Late last year, Ford set out to see what its Mustang GTD could do on the challenging Nürburgring racetrack in Germany. Despite intermittent wet conditions, the street-legal supercar proved itself by posting a sub-7-minute lap with Dirk Müller behind the wheel.

“The team behind Mustang GTD took what we’ve learned from decades on the track and engineered a Mustang that can compete with the world’s best supercars,” Ford President and CEO Jim Farley said after its first sub-7-minute lap. “We’re proud to be the first American automaker with a car that can lap the Nürburgring in under 7 minutes, but we aren’t satisfied. We know there’s much more time to find with Mustang GTD. We’ll be back.”

Not satisfied with that impressive result, the Mustang GTD team used the data gathered from that outing to hone the car’s performance. 

Only seven production sports cars have lapped the Nürburgring in under 7 minutes, and the Mustang GTD was the first from an American brand to do so, twice. Ford returned to the ’Ring and ran even quicker. (Photo Credit: Ford Motor Company)

“The team spent the winter looking at where it could make gains, where it could improve reliability, and where those thousandths of a second could be clawed back,” Greg Goodall, Chief Program Engineer, Mustang GTD, said. “And it put those learnings into practice on the track, just like the Ford Performance Motorsports team does.”

As a result, they stiffened the chassis, retuned the dampers, tweaked the alignment, and improved the aerodynamics. Upon returning to the ’Ring last month, the improvements helped Müller hasten his lap time by 5.5 seconds to 6:52.072 minutes.

While Ford previously shared in-car footage of the car’s quicker lap, the company is now sharing a ghost lap, which shows the GTD racing with itself around the ‘Ring.

In a video released today, you can watch driver Dirk Müller race against his previous personal best around the track and see how the upgrades to the Mustang GTD improved the car’s performance.

“…Using the onboard footage and drawing on GPS and onboard telemetry data from both our 2024 session and our 6:52.092 lap from April 2025, you can see where the Mustang GTD’s improved powertrain calibration, updated aerodynamics, and optimized brake and traction control software come into play,” Brandon Turkus, Enthusiast Vehicles Communication Manager at Ford, said.

While it is cool to see the Mustang GTD compete with itself, the real winners are the buyers of these six-figure supercars, who will benefit from the engineering upgrades that delivered the quicker lap.