Mazda wants you to think of the Mazda 3 MPS as well – and to prove how fast their machine is, they unleashed it on the world’s most demanding circuit: the Nürburgring Nordshleife.

Trackside’s Keith Collantine met the man who did the driving – plus check out video of the car’s hot lap.

The vast Nürburgring is usually the stomping ground of German performance cars – Porsche 911s and BMW M6s, not little Japanese hot hatches.

It plunges and sweeps, has 172 corners with virtually no room for error. There is no greater challenge of man and machine.

Mazda sent test driver Mark Ticehurst to tackle the hot hatch lap record: that’s 8m 35.02s to cover 22 of the toughest kilometres in motor racing.

I met Mark at a test day in Britain where he gave me a first-hand demonstration of the prowess of the Mazda RX-8 - and his driving skill.

On a tiny, tight circuit on cold tyres he effortlessly held the car in elegant drifts from corner to corner.

After a couple of circuits the tyres had heated up and he attacked the track – braking deeper, harder, later, turning in with enormous speed – but always millimetre-perfect.

He told me about his Nürburgring adventure: “I’d never even seen the place before – only in computer games.”

He said his biggest problem were the bikers – quicker under acceleration, but holding him up in the corners. He said: “It’s like driving in a swarm of hornets – they were everywhere!”

At the Nürburgring he had a couple of practice laps and then a single shot at beating the record. How did he get on? Watch the video below to find out:

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Ticehurst crossed the line at 8m 39s – just four seconds off the record. But he’s not disheartened – Mazda will be back this summer for another shot at the record.

See the fastest production car lap of the Nürburgring.

Racing round-up

F1 United States

Lewis Hamilton made it back-to-back wins after defeating team mate Fernando Alonso at Indianapolis. Hamilton now has a ten point lead in the championship.

Sebastian Vettel, making his Grand Prix debut, made became the youngest driver ever to score a point.

Le Mans 24 Hours

Audi retained their Le Mans crown but only one of their three diesel cars made it to the end. Dindo Capello, Marco Werner and Frank Biela won with Peugeot’s rival diesel second on its debut.

Aston Martin’s DBR9 triumphed in the LMGT1 category, Binnie Motorsports won in LMP2 and the Imsa Performance Porsche 911 won LMGT2.

WTCC Czech Republic

Andy Priaulx lost his World Touring Car Championship lead when rival Pierre-Yval Courthals took him out of the first race.

Team mates Felix Poreiro and Jorg Muller won the two races, and fellow BMW driver Augusto Farfus now leads the title race.

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