A lap time around the Nürburgring is the automotive equivalent of 'mine's bigger than yours'. No other number matters in the world of sports cars, and Ferrari is shouting pretty loudly about bettering seven minutes on the famously tortuous 13-mile ribbon of tarmac in Germany.

It's done so in a 599XX driven by Ferrari's test driver Raffaele De Simone. As the 599XX isn't road legal, quite what record Ferrari has broken is open to question, the Italian firm stating that the 599XX the first ever production-derived sports car to manage a lap in less than seven minutes.

That's not to take anything away from Ferrari's achievement, 6 minute 58.16 seconds quite a staggering time, but calling it production-derived is like calling a chimpanzee a close relative to us. Sure, there are similarities in the DNA, but the £1.2m 599XX experimental track machine is pretty far removed from even the recently introduced 599 GTO.

The technology to allow the 599XX to achieve that lap time is staggering. An active aerodynamic system called Actiflow can increase downforce and/or cut drag depending on the 599XX's trim during cornering, while Ferrari's High Performance Dynamic Concept manages the various stability, traction and damping systems to find the mechanical limits of handling for maximum performance. There's no word on whether it was running on slick tyres either - though we suspect it was.

Impressive as the 599XX's time is there's still the matter of a Radical SR8LM managing a lap of Germany's 'Green Hell' in 6 minutes and 48 seconds. While the plucky UK car might look like a racing prototype, the Radical is road legal, with the record-holding car wearing its number plates with pride.

Check out the video below of the Ferrari 599XX during its timed run.