Radical has once again beaten the Nurburgring Nordschleife lap record for a production car.
The tiny maker of diminutive sports cars from Peterborough drove a road-legal Radical SR8LM all the way from 'Blighty to the famous circuit in the Eiffel mountains, before last night posting a lap time of 6m 48s.
The new time beats the previous record - also set by Radical in a Supersport back in 2005 - by a not inconsiderable seven seconds.
Cloudless skies and warm temperatures meant perfect conditions for the Radical, although the SR8LM initially struggled with the Nordschleife's bumps vicous kerbs. But once driver Michael Vergers found the right set-up, the lap times started to come.

On course for the record"The car was great, I could push really hard and it felt clearly faster than the previous SR8 in 2005," said Vergers. "It's fantastic that we've beaten the record; hopefully I'll get an opportunity to return with Radical in the future."
Radical co-founder Mick Hyde said: "We've proved that the SR8LM is not only the world's best track day car, but it's also practical enough to drive to and from the circuit. It is a genuine production sports car, with genuine performance credentials, as we've shown today."
We say: congratulations to all involved. The bar for production car lap records at the Nurburgring has now been set ridiculously high for the current crop of supercars chasing the record, such as the Gumpert Apollo and Devon GTX. Although no doubt there's a sports car or supercar maker somewhere out there with a dream, a 1000bhp engine and a

Well-deserved celebrationsvery brave test driver...

“It’s several years since we last went for the record, and we’ve carried out a huge amount of development work on the SR8 in the meantime,” said Radical’s Mick Hyde. “The aerodynamics have been considerably improved, now creating more downforce and less drag. The new-for-2009 chassis is much safer having passed the FIA production sports car crash tests, and the engine is also improved, producing 460bhp and driving through our in-house designed six-speed transmission.”