A decade ago, if you had told us that Porsche would be making hybrid sedans, we’d have wondered what you were smoking. But the Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid is no Prius. It’s a Porsche. And while it may not be the most track-focused car that Porsche makes, it’s still fast. Really fast.
To drive that point home, as it were, the German sports-car manufacturer took its electric-assisted four-door to six world-class, FIA-certified racing circuits and set new lap records.
Not outright lap records, mind you. It’s not that fast. But it did set the benchmark at each for the “fastest luxury four door hybrid sedan.”
That may not have been such hotly contested territory just a few years ago. And it still isn’t, compared to some other categories, like front-drive hot hatches or all-out unbridled supercars. But German automakers especially have been coming out with more and more potent hybrid sedans – like the new Mercedes-AMG GT53 four-door, for example, which may have a thing or two to say in the near future about its cross-town rival’s bragging rights.
But for now, at least, the Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid is the fastest on six tracks – and not a one of them in Europe, North America, or the Far East. The plug-in Porsche set the top times in its (highly specific) class at the Bahrain International Circuit, Yas Marina in Abu Dhabi, Kyalami in South Africa, Buddh in India, the Dubai Autodrome, and Losail in Qatar.
Porsche is, after all, no stranger to setting lap records under hybrid power. It did just that with the 918 Spyder, which held the Nürburgring lap record for street-legal production cars for over three years before it was knocked off its pedestal. And the 919 Evo claimed the outright record both at the ‘Ring and at Spa.
Behind the wheel for all six attempts was factory development driver Lars Kern, who won the Porsche Super Sports Cup in Germany back in 2010, and more recently (just last year) set the record time on the Nordschleife in the 911 GT2 RS (which has since been beaten by the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ). Watch the brief summary of the campaign in the video below, and more detailed videos of each on the Porsche website.