Here's Why The Porsche 919 Evo Could Do A Sub-5min 'Ring Lap
With Porsche testing its 919 Evo at the Nordschleife this week, lap time speculation has been rife. It’ll almost certainly beat the outright record of 6 minutes and 11 seconds set by Stefan Bellof in a Porsche 956 way back in 1983 and comfortably go below the six-minute mark, but how much lower will it be?
Some have suggested that it’ll actually go under five minutes, based on a simple calculation: the ex-LMP1 car - modified beyond what would be allowed if it was still competing in the World Endurance Championship - was 34 per cent faster than a GT3 car at Spa Francorchamps. So using a typical Nordschleife GT3 time as a reference and doing the maths, you end up with an astonishing 4:51 lap.
Sounds absurd, but it might actually be possible. Nurburgring-based YouTuber and CT friend Misha Charoudin - who predicted the lap times for the 911 GT2 RS and the 991.2 GT3 RS to within a second - has crunched the numbers, with some interesting results. This is where it gets a little complicated, as with the 919 coming into the pits at the end of its quickest run and slowing down about two and a half miles before the finish, it’s not a case of simply using a stopwatch.
What Charoudin did instead is use radio chatter from marshals to find out roughly how long it took the car to reach each marshal post, then using the 911 GT2 RS lap as a reference point. For instance, it passed Breidscheid at 2:42, a massive 30 seconds quicker, giving a difference factor of 0.81.
In the end, Misha works out that a factor of 0.76 is about right, giving a time of 5:09, over one minute faster than Bellof’s time.
Could it better that time by 10 seconds or more? It isn’t outside the realms of possibility - this was a very early effort from Porsche, and track conditions weren’t ideal. We can’t wait to see what this car can do.
Image via Tom Stamp
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
Every other car brand
Someone call koeningsegg
Completely agree
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It can. But can we find a driver to do that
Call on mark webber
Since when has Misha Charoudin, CT friend for years has just become ‘this’ youtuber?
Honestly?
How remiss of me! Have updated ;)
F1 teams should put a third driver and a car to claim the record
Red bull: I’m on it
*Intense music starts playing
The car might do it, not so sure if any driver can
I said it before and I will say it again: finding a driver who’s good enough (and crazy enough) to do that is a bigger feat than finding a car that’s fast enough. The car that Stefan Bellof drove was slower than a modern road-going supercar, yet his record time remains untouched. Every professional driver would think twice about doing a stupidly fast hotlap on the Nürburgring - it didn’t earn the name Green Hell for nothing.
I’m confident that the car is more than capable enough, but I don’t believe that you can find a driver who’s skilled and reckless enough. A 5 min time on the Nürburging would mean an average speed of over 300 km/h. That’s just ridiculously fast.
Average speed will be closer to 250km/h for a 5min lap (still ridiculously fast though). 300 km/h avg speed will get you closer to a very low 4 min lap .
Reason 5 : because Daniel Busker did it on Forza
Reason 6: because jimmer has done it multiple times
hahahahaha
I think the difference here is the driver. I would say that if you had a superhuman driver, 5 minutes is possible. In the more realistic simulation games (e.g. Assetto Corsa), 2004 and 2017 F1 cars have put in laps around that quick, and the 919 Evo is up there with them. But the Nurburgring is bumpy and the car is probably just too quick for the track. Not to mention that the driver’s self-preservation instincts will kick in.
In a slower car and as a much, much slower driver, I can get 5:50 without breaking a sweat. I don’t think it will get anything lower than a 5:30, but I have absolutely no doubt that it will beat the record if it goes for it.
Not superhuman
Just a highly trained and very skilled one, with a little bit of insanity
If you had a car designed to push the limits of the human body and a very focused driver it could get the record to the low 3s