The lap record busting 919 Evo was seen at the Nurburgring yesterday doing some filming but also some test runs, and to nobody's surprise it looked ludicrously fast.
A few months ago the 919 Evo, with Neel Jani at the wheel, smashed the all time lap record around Spa, beating Lewis Hamilton's pole position time from 2017 to set a blistering 1:41.770 track record. It now looks like they might be gearing up to take on the 35 year old Nordschleife lap record of 6:11.3 set by Stefan Bellof in the Porsche 956.
For those who don't know, the 919 Evo (also known as the 919 tribute) is a version of Porsche's dominant (from the last 3 years) LMP1 car, but without the shackles of competition rules. It's got improved aero - a 53% increase in downforce and 66% increase in efficiency, better batteries and more power on the hybrid, and a de-restricted V4 engine, which now kicks out around 720hp (instead of around 500 in LMP1 spec), which all adds up to around 1200hp.
Of course by now there's quite a few videos of it floating around you tube, I quite like this one from Misha Charoudin. He knows what he's talking about as predicted the time for the 911 GT2 and was only a second off:
A sub 5 minute lap is possible by the looks of it, as Porsche were not going flat out in the last sector (along the Döttinger Höhe) which means more time will be gained than predicted in the above video.
Speculation is they will be back later in the year when track temperatures are lower in order to get the best time possible.
