Last year, I wrote a story about Stefan Bellof's 6:11.13 Nürburgring lap time set back in 1983 in a Porsche 956. I said it was a record that would remain unchallenged unless Porsche took its 919 LMP1 car to the 'Ring. That's exactly what it's done. Running a 5:19.55 around the famous Nordschleife, the Porsche 919 Evo driven by Timo Bernhard just obliterated the all-time record.

Porsche

That's 51.58 seconds faster than Bellof's time, which is almost hard to believe. Onboard footage from Bernhard's lap, which you can see below, doesn't even look like real-life, but it is.

Unlike Bellof's 1983 record, which was set during qualifying for the Nürburgring 1000km, this record saw Porsche rent out the track just for itself with the company using a car not homologated for any race series. The 919 Evo is the same car that beat Lewis Hamilton's 2017 pole at Spa Francorchamps earlier this year. It's basically built to set lap records like this. To send off its three-time Le Mans-winning 919 after it was retired from sports-car racing, Porsche threw out the LMP1 rulebook and made a high-downforce, high-horsepower monster.



Porsche

Its turbocharged V4 combustion engine has been cranked to produce 720 hp, while an electric motor at the front axle makes 440 hp. With Bernhard on board, the 919 Evo weighs just 1957 lbs, and it makes far more downforce than the version of this car that competed in the World Endurance Championship (WEC) last year. It even makes more downforce than a modern F1 car. WEC regulations prevent the use of active aerodynamics, too, but the 919 Evo has a drag-reduction system, which allow it to hit nearly 230 mph on the final straight on the 'Ring, while still making loads of downforce everywhere else.

Porsche

Bernhard, a 37-year-old German who drove for Porsche's LMP1 team in WEC, said that all this downforce forced him to recalibrate what he thought was possible. "I’m pretty familiar with the Nordschleife. But today I got to learn it in a new way," he said in a statement.

And Bernhard has a ton of reverence for the Belgian Bellof, who was killed in 1985 during a race at Spa. When WEC visited Spa in 2015, Bernhard wore a helmet designed in homage to Bellof's.

"For me Stefan Bellof is and remains a giant." Bernhard. "Today my respect for his achievement with the technology available back then increased even more."

Porsche

Here's the mind-blowing record lap from where Bernhard was sitting:



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