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He started, like all good ideas, with beer. Porsche was leaving the top endurance races and the team behind the 919 Hybrid – three-time winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans – was consoling itself with a few beers when they had a plan. Why not release the car from all its stifling restrictions of the World Endurance Championship, to see how fast a hybrid prototype can really go? Then, go on iconic racing circuits, to show the public what a boundless car can achieve …
Less than a year later, the 919 Hybrid Evo beat a record of the 35-year round at – where else – the Nürburgring. Of course, a & quot; Ring Record & # 39; is announced almost every week, but it did not contain reservations or confusing qualifiers. This is not the fastest forward pull that or seven places as ; it's just the fastest car in the Nordschleife. Certainly, everyone can be excited about it.
While Porsche kept his cards close to his chest, the 919 Evo made a parade ride before the 24 hours of the Nürburgring in May 2018. The car may have done only rounds, but she did it with an old Porsche 956, like that of Stefan Bellof in 1983, with the Nordschleife lap record of 6m11.13s. It was not necessary to be Sherlock to find the clues
I knew right away that there was one thing that I absolutely had to see this year, it was the 919. So I found myself, early on the morning of June 29, watching a group of brightly colored security marshals chatting quickly with the Porsche refueling team before heading off to their post , ready to move faster than they have ever been.
The calm that prevailed among Porsche's engineers was surprising until I spoke with them and realized how many months of work were spent on the simulators and the test sessions that took place. led to this point. The 919 Evo lap record at Spa-Francorchamps, while scandalously impressive, sounds like a mere test session to set the car in place for a bigger and more infamous circuit just above the Belgian border. German.
Timo Bernhard, the man who drove. When Porsche announced the program, he had reached out for this leg of the "919 Tribute Tour," and he got the job on the back of his huge resume of wins at the Ring.
Simulations suggested a 5m30s The ride was at hand, so the night before he was in a relaxed state of mind. "It's not like going into qualifying," he said. "There is no pressure, no competition, and with that kind of speed, the challenge is not to get carried away, the borders are big and there is a very fine line where you can go with this car. "
The track started at 8am. Porsche wanted it earlier, for lower runway temperatures, but the Nürburgring powers were preoccupied with the raucous noise of 919 when shifting. The first lap was a small round of recognition, and as some of us gathered enthusiastically at Pflanzgarten 2, we were a little disappointed by the way the car was smashed. As we returned to the pits, we discovered that the soft and not spectacular ride was a 6m38s – faster than any road car was timed around the "Ring". Yikes
A faster warm-up lap followed. It seemed barely time to catch his breath between Timo's departure and his return to the pits, almost as though he had stumbled into a loop and had come back two minutes earlier; The warm-up was a 5m31s
Prudent applause crossed the team, before rolling into a new pair of tires (the 919 required new custom-made Michelin each turn) and Timo made a good go . Bigger celebrations this time because he came back 5m24s later. Well within the limits of the team and 47 seconds before the legendary time of Bellof. I started telling the story of TopGear.com, not having tried fate by prewriting anything in advance.
By the time the story was ready to air, Timo had identified a few places where he could change his lines. "I did not want to come in and say" it's the turn I'm aiming for, "he later said." I just wanted a car with which I felt at home. comfortable and in which I could generate speed. Then, at the end, lap time comes out. "19659002" This was not a qualifying session, it was to show this car. to be executed correctly at a good speed. And for all fans watching, they've probably seen a car that they've never seen before at this speed on this track. I know that Nürburgring fans are very special. if something happens here, like our record attempt, people can smell it in the air. People talk on the phone and suddenly the place is crowded. You feel the enthusiasm. "
It's not wrong." Even online, the usual response to a "Ring" recording has been replaced by a total fear, while many people deplore the absence. of official regulation regarding the timed tours of the Nordschleife, it seems that the only way out of it is to use a car that respects no rules.A car that, like all good ideas , was designed on a table full of beer.
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