WEC

PORSCHE 919 EVO BLOWS AWAY NURBURGRING RECORD!

Porsche’s 919 Evo with Timo Bernhard behind the wheel clocked an unbelievable 5:19.55 lap time at the Nürburgring on Friday, completely destroying the previous all-time record of 6:11.13 set by Stefan Bellof in a Porsche 956 C back in 1983. His average speed around the Green Hell was an insane 145.3 mph.

It means Porsche still holds both the all-time record for the 12.9-mile Nürburgring-Nordschleife as well as the production car record, the latter achieved last September by Lars Kern in a 2018 911 GT2 RS.

The 919 Evo is neither a production car nor a race car. It is simply a time-attack beast based on the hugely successful 919 Hybrid LMP1 prototype racer that competed the past few years in the World Endurance Championship, having benefited from the removal of all limits imposed via racing regulations.

Hampered by the regulations, the 919 Hybrid race car delivered performance similar to rival LMP1-spec cars despite being conceptually very different, particularly when it came to powertrain. As a consequence this never allowed the question: What would be the potential of the 919 Hybrid if unrestricted.

The 919 Evo has just provided the answer.

“Having developed, improved and raced the car for four years, the [919 Hybrid team] had a very close relationship to it,” Stephen Mitas, Porsche’s chief race engineer for the LMP1 program, said in a statement. “We all knew, no matter how successful the 919 Hybrid was, it could never show its full abilities. Actually even the Evo version doesn’t fully exploit the technical potential. This time we were not limited by regulations but resources.”