During the recent Nürburgring 24 Hours weekend, Porsche treated race fans to a bit of a spectacle.
The Porsche 919 Evo is on a victory tour of the world’s circuits right now. This celebrates its unbeaten Le Mans run, and gives fans across the world a chance to say goodbye after Porsche withdrew from the World Endurance Championship.
With the N24 going on nearby, Porsche sent the 919 Evo out on a demonstration lap for the crowds. To add some context, a Porsche 956 — the same model as that which set the actual lap record on the Nürburgring Nordschleife during a race in 1983 — joined its modern counterpart.
However, it seems that Porsche had more than just an exhibition run in mind. When the race was done and dusted, and everyone else had packed up and gone home, Porsche stayed on. According to reports from Germany, the 919 Evo is running some Nordschleife laps. Some very, very quick laps. Could the 919 add the ‘Ring to its lap record trophy cabinet?
Stefan Bellof’s 125.6mph lap in the Porsche 956 in 1983 has never been seriously challenged. At 6:11, it’s still the quickest anyone has ever been around the north loop. However, some road cars are now under the 6:50 mark, including an electric car. With an unfettered prototype on hand, Bellof’s record looks ripe for the picking.
F1 has tried its best too. BMW Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld ran some demonstration laps in 2007 and although he recorded no uninterrupted flying lap, estimates at the time put the car close to six minutes. BMW reportedly suggested that with a proper setup for the track, a time around 5:15 would be possible.
But the 919 Evo has been showing even current F1 cars — the fastest road circuit cars in history — a clean pair of heels. The 1:41.770 lap of Spa-Francorchamps was three-quarters of a second faster than Lewis Hamilton’s 2017 qualifying record, the fastest lap of the circuit to date.
How fast could the 919 Evo go? It’s rather difficult to say — Nordschleife lap times are unofficial and we don’t have any race car benchmarks to draw any conclusions.
In setting its (also unofficial) Spa lap, the 919 Evo beat a host of 911 GT3 race cars by around 35%. Laurens Vanthoor used the same 911 to set a 8:09.105 in qualifying for the Nürburgring 24 Hours, but he only spent about 6:30 of that on the Nordschleife itself. If the 919 maintains that gap, it could set a lap of — and we hope you’re sitting down — 4:43. That’d be an average speed of 162.9mph…
There’s likely to be more on this in the coming days, so watch this space.
Featured image by Kevin Mc Glone of Red Square Images.
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