The Nissan GT-R, winner of the 2009 World Performance Car of the Year, improved its lap time at the Nurburgring’s Nordschleife circuit in late April with a time of 7 minutes 26.70 seconds. This new lap time means the GT-R is now only 0.4 seconds slower than the considerably more powerful Corvette ZR1.

Previous recorded lap times at the ‘ring were:

• 7 minutes 27.56 seconds on April 15, 2009
• 7 minutes 29 in April, 2008
• 7 minutes 38 in September, 2007

“This record demonstrates our commitment to the continuous evolution of the Nissan GT-R,” said Kazutoshi Mizuno, Chief Vehicle Engineer and Chief Vehicle Specialist.

“We would like to continue delivering the passion and pride of ownership to our customers by improving its performance every year.”

The Nissan GT-R has won more than a dozen awards globally including Car of the Year from CAR Magazine in the UK and Car of the Year by both Motor Trend and Automobile Magazine in the US.

The Nissan GT-R benefits from a strong image and heritage amongst performance car aficionados, especially in Australia, which was the only country globally to officially retail the previous R32 in the early ’90s.

The R35 GT-R was launched in Australia, Europe, GCC and New Zealand last month. Australian customers have so far ordered more than 170 GT-R’s.

In Japan more than 5900 GT-R’s have been sold up to March 2009. It went on sale in the US in July 2008 where 2100 have also been sold so far.

The new Nurburgring record lap was again set by Nissan Chief test driver Toshio Suzuki, who visited Australia in February for the car’s official launch. The blistering lap time was achieved on Dunlop tyres in dry but dusty conditions.

Adapted from CarAdvice

The Nissan GT-R was chosen from an initial entry list of 23 contenders nominated by 59 World Car jurors from twenty-five countries throughout the world. Candidates for the World Performance Car award had to demonstrate a specific and overt Sports/Performance orientation. Furthermore, they had to also satisfy the same availability criteria as for the overall World Car award.

The jurors observed that the “Nissan GT-R stole the headlines in the sports car world in 2008. This GT-R – the R35 – throws even former GT-Rs into the weeds via an all-new 3.6-Litre bi-turbo V6 providing 358kW and 583Nm of torque. The drive of the GT-R, especially on a track, reveals an incredibly flexible all-wheel-drive chassis that lays down the rubber whenever you request it. Acceleration to 100km/h from a stop takes just 3.5 seconds, or a tick behind fellow Performance finalist the Corvette ZR1. For US$77,000 it may be the world’s best enthusiast car”.

The top three contenders for the World Performance Car were the Nissan GT-R, the Corvette ZR1 and the Porsche 911 Carrera. Previous World Performance Car winners were the Audi R8 in 2008, the Audi RS4 in 2007 and the Porsche Cayman S in 2006.

2009 World Performance Car finalists:

Adapted from WorldCarFans