Ford Dragged An Upgraded Mustang GTD Back To The ‘Ring After The Corvette Kicked Its Ass

You didn’t think Ford would sit back and allow Chevy and the Corvette ZR1/ZR1X twins to steal its thunder at the Nurburgring, did you? Roughly eight months after the Corvette team laid the smackdown on the Mustang GTD as the quickest American car to lap the German circuit, Ford has returned, and it looks to have gone even faster.

Earlier this week, Ford reportedly rented an evening track session at the Nurburgring, bringing with it a pair of Mustang GTDs with several small but important upgrades. Both cars, one painted black and believed to be an EU-spec model, and another, painted blue and a US-spec version, were seen with aero discs on the rear wheels, aiding aerodynamics.

Read: Good News, You Can Apply For A $325K Mustang GTD Again. Bad News, So Can Everyone Else

In addition, the cars have two extra carbon fiber canards attached to the front bumper, boosting downforce over the front wheels. A clip shared to YouTube shows the duo being pushed to their absolute limits on the circuit, and if the filmer’s stopwatch is accurate, they look to have gone a whole lot faster.

Porsche Killers

It’s reported that the black car completed its first hot lap in just 6:42.82, almost a full 10 seconds ahead of the record it set last year at 6:52.072. During a second lap, that time was slashed to just 6:41.74. As for the blue car, it appears to have needed just 6:45.71 to complete a lap of the iconic German circuit.

Importantly, the laps were run over the full 20.832 km circuit, rather than the slightly shorter 20.6 km configuration, where the start and finish lines are positioned at different spots. Last year, the GTD’s record was across the full 20.832 km circuit, so we have a like-for-like comparison. Admittedly, the start-stop line is just out of sight of where the YouTuber was filming, so he mentions that the times he recorded could be off by a second or so.

A Hypercar Slayer?

If the Mustang GTD did indeed lap the Nurburgring in as little as 6:41.74, that would place it second all-time in the list of production cars, outgunning the Porsche 911 GT2 RS from Manthey with its 6:43.3 second lap, and only trailing the Mercedes-AMG One’s 6:29.09. It’s also comfortably ahead of the Corvette ZR1X’s lap of 6:49.275.

The presence of these prototypes at the circuit has prompted speculation that Ford could be readying a slightly more aggressive version of the GTD, hence the aero upgrades. Additionally, both the blue and blue cars had gold Nurburgring stickers directly below the GTD badge on the rear fascia, so we could be looking at the ‘Nurburgring Edition,’ or something similar. Or they may mean absolutely nothing…