![\"fordGT_track\"](\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/-mm-\/1c83ca06ea16ea05571c2796fdf821b0f44ccfe3\/c=374-0-6347-4480&r=x404&c=534x401\/local\/-\/media\/2018\/01\/23\/DetroitNews\/B99622276Z.1_20180123202140_000_G491R53Q5.1-0.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/div>In its racing debut at France\u2019s legendary 24 Hours of LeMans endurance race in 2016, the Ford GT race car scored first place.<\/p>\n
Now it\u2019s the production car\u2019s turn for glory.<\/p>\n
In its first go at\u00a0Car and Driver magazine\u2019s hallowed Lightning Lap competition<\/a>\u00a0at America\u2019s Virginia International Raceway, the street-legal Ford GT has broken the lap record. The GT\u2019s breathtaking 2-minute and 43-second lap beat by a one-tenth second the record by the $875,175 Porsche 918 Spyder hybrid supercar that has stood for four years.<\/p>\n Since 2006, Car and Driver has taken the world\u2019s fastest production cars to the 4.1-mile track for a head-to-head, single-lap competition to determine performance bragging rights.<\/p>\n \u201cThe GT at VIR is, in one word, fastest. As in, fastest-lap-we\u2019ve-ever-recorded fastest,\u201d\u00a0wrote Car and Driver staffer and hot shoe K.C. Colwell on the feat<\/a>. The GT\u2019s lap included \u201c163.6 mph down the front straight (second-highest all-time speed to the 170.6-mph Porsche 918 Spyder); barreling into the Climbing Esses at 148.0 mph (a new record); and a neck workout at 1.17 g\u2019s in Turn 1.\u201d<\/p>\n The 887-horsepower Porsche\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0record has been under assault in recent years from other Detroit makers, with the\u00a0Chevrolet Corvette Z06<\/a>\u00a0posting a 2.44.6 second lap in 2015 and a\u00a0Dodge Viper ACR<\/a>\u00a0hammering out a 2.44.2 in 2016.<\/p>\n The Chevy and Dodge efforts were notable given that their under-$150,000 price tags are a fraction of the Porsche\u2019s sticker, but it took the $494,750 ($525,750 as tested) GT to get the job done.<\/p>\n \u201cThis record is another great way to showcase the GT\u2019s role to help us pioneer new technologies, push out engineering skills, and create novel processes with the goal of improving all our vehicles in the future,\u201d said GT Chief Engineer Jamal Hameedi of the lap record set by Ford\u2019s 647-horsepower halo car.<\/p>\n After the GT race car\u2019s auspicious debut at LeMans in 2016 \u2014 50 years after Ford first won the race in a GT40 in 1966 \u2014 the production GT began customer deliveries last year. Don\u2019t expect Ford\u2019s Detroit competition to let the record stand. Chevy introduced an even more powerful, 755-horsepower Corvette ZR1 this winter \u2014 a beast that will surely take aim at the GT\u2019s mark.<\/p>\n With its record lap the GT took back a Lightning Lap crown worn by the last production GT made back in 2006.<\/p>\n