time – 7min 27.82sec – he and the F were on a lap believed to be some four to six seconds faster, but a fuel starvation problem forced it to be abandoned. The team may have left with the record but there was some unfinished business too.

Now they’re back to go faster, but the Zonda F isn’t chasing last year’s time – that’s already been beaten twice. Back in June, GM development engineer Jim Mero posted 7:26.4 in a Corvette ZR1, and yesterday Basseng himself eclipsed that by some 1.2sec in a Ferrari Enzo. To put that into some sort of context, he blitzed the profusion of gnarly twists, turns, bumps, crests and jumps that make up the unrelenting 20.6-kilometres lap at an astonishing average speed of 166.5kph. But why the Enzo? Well, the owner of the Zonda felt that if the team were going to go for the record once more, it should try a few more cars from his collection, which is why later this evening we’ll also see a Koenigsegg CCX in action, and tomorrow a Porsche Carrera GT and a Maserati MC12. Welcome, then, to the event that’s being billed by the team as ‘Black Falcon Battle Royal Nürburgring 2008’. This should be fun.

A STOPWATCH CAN ONLY tell you so much when it comes to production lap records. History dictates that the 170 metres of the original Nordschleife start/finish straight are excluded, as in the early days of the discipline a lap began at the exit of the pit lane and ended at its entry point. The lap time therefore has to be extrapolated from the data-logging laptop, and when it spits out the numbers Basseng has his second record in as many days: 7:24.65, despite the obvious misfire. In fact, both records have been set by slightly sick cars. Such are the demands placed on suspension by the ruthless nature of the Ring that the Enzo’s electronic dampers cried enough well before the end of the run. It was completed on springs and Basseng’s skill and bravery alone.

The team are pleased but not ecstatic. They don’t want to just break records, they want each contender to have the best possible chance of setting the fastest lap. All the cars are completely standard and have been ‘spanner checked’ thoroughly over the past four weeks in Black Falcon’s race-prep workshops in nearby Kelberg. Each has been fitted with new brakes and fresh rubber, each will have the same amount of fuel (45kg) at the start of the timed runs and each will have the tyre pressures reset after a warm-up lap.

‘The Koenigsegg’s explosive twin-supercharged V8 makes it devastating on the straights’

The Koenigsegg is ready to go by the time Basseng arrives back in the pits, and no sooner has he had a chat with the engineers (and allowed himself a brief smile when told of his time in the Zonda) than he’s getting comfortable in the CCX. The car’s owner – who couldn’t be more laid-back if he were sunbathing on his boat in the Med – informs me that not only was this car the first to be fitted with a 901bhp version of the 4.7-litre V8, it was also the first bare carbon car produced by Koenigsegg, and being the first it cost the factory well over $ 200,000 to perfect. I wonder if he’s told Basseng…

The strong current of air that has been blowing overhead all day continues to send thick, sinister clouds across the heavens. In this high and steeply undulating part of western Germany the weather can change in an instant. Last night a run in the Carrera GT had to be cancelled after a shower brought an early end to proceedings, but so far this evening the gods have been kind. Fingers stay crossed.

Warm-up over, Basseng heads out for his timed lap. In a test session a couple of weeks ago the CCX proved devastating on the straights, the explosive twin-supercharged V8 making over 300kph possible on the one in front of us – comfortably (although I expect the reality was anything but) faster than the other cars in the group. But how it copes with the rest of the lap will be interesting to say the least. With a spiky power delivery and challenging handling on the limit, it’ll test the mettle even of a driver with Basseng’s experience.

Less than eight minutes after setting off from the pit lane, Basseng’s heading towards us on the Döttinger-Höhe to complete another hot one. Lights ablaze to counteract the gathering gloom, the CCX is noticeably faster than the Zonda and its noise completely different. It’s lower, bassier, fatter and flatter, more rumble than scream. Just before it disappears through Tiergarten a huge flame flares from the tailpipes, illuminating the surrounding trees for a fraction of a second like a camera flash, and the moment it’s gone a huge clap of thunder booms around the sky. God is fighting back.

A minute later my phone’s ringing. It’s our photographer, Kenny P, stationed out at Hocheichen, 3km into the lap. ‘It’s pissing down here, mate,’ he says. ‘I’m already soaked so I’m coming back in.’ The Koenigsegg passed Kenny a moment before the rain arrived so it’s still pushing, but as I end the call the sky unloads above us at Döttinger too. Basseng doesn’t know it yet, but the 7:33.55 lap he’s just recorded in the CCX won’t be bettered today – the final section of track will be saturated by the time he reaches it. Everyone rushes to shelter under awnings and await his return so they can pack up for the day. The team has been frustratingly beaten by the weather once more.

Meanwhile, Bassen has arrived at the spectator section at Brünnchen, the 16km point. He’s almost home, and as the track is still dry there, he’s still flat out, eking out every single brake horsepower, exploiting all the grip available, running on the edge, giving his all. By Pflantzgarten, three corners on, rain droplets splash onto the Koenigsegg’s wrap-around screen. Basseng keeps pushing. The lap’s nearly over and for all he knows there may be only a corner or two affected – localised rainfall is common here. At the next right-hander the tail steps out, but Basseng’s on top of it – a subtle lift and a stab of counter-correction brings it back. In an instant he’s on the power again.

The next section rises over a blind crest. The track actually kinks right, left and then right, but you can straight-line the lot, clipping kerbs as you go, which is what Basseng does – at 209kph. Disaster is but a moment away. The intimate interface between rubber and tarmac has been partly separated by a thin watery film and the introduction of contrasting cambers completes the division. Control of the Koenigsegg’s trajectory no longer remains in Basseng’s hands. It instantly spins right and a fraction of a second later the front-left of the CCX makes hard contact with the Armco. Momentum rules now, smashing the rear-left before rotating the car for the remaining two corners to take their turns.

The first the team know of the unfolding drama comes via a phone call from the following safety car as it arrives on the scene. Basseng’s fine – the glancing nature of the series of blows meant the airbag didn’t even deploy – but the car’s wrecked. A covered truck is deployed to sweep it up and keep it hidden from prying cameras. Kenny and I decide it’s time to go and check into our hotel and leave the Black Falcon squad to lick their wounds.

‘The team has set new lap records three times in four days, with three different cars…’

THE NEXT MORNING we meet the team at the workshops for a chat and everyone is back in good spirits. The sky has more blue than black so the Maserati MC12 and Carrera GT will be wheeled out for this evening’s attempts. Basseng’s smiling too, but it’s obvious he’s still smarting. It’s not that’s he’s been fazed by the shunt – the racer’s mentality would have seen him straight back out and instantly committed if it had been possible. No, it’s a pride thing. There can be few who are faster or more experienced than the Porsche works driver, yet the Eifel Mountains won last night’s skirmish.

Mind you, Basseng is doubtful that any of the other cars would have reacted in quite the same way to those awkward cambers. ‘You are always fighting with the Koenigsegg. It often feels like it’s working against you,’ he explains. ‘For sure, it has monster power and it’s the quickest down the straight, but that power only arrives between 7000 and 8000rpm. There’s very little low-down torque, so you’re always waiting, waiting, waiting, and the gear ratios don’t match this track either – second is too short and third too long.

‘The balance is OK, but there’s a lot of roll and pitch. It feels heavy, which is odd as it’s as light as the Ferrari, and the brakes go long after a lap. As a driver you don’t get a good feeling with it. It’s an amazing car on the road, but it’s not close to the others on the Nordschleife. In testing we did a ’31 and I believe a sub 7:30 would be possible, but never 7:24.’

I quiz Marc on the difference between a test lap and a record-breaking run and what frame of mind he has to be in for the latter. ‘The programme we have here is good because I have to get used to each car and build up to it,’ he says. ‘The first time I drove the cars was probably the most nerve-wracking time. It’s a big responsibility, there’s a lot at stake. The timed laps are just like racing: you brake late and push hard. It’s what the team expect of me. We’re here to break records so you have to be on the maximum. I’m giving it everything out there – margins are very small.’

The Enzo was chosen for the first attempt for its driveability and suitability for fast lapping at the Nordschleife. ‘It’s like a race car,’ Basseng continues. ‘The gearshift is fantastic and it allows me to left-foot brake, which is an advantage, and power, throttle response and the brakes are all fantastic.’ The calmness with which he talks about the damper failure is extraordinary. The thought of attempting to complete a lap with just springs and aerodynamic air pressure keeping the rear in check sends a chill through me, but Basseng just shrugs it off. ‘For sure the car was unstable and difficult at high speed, particularly at Tiergarten [taken at 290kph!], but it was OK. I was able to complete the run.’

It’s clear the Zonda is his favourite, though. He can’t help grinning when he talks about the way the chassis extracts the best from the tyres and gives great feedback from the helm, but he’s almost laughing when we get to the subject of the V12 AMG motor. ‘It’s perfect,’ he says. ‘The power and torque are incredible. Pagani has done a fantastic job with this car. It’s sensational that they have been able to produce something like this when they don’t have any race experience.’ Can he criticise anything? ‘Only the pedals, which look cool but can be tricky to use and could be a little more direct. Otherwise it's exceptional.’

THERE ARE HIGH HOPES for the two runners yet to go. The Carrera GT recorded the highest cornering G loadings in testing and, although it’s heavier than the mechanically similar Enzo, the Maserati MC12 has more high-speed downforce.

Things certainly look good after the Maser’s warm-up lap. The team is ready, tyre pressures are checked for a final time, Kenny and his Nikons are sent out to Brünnchen to capture the full-flight lap. And then it rains. The shower lasts only ten minutes, but it’s enough. There will be no further runs tonight and we have to leave first thing tomorrow. 

The team don’t, though. They stay on for two further evenings to record times for the last two cars and re-run the fettled Zonda and Enzo. (The Zonda had broken an alloy cross-bar supporting the rear subframe; a diagnostics test at the local Ferrari dealership reported no faults with the Enzo’s electronic damping system.)

The Carrera GT posts 7:28.71, matching the time set by Walter Röhrl during final development of the car. However, the MC12 eclipses everything with a remarkable 7:24.29, the additional weight and steel brakes proving to be no hindrance and the long bodywork’s extra aero combined with the straightforward, non-electronic dampers working to the Maser’s advantage over the Enzo. It’s a time that remains unbeaten the following day too, as the tyres on the Zonda and Enzo gave their best earlier in the week, and the Ferrari’s dampers once again give up halfway around the lap.

So the Maserati wins. But perhaps what’s more impressive is that the team has set new production-car lap records of the Nürburgring three times in four days, with three different cars. After all the trials and tribulations of the event, that’s some achievement.

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