Porsche might not be in the running for the title of the fastest sports car on the famed Nürburgring, but it can now claim the fastest lap by a sedan. According to a report in German auto pub Auto Sport, the four-door Panamera recently flew through the Green Hell in a time of just 7:56 – three seconds faster than the Cadillac.

Driving the 500hp Panamera Turbo to this new record was legendary World Rally Championship (WRC) racer and official Porsche test driver Walter Röhrl.

Until now the CTS-V has held the record since May 9, 2008, when it blew away its German competitors and was the first sedan to ever run a sub-eight minute lap.

With the current situation at GM it’s unlikely the company will seek to take back its record by running the CTS-V again. We suppose they can always take solace in the fact that the big American sedan costs less than half of a Panamera Turbo; the Turbo retailing for $132,600, and the CTS-V costing just $59,995.

[Source: Sport Auto]

Porsche has announced that its new and improved GT3 ran an impressive 7:40 second lap around the Nürburgring. A company spokesman also didn’t miss out on the opportunity to reiterate Porsche’s stance that Nissan fudged the GT-R’s lap times.

Andreas Preuninger, the head of High Performance Cars at Porsche, said that the time was technically unofficial (as there was no third party to verify the time) and that the lap was run with other vehicles on the track.

The driver was ‘Ring ace Walter Rohrl, who set a 7:42 second time in the previous GT3 for a test by Sport Auto Magazine. Preuninger did say that had Rohrl been going full-out he would likely have shaved two seconds off that time.

Even at a 7:38, however, the GT3 times still rate well-off the pace of Nissan’s GT-R, prompting Preuninger to once again state that Porsche believes Nissan isn’t being truthful with either its numbers or its car. Porsche cites the 7:54 lap time they managed with a GT-R as being very far off the 7:29 time Nissan claimed. Nissan has since, however, improved upon that time with a 7:27 run.

[Source: MotorTrend]