Porsche 919 Hybrid Gallery

Race cars may be fast, but they're also artificially hampered. That led Porsche to thinking: just what could its 919 Hybrid racer do, if the limits were lifted? After handing over the 2017 World Championship LMP1 car to its engineers, the team went to work squeezing out max performance.

The basic drivetrain was kept, but liberated. The fuel flow limits set on the 2.0-liter V4 turbo engine were removed, and the electric regen system was allowed to operate at max-efficiency. The result? A jump from around 500 hp to 720 hp.

Plenty of aero work, weight stripping, and some new, stickier tires rounded out the whole project. The results proved it was worth it, too. Porsche set a new record at the 7.004 kilometre long Belgian Grand Prix Circuit in the Ardennes mountains, completing it in 1:41.770 minutes.