“Twenty-six seconds is half an eternity in motorsport. Lars’ lap time of 7:07.55 minutes on the Nordschleife is sensational, putting the Taycan in the same league as electric hypercars,” says head of the model line, Kevin Giek. “And the impressive thing about it is that over several laps, Lars clocked almost exactly the same time.”
“I pushed as hard as I could, but that was really all I could do,” says Kern. The Nürburgring-Nordschleife was at the exclusive disposal of the experienced racer for the day of fast laps. The pre-production test car was equipped with a roll cage, along with specialty racing bucket seats. Compared to the 2022 record in a Taycan Turbo S, the times were significantly better: the pre-production car was a good 15.5 mph (25 km/h) faster heading into the Schwedenkreuz. To illustrate the difference further, by the time Kern crossed the finish line near Grandstand 13 (T13) this time, he would have only just been passing the entrance to the Nordschleife, about to enter the Antoniusbuche section, during his record drive in the Taycan Turbo S in 2022. This put the distance between the pre-production Taycan and the current Turbo S at more than 0.80 miles (1.3 kilometers) – a figure that illustrates the leap in performance achieved on the 13 mile (20.8 km) course in Germany’s Eifel region.
