Maserati posts 7:24.29 on the ring...

at least it's a Ferrari wrapped in blue and white on top of the group. i'm dying to watch any videos available on this one. great post!

 

How can the MC12 have set a "production car lap record" when the Viper ACR is very much a production car and lapped the 'ring more than 2 seconds quicker?

Is Maserati just making up things that sound good in press releases????

 

Maybe they weren't taking junk-on-wheels into consideration? An MC12 over 10 Dodges any day!

 

Great response... but you were too quick to go for the low hanging fruit.

Vipers aren't as good a choice for those who prefer to wax their car and just talk about how fast it could go, if they had the ability (although many Viper owners do just that), but when considering actual performance, the Viper ACR left the MC12 in it's wake.

There's no need to talk about 355's... they are several orders of magnitude lower in performance... roughly comparable to Mustangs and such

 

remy,

what is about that car that when she is wrapped in blue and the line get a bit less acute...all of a sudden she is a beauty?!?! (grin)

 

now there is some debate on the ACR lap time on weather it should count as a production car. it was not the same car that you got from your dealer, they made a few modifications to it.

 

If you're throwing tuned cars in to the debate please do consider the Racidal cars which are waaay below the 7.00 minutes times........

Recommend everybody this months evo magazine. Good stuff as always.

 

Interesting about the Enzo's dampers. Even being 400 lbs lighter than an Enzo we had ours fault at Bahrain as well. We reset them and they were fine. The problem is that at high slip angles the dampers seem to sense a fault.

 

might the tires have been at fault?

 

No, they didn't.

 

Interesting story! Any footage?

 

Yes, the MC12s are doing very well this season. Corvettes are the only ones really competing with them. Maserati has already wrapped up the drivers championship

 

Vipers haven't competed against MC12's in FIA GT racing. Unless you are talking 2-3 years ago and comparing a factory GT1 effort against a privateer GT effort. They are different classes - BIG difference. Like comparing a Honda F1 car to a LeMans Ferrari and then say the Honda is faster... but that would be equally silly to the argument you made above. If you want to compare across classes, hasn't the Corvette cleaned the Ferrari 430's clock the last few years too? So, by your rationale, the Z06 is a better car than a 430? Agreed?

The cars that race in FIA GT1 are not street cars - not even close. You will recall some years ago when Team Oreca cleaned house with their Vipers. After that, they were required to run restrictor plates and add ballast to let the Corvettes be competitive (and to let the Corvettes use larger non-stock motors). After that, Dodge just pulled out of the series. Then Chevy cleaned house with the C5R's and after a few years of domination were required to add ballast and restrictions until others became competitive, and then Chevy just pulled out of the series. Now, Maserati will stop supporting the series because they too will get burdened with unreasonable penalties for success and will be pushed out.

It's just the way of things.

But back on planet earth, the fact of the matter is that the Viper ACR that you can walk down to your dodge dealer today and buy, is faster on the N-ring than the Maserati MC12. Fact. And I don't even need to make ridiculous comparisons to highly modified race-only cars to make that point!

Perhaps the problem is that the ACR uses 316L stainless in it's construction and the MC12 uses 904L stainless that's more scratch resistant even though it's really not? Or perhaps the MC12 is actually a giant capacitor and your friends in BMW will tell you how this is the case, even though it's really not? LOL

 

They should have made this press release before selling the cars but I guess late publicity is better than none.

 

I do not believe one track comparison would be enough to say one is undoubtedly faster than the other. Get all these cars on 10 different tracks and perform tests on each and every one of them and there you will find your answer. I do not believe any magazine let alone the owners of these high-end cars are going to be that willing to let their cars go for such a length of time nor does it matter a whole hell of a lot.

That being said, the guy looking to purchase one of these super high-end autos may not be at all interested in something Dodge is making no matter how fantastic it may be. That is no knock against Dodge, it's just not in the same buyer's league is these extraordinary machines so it would be moot to compare them other than for educational purposes. Just my .02

 

ah...ok?

 

There's nothing wrong with high slip angles!

 

the artical I read said they made interior modifications, aero modifications, and suspension alterations...

 

How is Maserati involved there? The way I understand it, some rich guy gave his cars to a pro driver to find out how fast they really are... no PR from any company there!

 

Any idea when this 'new lap' record took place because the article does not say?