Last year, Ford’s halo Mustang supercar became the first American production car to clock a sub-7-minute lap time around the legendary Nürburgring course in Nürburg, Germany. That lap was achieved in less than ideal conditions, and the Blue Oval committed to return to the 12.9-mile, 73-turn course known as The Green Hell to run even quicker.

These changes were made after a second-by-second review of the August 2024 sub-7-minute lap… — Greg Goodall, Chief Program Engineer, Mustang GTD

“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.”

Ford revisited the ring with the Mustang GTD to improve on its first sub-7-minute time around the Green Hell. The result was a 6:52.072-minute lap, making this pony car the fourth fastest vehicle in the production sports car class. (Photo Credit: Ford Motor Company)

While its 6:57.685-minute lap was impressive (watch it below), the Mustang GTD team set out to improve upon that milestone with a series of refinements. To that end, engineers tweaked the chassis tuning and fortified its torsional rigidity. Playing off is more rugged foundation, the GTD gained new suspension gear and revised alignment settings for improved handling. They also improved the downforce via revised aerodynamics.

Meanwhile, engineers enhanced the ABS, powertrain, and traction-control calibrations. They also continued to refine the Adaptive Spool Valve dampers for improved performance.

“These changes were made after a second-by-second review of the August 2024 sub-7-minute lap and were proven out first on the simulator and then in April when the team returned to the Nürburgring for only its second good-weather track test since August,” Goodall explained. “Additionally, Multimatic Motorsports driver Dirk Müller conducted additional simulation testing before setting the faster Nürburgring time.”

To achieve a quicker lap, Ford and Multimatic Motorsports engineers strengthened the chassis, sharpened the suspension, and optimized the aerodynamics. They also tweaked the powertrain calibration for improved performance. (Photo Credit: Ford Motor Company)

The result was an even quicker 6:52.072-minute lap, which made the Mustang GTD the fourth fastest vehicle around the ’Ring in the production sports car class.

For the fortunate future owners of this elite performance machine, it is exciting to see Ford and Multimatic extracting even more performance from this ride as the cars head into production. We can’t wait to see what these cars do in the wild.