Czinger 21C sets new Laguna Seca lap record, 1:25:44

The Czinger 21C is a beast, no doubt about that. It’s powered by an in-house developed, electrified 2.88 litre twin-turbo flat crank V8 engine that produces a whopping 1,250 hp, and weighs just 1,240 kg dry. The zero to 100 km/h? Done in just 1.9 seconds. So what is it like on a racing circuit? Blisteringly quick, of course!

Czinger has officially set a new lap record at WeatherTech Laguna Seca Raceway with a time of 1 minutes 25.44 seconds, smashing the previous record of 1 minutes 27.62 seconds held by the McLaren Senna (driven by Randy Pobst). The 21C did this with road legal Michelin Pilot Sport Cup2R tyres, by the way.

Company chief engineer Ewan Baldry said: “It goes without saying that we are delighted with the performance of the car. To be able to achieve this lap time with a car that is going into homologated production is the result of some incredibly hard work from the Czinger team and in particular our ability to exploit the cutting-edge technology that we have access to through our close association with Divergent.”

“The most exciting part is that we know we have more performance to come,” Baldry noted, and said the Laguna Seca lap record is just the first in a planned string of future record attempts.

Piloting the 21C was American race car driver Joel Miller, who said “building a new car is not easy and this group built one fast car. I can only thank them for having me as the driver during the development process and record run.”

“The revolutionary technology used to build the car complements the speed that it has. And it has a sports car soul when driving. You can feel what the car is doing in the steering wheel. What the powertrain is capable of doing is absolutely mind blowing at maximum power. When setting the record at Laguna Seca, it was not by a little bit but a massive amount,” he enthused.

What’s interesting about the 21C is that its V8 engine, despite being able to rev up to 11,000 rpm, is designed to run on a range of fuels, including carbon recycled methanol and other e-fuels, so it can technically be a zero-emissions vehicle. Czinger can raise maximum output to 1,350 hp if the customer so desires.

Just to give you an idea of how quick it is, the hypercar smashes the quarter mile drag in 8.1 seconds, and it takes just 8.5 seconds to reach the 300 km/h mark (13.8 seconds from 0-300-0 km/h), or 21.3 seconds to 400 km/h (27.1 seconds from 0-400-0 km/h). Its top speed is 452 km/h. Want one? Well, Czinger will only make 80 units of the 21C, with prices starting from US$1.7 million (RM7.1 million).