Porsche unveils 918

Not to be outdone, Porsche showed the final production version of its 918 supercar and timed its arrival to announce that factory driver Marc Lieb had just lapped the Nürburgring Nordschleife in 6min 57sec in the £657,400, 875bhp hybrid supercar. This is a clear record by some 15sec for a fully homologated road car, but still some distance shy of the 6min 48sec lap recorded by a road-legal Radical SR8-LM. If it’s of interest, the fastest ever lap for the course was Stefan Bellof’s insane 6min 11sec pole lap for the 1983 Nürburgring 1000Kms, the last time the full northern loop was used at the top level in sports car racing. The 918’s time would have placed it eighth on the grid, ahead of Hans Heyer’s Porsche 956 and Oscar Larrauri’s Lancia LC1…

Andrew Frankel