So some ages ago I was digging around in japanese saturn magazines. Great browsing by the way, even if you can't read it they are a fucking VIBE. Multiple groups were putting out almost 200 pages a month of Saturn articles and ads, with a bit less ad radio than I recall from the US magazines I was getting ~10 years later.
Anyway, I remember one of them had some stupid fast times in it. In the course of finding that, I found a very similar article in Saturn Fan magazine (1996 No "1-2", page 63).
This roughly translates to saying a reference time is 54 seconds for a single lap, or 2:44 for the 3 lap total. The second set says "Editorial Department" and has 53.18 and 2:41.58 respectively. These are good times but, I remember some "What the fuck?" times.
Well it turns out I had been remembering an issue of Sega Saturn Magazine (Japan) instead. (1996 Vol 1, page 61 in the PDF, 57 listed)
Yup, that's a 52.74 listed as a target laptime. That's a FAST time. There's a part further down that says 48s are possible with the Stratos on that track, which is an even harder time to get to.
Both articles cover the whole game, but I don't know if they're using a wheel. I don't think the saturn wheel was available in japan in 1996? EDIT: It 100% was. SR95 absolutely benefits from it, being able to drive smoothly is very important for fast times.
Past that, I mostly just find the difference in times interesting. It may not sound like much, but that's the difference between a pretty good time and a really, really good time. The really scary part is, if you don't read japanese, it's possible to interpret these times as what one would do playing single lap, where that would be from a standing start, plus traffic. I'm comfortable saying, I don't think that time is possible from a standing start.
Thanks to @EpsilDelta for some translation help, and Sega Retro for having all of these scans on hand and easy to access.