Seven minutes, thirty two seconds - that’s how quick the 375kW Alfa Romeo Giulia QV super saloon was able to lap the fearsome Nurburgring Nordschleife in Germany and thus is now title holder as the fastest production four-door sedan the circuit has recorded.
The previous lap record was very recently by Porsche and their fresh Panamera Turbo, a car whose speed and dynamic talent are indeed formidable. That Alfa Romeo could unseat Zuffenhausen’s best is very impressive, given how they have engineered the Panamera to be devastatingly quick but, as Alfa Romeo proved, is a solid 4 seconds off the pace from the Giulia Quadrifoglio Verde.
Also impressive is the fact that the Giulia plants its power at the rear-wheels and, because of it, is capable of proper hoonery. The Panamera Turbo, by contrast, is an all-wheel drive precision road weapon that just happens to have four doors and a usable boot.
Interestingly, the Giulia QV used for the record lap - and driven by the ironically named works driver Fabio France - was not one fitted with the six-speed manual transmission but rather the eight-speed automatic sourced from ZF.
Considering that the Nordschleife has a total of 154 corners and a length of nearly 21km, the sheering amount of shifts would likely fatiguing and the added focus that the driver can otherwise direct to navigating the perfect line through the track outweighed the weight penalty the auto box brought.
The Alfa Romeo Giulia is the newest car from the famed Italian marque. A four door rear-wheel drive sedan that is meant to compete with other premium compact saloons such as those from BMW, Audi, and Mercedes-Benz.
The QV is the high-performance version of the Giulia that’s positioned as an Italian alternative to the the BMW M3 and Mercedes-AMG C 63. 375kW and 600Nm are extracted from its 2.9-litre twin-turbocharged V6 engine co-developed with Ferrari.
All that Italian fury situated just behind the front wheels needs just 3.9-seconds to thrust the 1,524kg Giulia QV to 100km/h from rest and on to a top speed of 304km/h.
For more on Alfa Romeo vehicles, including pricing and specifications, check out our Showroom.
