When we receive a track-worthy car, it’s our humble duty to run some hot laps at one of our local courses (rough life, we know). And this certainly includes Porsche 911s, especially their insane GT3 and GT3 RS variants. The same methodology applies to off-road rides– if it’s built to tackle the trails, we take it into the wilderness to see how well it can truly handle the rough and tumble.

Well, when Porsche invited us out to Morocco to drive the 911 Dakar, we gave it an equal chance on gravel and pavement, and we counted ourselves satisfied with its performance on both. But German outlet Sport Auto took things one step further, combining the elements in one fell swoop with a “no holds barred” time attack of the Nürburgring.

 

In order to finish his 7:39.40 run, driver Christian Gebhardt cut as many corners as he could, literally. As if competing for the best lap time in Forza Horizon, Gebhardt swung his Dakar through the technical bits of the track, then hopped over the curbs and into the grass at key points to save as much time as possible– and with the Ring’s permission, of course. Part of the track was skipped entirely, circumnavigated by way of a dusty access road. And like a video game, not a soul in the world was there to stop him.

On one hand, this lap time isn’t a true 1:1 performance evaluation between the Dakar and other vehicles setting similar times– but then again, in some weird way it almost could be. After all, the Dakar is built to tackle both trail and tarmac, and that’s exactly what Gebhardt did.

Truthfully, this was just a fun way of flexing the 911 Dakar’s capabilities and the driver’s skill through a unique lap on one of the world’s most famous race tracks. It may not be an official lap time, but it’s officially cool.