Ligier just set the slowest-ever Nürburgring lap. It should have tried harder

Congratulations to Ligier – legendary French motorsport outfit and occasional creator of teapot-coded race cars – who this week smashed a long-standing Nürburgring record.

In the hands of French journalists Nicolas Meunier and Martin Coulomb, the firm’s diesel JS50 microcar lapped the Green Hell in a time of 28 minutes, 28.5 seconds. That, claims Ligier proudly, is the slowest-ever official time around the ‘Ring, trouncing the six-decade-old record of the Trabant P60 by more than 12 minutes.

Classified in France as a ‘voiture sans permis’, the JS50 can be driven in its homeland from the age of just 14 without a licence. In diesel guise, its 500cc mill makes a fearsome eight horsepower, and boasts a top speed of just 28 miles an hour.

Ligier’s ‘Ring record – claims the company, with languette presumably wedged firmly in joue – “hinted at its glorious history in Formula One”. The record-breaking JS50 was fitted with a magnificent bodykit and decals, which as we all know add at least ten seconds a lap. (Which, come to think of it, was the one thing Ligier didn’t want to happen.)

Now then. Top Gear greatly approves of this sort of record-breaking silliness, and of the epically-soundtracked video with which Ligier commemorated its feat.

However, Top Gear cannot help but ask: has Ligier really tried hard enough here? 28 minutes is, no question, an impressively leisurely time – especially when you consider the Mercedes-AMG One can get round the 'Ring in six and a half minutes.

But – if Top Gear’s maths serves – that also means the JS50 achieved an average speed of about 27.5mph around the 12.9-mile Green Hell. Which implies Messieurs Meunier et/ou Coulomb pretty much pinned the throttle for the entire lap. Couldn’t they have set an even slower time by, y’know, driving slower? Or perhaps parking up somewhere around Pflanzgarten for a nice leisurely picnic?

What we’re saying is, with a little more commitment to extreme sluggishness, there was a whole lot more slowness out there for Ligier’s taking. Maybe the error they made was handing driving duties to a pair of hotshot motoring journos rather than, say, a member of a remote rainforest tribe who had never previously encountered a car before. Or perhaps an especially lackadaisical three-toed sloth?

Could Ligier have achieved a yet-more-spectacular feat of listlessness by loading the JS50’s boot – if indeed, the JS50 boasts a boot, a fact that might not take long to verify but also, meh, life’s too short – with roofing lead? Could they have erected some sort of primitive sail-arrangement atop its roof to increase drag? Or, once again, couldn't they just have driven a little slower?

Maybe that wouldn’t have been in the spirit of fair competition. But, as Top Gear’s always said, if you want to really make a name for yourself in the field of ponderous motorsport, you’ve got to be prepared to push the rules a little.

In fact, maybe Ligier’s jumped the gun by claiming the slowest-ever Nürburgring lap. Because, at the risk of getting over-philosophical here, surely the slowest Nürburgring lap… is the one that hasn't even finished yet?