Any of us who grew up on racing video games will be familiar with the concept of a ghost lap. When you’ve set a benchmark lap the game will save your lap so you can use it as a ghostly competitor, a specter of a rabbit for your digital avatar to chase down and pass. The ghost allows you to instantly know where your previous lap is better or worse than your current lap at a glance. It’s a fun way to compete against your own best self, especially in a time before online gaming.
When Ford took its over-the-top Mustang GTD to the Nürburgring and set an impressive sub-seven-minute lap time, the big brains at Blue Oval knew there was more time to be found, so they went out and found five and a half seconds, then overlayed the new lap on top of the old lap’s onboard video so you can easily see where the current GTD sits against the car Ford brought to Germany last year. With professional racing driver Dirk Müller aboard for both laps to maintain consistency, the GTD improved up the all-time ‘Ring production car lap record list from just behind the Porsche 918 Spyder hypercar to within a tenth of the Lamborghini Huracán Performante LP640-4. Both of those cars feature all-wheel drive, while the Ford remains rear-driven.
This is what a 6:57.68 lap looks like when stacked up against a 6:52.072 lap.
Watch the lap
While the exact changes to the 1,000-unit limited production $325,000 Mustang GTD formula aren’t enumerated, Ford says it has “improved powertrain calibration, updated aerodynamics, and optimized brake and traction control software” in order to find time on track. You can see some of the gap between the 2024 time and the 2025 time ebb and wane as one lap finds advantage over the other, but the end result is a car that completes the Green Hell lap’s nearly 13 miles some 5.5 seconds quicker.
Of course you can still theoretically go faster around the lap for less money, as the current Porsche 911 GT3 RS ran a 6:49.328 and the German sports car brand lists those with an MSRP of $241,300. Of course, it’s tantamount to impossible to find one at sticker and without tens of thousands of dollars in options, but faster is faster. Is Porsche going to release an onboard video of the Mustang GTD showing a ghost GT3 RS lap?
