Cyan Racing breaks two Nürburgring lap records

CYAN Racing, formerly named Polestar, has broken two Nürburgring lap records during development of the Lynk & Co 03 Cyan Concept, making it the fastest four-door car and the fastest front-wheel driven car in the world around the fearsome 21-kilometre Nordschleife circuit.

This also marks the first time that a Chinese manufacturer has claimed a record on the legendary German circuit with a mass production-based car.

The 528-hp Lynk & Co 03 Cyan Concept lapped the Nürburgring Nordschleife in 7 minutes and 20,143 seconds, averaging 170,4 km/h, with Thed Björk, the 2017 World Champion of touring car racing, behind the wheel.

‘We continued our development of the car in torrential rain and scorching sunshine on the most fearsome circuit in the world,’ said Thed Björk, driver in the WTCR for Lynk & Co Cyan Racing.

‘The car is rewarding to drive no matter the conditions, be it the Nürburgring or the autobahn. The record that we achieved here is something I rank on the same level as my racing titles and a highlight in my part of transitioning development from race to road cars.’

The lap time is three seconds faster than the record for four-door cars, formerly held by Jaguar, and 25 seconds faster than the record for front-wheel driven cars, formerly held by Renault.

The race engineers and drivers of Cyan Racing, the official motorsport partner to Geely Group Motorsport, have developed the Lynk & Co 03 Cyan Concept as a road car version of the race car run by the team in the World Touring Car Cup ( WTCR).

Development of the Lynk & Co 03 Cyan Concept will continue throughout the last part of the year, with the team turning attention to winter testing in the north of Sweden as part of creating a performance car for all roads, all seasons and all conditions.

The 7:20.143 lap record was set using the full 20,832km circuit layout as per the official Nürburgring standard and not the shorter 20,600km version as often used by other manufacturers. The Lynk & Co 03 Cyan Concept lapped the shorter version of the circuit in 7:15.123.

Cyan Racing also holds the lap record for the fastest ever front-wheel driven race car with the 2017 World Title-winning Volvo S60 Cyan TC1 - lapping the Nordschleife + GP circuit in 8:34.813, as well as previously holding the lap record for four-door road cars with the Volvo S60 Concept in 2016 with the time 7:51.110 on the 20,832km circuit.