Hyundai Ioniq 6 N Outpaces a 650-HP Tuned GT-R by a Hair at the Track

For nearly 20 years, the Nissan GT-R R35 was the benchmark for affordable speed, a hand-built twin-turbo V6, all-wheel drive, and a gearbox that seemed to anticipate every turn. But times have changed. A four-door electric sedan just beat a heavily modified one around a racetrack.

Driven+ recently pitted a Litchfield-tuned R35 GT-R against a Hyundai Ioniq 6 N. 01 seconds. 07 seconds. That six-hundredths-of-a-second gap is tiny, but it tells a big story. 8-liter V6 to 650 horsepower and 800 Nm of torque, matching the Ioniq 6 N’s 641 hp with N Grin Boost engaged.

On paper, the Nissan actually had a nine-horsepower edge. But the Hyundai weighed 2,166 kg versus the GT-R’s 1,722 kg, a 444-kg penalty that would normally bury an EV in corners. The GT-R also ran on superior Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires, while the Ioniq 6 N wore Pirelli P Zeros.

The Hyundai still won.

The driver, frustrated by the GT-R’s front-end push, shifted 80% of torque to the rear axle in the Ioniq 6 N mid-session. He called the Hyundai a car that forces a rethink: “The gearbox works like a manual ICE engine. It sounds like one. It goes like one. It turns like one. ” He also speculated the Ioniq 6 N could run a 49-second lap on better tires, and that the GT-R might match it.

The Ioniq 6 N, launched at Goodwood in July 2025, rides on the E-GMP platform with revised suspension, adaptive dampers, and a rear wing generating 275 kgf of downforce. Its battery management preconditions for drag launches, sprint laps, or sustained circuit work. 42 Nürburgring lap, undercutting the original R35 GT-R’s Nordschleife times.

The GT-R is in its final production year after 17 years, with a next-gen model not expected until around 2030, and it may not use an internal combustion engine at all. ” An aging platform tuned to 650 hp and running mid-2000s hardware came within a blink of beating a car built with every modern EV advantage.

The result doesn’t make the GT-R look bad. It makes the Ioniq 6 N look exactly like what Hyundai claims it is, and that’s the harder truth for enthusiasts to accept.