Nardò Ring


The Nardò Ring, originally known as Pista di prova di Nardò della Fiat when it was built in 1975, is a high speed test track located at more than north-west of the town of Nardò, Italy, in the southern region of Apulia, in the province of Lecce. It was acquired by Porsche Engineering in 2012 from its former owners, Prototipo SpA. Porsche now call the site Nardò Technical Center.

Description

The track is long and is round, has four lanes for cars and motorcycles totaling in width and has a separate inner ring for trucks at a width of. In the cars/motorcycle ring the lanes are banked at such a degree that a driver in the outer most lane doesn't need to turn the wheel while driving at speeds of up to. In essence, at the so-called neutral speed which is different for the four lanes, one can drive as if in a straight lane. However extremely fast cars still require the steering wheel to be turned when going faster than the maximum neutral speed. For example the Koenigsegg CCR which set a speed record for a production car at the Nardò Ring did so with the steering wheel at a 30° angle. This speed record has since been beaten by the Bugatti Veyron at Volkswagen Group's private Ehra-Lessien straight line test track in Germany, and hence the CCR only holds the speed record for the Nardò Ring. In the process of fighting a turn as needed when going faster than the neutral speed quite a bit of potential top speed is lost and hence a fast car will go faster in a straight line than what is possible on the Nardó Ring. Even at the neutral speed, in a banked turn a car runs a bit heavier than it would in a straight line, since the downforce created by the banking increases the rolling resistance on the tires. There has been one fatality at the ring.
The neutral speed for the four car/motorcycle lanes are respectively:
During regular weekly working activity the maximum speed allowed on the circular track is. Higher speeds are only allowed at times when a client gets the track for its exclusive use.
The neutral speed for the truck ring is between and over the width of the track, highest in the outer most part of the lane.
The plant also includes other tracks; the most important is 6.222 km handling circuit, completely inside the circular one. It is characterized by a long main straight and sixteen curves of different radius and variable lateral slope. It can provide useful results for durability, reliability, vehicle dynamics and tire tests of both cars and motorbikes.
The track was featured in British TV series Top Gear in 1992, showing footage of the Jaguar XJ220, driven by Martin Brundle on a top speed test. It was again featured in the series 18 opener, when Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May drove in a Lamborghini Aventador, a Noble M600 and a McLaren MP4-12C, respectively, to see who could reach the highest speed. The rough surface of the track figured prominently in the latter episode, and it was resurfaced shortly afterwards in 2018.

Records set on the Nardò Ring

During one of the first secret speed tests on a Bugatti Veyron prototype, driven by Loris Bicocchi, one of the wheels exploded carrying the fender with it. The fender raised and brought the front hood with it which collapsed and smashed the windshield causing the car to lose control and slamming into the guard rail at a speed of 398 km/h.
Although the car had broken brakes, Loris managed to save himself with only minor injuries by braking the car by crawling on the guard rail.
Loris received an invoice from the Nardò Technical Center where they said he damaged 1800 meters of guardrail. Bugatti then took charge of any expenditure.