918 Spyder

Make
Porsche
Segment
Compact

The overall Nurburgring lap time record already belonged to Porsche. Way back in May 1983, German race driver Stefan Bellof drove a Porsche 956 around the Green Hell in six minutes and 11.13 seconds, a time nobody thought would ever be beaten. But Porsche has come back fighting with the 919 Hybrid Evo, which has just set a new outright record. It didn't just beat the previous record by a few seconds, either - it absolutely annihilated it.

Unbelievably, the Porsche 919 Evo lapped the Nurburgring in just five minutes and 19.545 seconds, beating the previous record by 52 seconds. Behind the wheel was two-time Le Mans winner and reigning World Endurance Champion Timo Bernhard.

In fact, an earlier attempt the same day already smashed the record with a time of five minutes and 24.375 seconds, but Bernhard kept on pushing. It's a fitting send-off for the 919 Evo, which won last year's 24 Hours of Le Mans. Porsche has withdrawn from endurance racing, meaning the car no longer needed to meet class regulations.As a result, Porsche reworked the Le Mans racer's aerodynamics to produce 53 percent more downforce than the 2016 car it's based on, while reducing its weight by 85 pounds to 1871 pounds. The 919 Evo's hybrid powertrain was also tweaked: the 2.0-liter V4 engine now produces 710 hp with an extra 433 hp provided from an electric motor, bringing the total output to nearly 1,200 hp.

We already knew Porsche was preparing to chase a new Nurburgring record with the 919 Evo, but we never expected it to beat the overall record by such a huge margin. With the 911 GT2 RS also being the fastest road-legal car to ever lap the Green Hell, Porsche has a lot to brag about right now.