Porsche 919 Hybrid Evo to meet 956 C at Nurburgring

Porsche is bringing together a pair of endurance racing legends from its prototype racer line-up – the Porsche 956 C which won World Sportscar Championship titles from 1982 to 1984, and the 919 Hybrid Evo, a modified version of the 919 Hybrid which won the FIA World Endurance Championship thrice on the trot in 2015, 2016 and 2017.

The 919 Hybrid Evo took the outright lap record at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium last month with a time of 1 minute 41.770 seconds, usurping the previous record held by Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes-AMG F1 W08 EQ Power+ by 0.783 seconds. Driven by Neel Jani, the 919 Hybrid Evo attained an average speed of 245.61 km/h and a maximum of 359 km/h during the record lap.

A heady mix of aerodynamic modifications and liberation from race regulations gave the 919 Hybrid Evo its added performance, starting with the 2017 race car as a base. It also applied improvements intended for the 2018 season, which never saw competition due to Porsche’s withdrawal from works LMP1 racing. Freed from racing regulations, the 919 Hybrid Evo pairs a 750 hp biturbo V4 with 450 hp electric drive.

Compared to the previous outing in Belgium, the 919 Hybrid Evo’s next appearance at the Nordschleife will be slightly different. This time, reigning World Endurance champion Timo Bernhard will take the helm of the modern hybrid racer, while the 956 C will be driven by Hans-Joachim Stuck, twice winner of the Le Mans 24 Hours and three-time winner of the Nürburgring 24-Hours.

The particular example of the 956 C is chassis 005, which Jacky Ickx and Jochen Mass shared for the 1984 world championship season. The 2,649 cc six-cylinder, twin-tubocharged engine in that car produced 620 hp, and chassis 007 in the hands of Stefan Bellof took the all-time Nurburgring Nordschleife lap record of six minutes 11.13 seconds during practice for the 1983 1000 km Nurburgring race. Track length at the time was 20.835 km.

This second stop of the ‘919 Tribute Tour’ will see the 919 Hybrid Evo and the 956 C conduct the show run behind a safety car, which means Bellof’s lap record will be far from bothered on this occasion. It does raise the question – what lap time could the 919 Hybrid Evo set if it were to run the same 20.835 km loop as Bellof did, unleashed?