Over 35 year ago now, a young German racer, Stefan Bellof, that joined the Porsche factory race team just one year earlier, set a laptime of 6:11.13 at the Nürburgring in a Porsche 956. Hard to image that in 2018, over 35 years later, that records still stands. However, there are indications that Porsche is doing efforts to break that record. Even though all lips are sealed at Porsche, we believe that there will be a record attempt somewhere in the near future. And here’s exactly why we believe that will happen.
- Porsche likes records on the Nurburgring. September 4 2013, the brandnew Porsche 918 tops its global debut with a record lap at the Nürburgring. Mark Lieb lapped the Nordschleife in 6:57 averaging a speed of 179.5 kmh. Two Porsche 918s were involved in the succesful attempt, both equipped with the optional Weissach-package to increase driving dynamics. Just some months ago, September 12 2017, the Porsche 911 GT2 RS sets a new lap-record for the road-approved cars at the Nurburgring. The record time of 6 minutes and 47.3 seconds even surpassed Porsche’s expectations.
- After the retirement of the extremely succesful Porsche 919, the car is sent on a tribute tour. April 9 2018, there is a first highlight in the 919Tribute tour. Neel Jani set a new lap-record at the legendary Spa-Francorchams race track, at the wheel of a Porsche 919 Evo. He beats the record that was set by Lewis Hamilton in a F1 car. The Porsche 919 Evo was not an exact car as the Le Mans 24H winner. The engineers got rid of all the FIA WEC regulations and limitations to show to the world what the car was capable to And we believe, that record lap was a first test for an attempt to break Stefan Bellof’s record lap at the Nordschleife.
- May 12 2018, Porsche brings together 2 legendary cars on the Nordschleife to do a show run just before the start of the Nürburgring 24H. Hans-Joachim Stuck and Timo Bernhard drive respectively the Porsche 956-005 and a Porsche 919 Evo. We believe that this is absolutely no coincidence. The Porsche 956-005 is the sister car of the Porsche 956-007 that Stefan Bellof raced during his record lap. Timo Bernhard is a great admirer of Stefan Bellof.
- June 8 2018, Porsche celebrates the 70th birthday of the Porsche 356. That day in 1948, the first car bearing the name Porsche was licensed for the road. That’s was a great achievement for a company that was active in automotive industry for decades at the time, but nonetheless had no car bearing its name. A birthday like that deserves a celebration, and wouldn’t a new record on the Nürburgring be a great gift. Breaking a 35 year record would definitely be an eyecatcher and bring Porsche to the front of the newspapers and magazines all over the world.
Conclusion
Nothing is sure at the moment, and all the lips are sealed at Porsche. The LMP1 team and probably the managment of Porsche know what is going on. However, we believe the indications are strong enough to believe that Porsche will write history again. Actually we are convinced they will, we just don’t know how and when. After all, Porsche has surprised us many times..
