Blitzkrieg: Porsche 956

Introduction

Currently, the fastest Nurburgring lap around the 20,800 meter circuit ever recorded in a production car is the Lamborghini Huracan Performante, which blitzed the ring with a mind-blowing time of 6:52:00. In second place, is the Porsche 918 Spyder, clocking in with a time of 6:57:00, almost five seconds slower. But those are the fastest in the road-legal category. If you expand your perspective of Nurburgringing times into the road-illegal cars, then the fastest lap ever recorded around the Ring is the Radical SR8 LM, a lightweight British supercar which lapped the ring in 6:48:00, four seconds faster than the Lamborghini Huracan Performante.

But believe it or not, that isn’t the fastest car that lapped the Ring. That is the fastest street illegal, non-race car around the Nurburgring. If you broaden your view even more, you get into the race car category. The slowest lap closest to the Radical SR8’s 6:48:00 time made by a race car is the Porsche 996 Turbo, in third place with a lap time of 7:04:00, 5 seconds slower than the Lamborghini Aventador SV, a road-legal production car.

But the margin between third place and second place is an astronomical 36 seconds, with a time of 6:28:03 more than half a minute! It is held by the March Engineering 832-BMW. But that is just second place. So, what is the fastest car that lapped the 20,800 meters around the Nurburgring? It is the legendary, amazingly fast, and unrealistically nimble Porsche 956 Group C car, which lapped the Green Hell with an astonishing lap time of 6:11:13, seventeen seconds quicker than the BMW!

Development

The Porsche 956 is a Group-C prototype race car designed and developed by Norbert Singer in 1982, built for the FIA World Sportscar Championship. It was the successor to the already succesful Porsche 356 which competed in the Group 6 category on the previous championship. 1981 was the year they started development of the Porsche 956. A year later, on May 27 1982, the first prototype chassis was fully developed. It was tested on Porsche’s private testing track, by test driver Jurgen Barth.

The Porsche 956 featured an aluminium monocoque for reasons of weight reduction, which was the first one that Porsche applied on a car. It helped the car have a total curb weight of only 800 KG, which was minimum weight required to qualify in the Group C Championship. Its engine was derived from its predecessor, the Porsche 936’s turbocharged flat-six engine, producing an approximate amount of 635 total horsepower.

Bosch designed and improved the chassis for better efficiency, as they are going to compete in an endurance race, which featured the Bosch Monotronic system. In total, only 28 were built, with a 29th chassis unofficially built by Richard Lloyd Racing using spare Porsche parts. Comparing the car to it’s predecessor a decade ago, the Porsche 917, the 916 produced three times more down force than the 917.

Test beds for other developments.

The Porsche 956 served as multiple test beds for other projects and developments Porsche was working on. In 1983, Chassis #107 was used for testing a Formula 1 engine Porsche was developing, called TAG and would be used by McLaren. The car was able to test some of the characteristics of a Formula One car in order to develop the engine. The engine became highly successful in F1, and while never the most powerful on the grid, between 1984 and 1987, it would win 25 Grand Prix and help McLaren to win two Constructors and three World Driver’s Championships. As of the 2012 German Grand Prix, the TAG-Porsche engine sits in 7th place on the list of F1 race winning engines.

Porsche also used the 956 to develop it’s legendary Porsche Doppelkupplungsgetriebe (PDK for short) transmission which could be found on almost every new Porsche that you could buy. It would be used in the Porsche 962, and will make it into Porsche’s production cars in 2009 in the 2009 Porsche 997 911 Carrera and Carrera S. The 956 also appeared with two different rear wing designs. For most events, it would be fitted with a high down force wing. But for Le Mans, where top speed on the Mulsanne Straight was essential, the 956 was fitted with a much lower and smaller wing with lesser drag to enable the cars to reach speeds of around 362 KM/H.

Racing History

The 956 made its debut at the 6 Hours of Silverstone, the second round of the World Endurance Championship with Jacky Ickx and Derek Bell driving for Porsche. After missing the following round at the 1000 km Nürburgring due to development, Ickx and Bell reappeared at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. They led the race for the entire 24 hours, eventually taking the overall win, making it their third win together. As they had already won in 1981 with a Porsche 936 that had used an early version of the 956 engine, their car had started number 1. The two other factory 956 followed them, so the three factory Porsches finished 1-2-3 in the order of their starting numbers, just like the Ford GT40.

Boosted by this success, Porsche sold customer versions of the 956 to private teams such as Joest Racing, Obermaier Racing, John Fitzpatrick Racing, Richard Lloyd Racing, Kremer Racing and Brun Motorsport who raced them independently of the factory.

The Nurburgring Record

In 1983, during the qualification season for the Porsche 956 to enter the WEC, Stefan Bellof pushed the Porsche 956 to its limits, and clocked the 20,800 meter Nurburgring Circuit with a very astonishing time of 6:11:13, at an average speed of 202 KM/H. The 956 also held the Nurburgring race lap record, also driven by Bellof, during the 1983 1000 km Nürburgring, the lap being clocked at 6:25.91.

“I thought [mine] was a good lap, until I saw the times,” Rosberg told Motor Sport magazine at the race. “I could have gone even faster,” Bellof also said. “But I made two mistakes. And a 911 briefly got in my way.” Bellof’s goal was to beat fellow Porsche driver Jochen Mass’ 6:16.85 qualifying lap, and he went more than five seconds faster. What’s more amazing, though, is how much quicker Bellof was than everyone else there that day. He even beat his own teammate, Jacky Ickx, who lapped the Ring with a pretty slow time of 6:27.36.

"I could have gone even faster, But I made two mistakes. And a 911 briefly got in my way." -Stefan Bellof, 1957-1985-

Death of the 956

Sadly, the Porsche 956’s glory didn’t last long. At the 1985 1000 km of Spa, the holder of the world’s fastest Nurburgring lap, Stefan Bellof collided with Jacky Ickx’s newer 962. He was killed instantly. Safety concerns over the 956 led to its eventual end as teams upgraded to the safer 962. The 956’s last win would come courtesy of Joest Racing in the last race of the 1986 WEC season, in what also turned out to be the 956’s last race.

But Porsche’s legacy of amazingly fast Nurburgring lap times live on. 27 years later, Porsche took their newest hybrid hyper car, the Porsche 918 Spyder, driven by Marc Lieb, back to the Nurburgring, and set the fastest, street legal production car lap. It wasn’t until four years later, when Lamborghini took the record for the fastest production car lap, with their Huracan Performante, driven by Marco Mapelli. And just recently, Porsche took their newest 911 GT3, and beat their own record on the Ring by an astonishing 12 seconds, clocking in at 7:12:7.

But today, the 956 still holds the record for the fastest lap around the Nurburgring, and Bellof’s legacy will live on…