A Ford F-150 Lightning Crushed The Mustang GTD’s Nürburgring Time
This pickup can haul! Just not any stuff.
The Ford F-150 Lightning SuperTruck that won the 2024 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb is now the fastest Ford to ever lap the Nürburgring Nordschleife.
The all-electric demonstrator resembles an F-150, but is a purpose-built track car on slick tires with three electric motors that were tuned to crank out 1,200 hp for its run around the ‘Ring.
Pikes Peak winner Romain Dumas was behind the wheel on August 5, the same day he drove the similar Transit-sytle SuperVan 4.2 to a 6:48.393 lap that beat the Chevrolet Corvette ZR1Xs 6:49.275 time.
With its giant wing and bodywork capable of generating 6,000 pounds of downforce at 150 mph, Dumas was able to get the SuperTruck around the 12.9-mile circuit in 6:43.482, which is the fifth fastest time in the Prototypes/Pre-Production Vehicles class and sixth fastest overall on the track’s official list.
It might have gone even faster, but about 40 seconds from the finish the in-car video shows it hitting a top speed of 163 mph on the long final straight before it starts slowing down, presumably from the battery pack running down, as Dumas slaps the steering wheel in frustration.
Brake regeneration provided enough juice for him to power through the final section of curves before crossing the timing line nearly 10 seconds faster than the Mustang GTD’s time of 6:52.072.
“We could just build EVs in a lab and call it good. But that’s never been how Ford works,” Mark Rushbrook, the global director of Ford Performance, wrote in a blog post on the lap.
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“While other companies are still figuring out their electric strategy, we’re out here proving ours works. These crazy fast laps teach us things you can’t learn anywhere else. Our engineers get to work with real data from real extremes. Right now we’re prepping our next-generation affordable electric platform, and programs like this give us total confidence in what we’re building. When you know your tech can handle six minutes of Nürburgring abuse, you know it’ll handle anything real life dishes out.”
The electric Super Mustang Mach-E that competed at this year’s shortened Pikes Peak event was also spotted at the Nürburgring on the day of the SuperTruck and SuperVan laps, but Ford hasn’t mentioned at time yet. It also had the factory Mustang GTD along for the ride, so it’s possible it’s looking to lower the super ‘Stang’s time.