These days, it seems like there’s a world record for everything. Most recently, we’ve seen Mercedes-Benz go after lap records at the Nürburgring, both for the fastest luxury car and fastest overall production car. Not to be outdone, Porsche is nabbing a record of its own. And the attempt will literally come at you sideways.
Yes, it’s another drifting record and this time, it’s electrifying. That’s because the record is specific to electric vehicles, and it’s already certified by the folks at Guinness World Records as legit and in the books. Porsche set the record at its Porsche Experience Center on the Hockenheimring, letting loose a production-spec rear-wheel-drive Taycan on the 200-meter (656-foot) skidpad. Dennis Retera was Porsche’s driver, and he ultimately turned 210 opposite-lock laps for a total of 42.171 kilometers (26.1 miles) of continuous drifting. The session was 55 minutes long and the average speed was 46 km/h (29 mph).
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Retera admitted it was “very tiring” to sustain the drift for nearly an hour. The skidpad was kept wet for the duration, but grip wasn’t consistent so high levels of concentration were required throughout the attempt. To certify the results, the car was inspected before and after the run, and numerous tracking systems ranging from GPS to yaw rate sensors documented the event. A roof-mounted camera also recorded the entire run.
This EV drift record is impressive, but it’s still well short of the crazy record set by BMW in 2018. Using an F90 M5, BMW Performance Driving School instructor Johan Schwartz drifted nonstop for eight hours, covering 232.5 miles. With the Bimmer’s engine running high-RPM, it needed no less than five fuel-ups and that required a second BMW to drift in tandem to deliver more gas.
Should Porsche decide to go after the overall drift record, keeping the car plugged in while circling a skidpad seems like an easier task than tandem-drifting to top off a fuel tank. Until then, the Taycan endures as the most sideways-loving EV of them all.