Volkswagen ID.R Beats McLaren-Mercedes MP4/13 F1 Car at Goodwood, Sets Record

Until this past weekend, the all-time record on the Goodwood hill climb belonged to Nick Heidfeld. The former Formula 1 driver set the bar at 41.6 seconds way back in 1999, behind the wheel of an internal combustion McLaren-Mercedes MP4/13 F1 car.

That is now no longer the case, as Dumas and the ID.R topped it by 1.7 seconds, setting the new record to beat probably decades from now at 39.90 seconds.

This is the first time when an electric car beats a time set by a Formula 1 machine on a hill climb.

“I am very proud to have set the all-time record in Goodwood with the ID.R. The short hillclimb is a very special challenge,” said in a statement Romain Dumas.

“Because the track is so short, I could not afford to make even the slightest mistake, and every aspect of the fine-tuning of the ID.R had to be perfect. That was particularly challenging, as we were not able to test on the route beforehand.”

The ID.R was created by Volkswagen in 2018 with the initial goal to mark the Germans’ return to the Pikes Peak hill climb event. It slowly went well beyond its initial scope and beat several other records in the process.

At Pikes Peak, the new all-time record to beat set by the ID.R is 7:57.148 minutes, while the bar at the Nurburgring for electric vehicles has been set at 6:05.336 minutes.

The car managed to impress the racing world using two electric motors that develop 680 horsepower and 650 Nm of torque. Depending on the task at hand, the car suffered some modifications, mostly regarding aerodynamics.