I was looking through lap times of different production cars, and there are some wildly out of place cars doing ring laptimes, some cars are faster than they seem they should be, while others are slower than they should be. Which got me thinking how some cars truly get tested in showroom condition, and others get the “marketing” treatment to produce a laptime a showroom car would never touch, solely to sell more cars. Then I found this article that talks exactly about just that.
https://www.thedrive.com/porsche/11012/nurburgring-times-dont-matter
I think the point is that they aren’t really testing showroom cars anymore. Then my own thoughts, are that weather, track conditions, tires, mods, driver add so many variables that you can’t really say what’s what just from looking at lap times. You need all the data.
Those are valid points but all tracks have the exact same variables. Same with recording 0-60 times, 1/4 mile times, or any performance stats. Not to mention if an auto markers plans to brag about their ring time they aren’t going to send their car to the ring without favorable weather conditions.