A former F1 team may have set the record for the slowest Nürburgring lap in history
Published on Jan 11, 2026 at 8:29 PM (UTC+4)
by Molly Davidson
Last updated on Jan 08, 2026 at 10:15 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Emma Matthews
A former Formula One team has found its way into the Nürburgring record books.
And it’s not what you’d expect.
The achievement came courtesy of a tiny diesel microcar.
A vehicle that may have completed the slowest lap the circuit has ever seen.
DISCOVER SBX CARS – The global premium auction platform powered by Supercar Blondie
How a former F1 team ended up with the Nürburgring’s slowest lap
Ligier is best remembered by some fans for its time on the Formula One grid in the mid-1990s, before the French factory exited F1 in 1996.
But alongside racing, the company has long had a second lane: microcars.
The car in question is the Ligier JS50, billed as a ‘sporty city car reinvented.’
It’s powered by a four-stroke, twin-cylinder diesel engine that makes around 8bhp, with a top speed of less than 30mph.
In March of last year, the JS50 was taken to Germany’s Nürburgring Nordschleife – the same 12.9-mile circuit normally reserved for supercars and lap-record chasers.
And it was there that the microcar completed a full lap of the Nordschleife in 28 minutes and 25.8 seconds – a time that would make it the slowest Nürburgring lap on record.
That figure even undercuts the famously slow Trabant P50, which has long been associated with underpowered Nürburgring appearances.
It’s also been reported that two drivers drove the JS50 from Paris to the Nürburgring on a single tank of diesel before attempting the lap.
A detail that reinforces how deliberately unserious the whole exercise was.
In other words, this wasn’t a timed attack or an official record run.
It was a microcar being taken somewhere it had absolutely no business being, simply to see if it could make it all the way around.
Just how far this is from the fastest Nürburgring lap ever set
To really grasp how absurd a 28-minute lap sounds, you only need to look at the fastest times ever recorded on the same circuit.
The absolute quickest around the Nürburgring Nordschleife wasn’t even done by a production road car – it was set by a Porsche 919 Hybrid Evo, a race prototype, in 5 minutes 19.55 seconds.
That blistering lap was posted back in 2018 with Timo Bernhard at the wheel, and it still stands as the all-time fastest complete lap around the Green Hell.
Even within production-car territory, the benchmark is still ferociously quick.
The Mercedes-AMG One hypercar holds the production lap record with a 6:29.09 around the 12.9-mile course, making it the first road-legal car to ever go under 6 minutes 30 seconds on the Nordschleife.
So yes: the Ligier’s outing was significantly slower than what we normally talk about when we discuss Nürburgring speed records, but in a field known for speed and splendor, it found a different way to stand out.
Timeline of the fastest Nürburgring Nordschleife laps (production cars)
2009: Nissan GT-R sets a new benchmark with a 7:26.70 lap
2013: Porsche 918 Spyder breaks the seven-minute barrier with a 6:57.00 lap
2016: Lamborghini Huracán Performante records a 6:52.01 lap
2017: Porsche 911 GT2 RS resets the record with a 6:47.30 lap
2018: Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series goes quicker at 6:43.616
2020: Porsche 911 GT2 RS MR becomes the fastest road-legal car with a 6:43.300 lap
2022: Mercedes-AMG One sets a new production-car record at 6:35.183
2023: Porsche 911 GT3 RS laps in 6:49.328 (class-leading, but not outright fastest)
2024: Mercedes-AMG One improves its own record with a 6:29.090 lap
2025: Mercedes-AMG One remains the fastest production car on record at the Nürburgring
DISCOVER SBX CARS: The global premium car auction platform powered by Supercar Blondie
Molly Davidson is a Junior Content Writer at Supercar Blondie. Based in Melbourne, she holds a double Bachelor’s degree in Arts/Law from Swinburne University and a Master’s of Writing and Publishing from RMIT. Molly has contributed to a range of magazines and journals, developing a strong interest in lifestyle and car news content. When she’s not writing, she’s spending quality time with her rescue English staffy, Boof.
