https://www.caranddriver.com/feature...ar-every-time/

 

The big news, to me, is that it beat the Civic Type R's time. Didn't happen on the same day and only by 0.1s, but the "Type R is faster on track" meme is apparently not always true.

 

"But Type R is faster on track" meme was never true, and is common excuse for non MINI drivers.

 

The idea is driven by the manufacturer-provided Ring times, which the Honda leads by ~13s. (7:43 vs 7:56)

Those aren't always apples-to-apples, of course, so it's good to have some examples of relatively trusted sources that show the MINI leading.

 

Except there is no official time from Mini other than "under 8 minutes". Sure, they probably did hit 7:56. But was that the best it could do? Or did it just meet their stated goal of "under 8 minutes" and so they stopped trying?

 

I mean, they 3D printed 7:56 onto the dash panel of the car they brought to the 24hrs of Nring.

https://www.bimmertoday.de/2019/06/2...ter-8-minuten/

Either way, the "maybe it's faster than that and they just stopped trying" argument isn't going to convince anyone except maybe GP/MINI owners. You could say the same thing about the Civic. Maybe they broke the record and then decided to stop trying?

It's much more meaningful that C&D, a respected 3rd party, drove both on the same track with the goal of setting the fastest time possible, and they were faster with the GP.

 

The lap times are subject to the tires.

Whoever drives on the standard factory bricks under 8.00 is Superman