The upcoming Range Rover Sport SVR is a lot of things, including the fastest, most agile and most responsive Land Rover vehicle ever built with sales scheduled to start in 2015.

Following last month’s Goodwood debut, the Range Rover Sport SVR returned to the Nürburbgring Nordschleife for some more testing and as a result has managed to lap the famous circuit in Germany in 8 minutes and 14 seconds.

The time was set by a Land Rover test driver in a standard production version of a Range Rover Sport SVR with power coming from a 542bhp 5.0-litre supercharged V8.

Mike Cross, Chief Engineer Vehicle Integrity, said, “The Nürburgring is a benchmark for vehicle development and testing, and cars become stronger, more durable and faster over its 13 miles and 70-plus corners. We wanted to see whether an SUV could behave like a performance car in this challenging environment. The results are spectacular and the Range Rover Sport SVR has demonstrated outstanding on-road performance capabilities.”

Even though the SVR model is updated to better perform on-road, it has not lost its all terrain capabilities or comfort, still featuring a two-speed off-road capable transfer case, while also maintaining a 85cm water wading depth.