A German car magazine took a Porsche 911 Dakar to the iconic Nurburgring, were the driver used the 911’s off-road abilities to cut corners in search of the ultimate lap time. Of course, violating track limits voids the lap time, but it was still cool to see Christian Gebhardt using only the Armco barriers (on the outside of the runoff areas) as his own personal track limits.
The Porsche test driver cut corners to shorten the track, and cut the grass on corner exit to carry more speed. Gebhardt even took a detour after the Klostertal and drove through a gap in the Armco barrier, hurtling through an abandoned section of track, eliminating the banked Karussell corner from his lap.
The Porsche 911 Dakar set a lap time of 7:39.4 mins, nowhere near the outright record of 5:19.5 set by the Porsche 919 Hybrid Evo unrestricted Le Mans race car, but it was faster than a Bugatti Veyron.