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I'd suggest anyone trying to compare lap times and make claims about cars or transmissions, go over to fastestlaps.com, pull up Hockenheim-GP and look at the times. Christian Gebhardt turned a 1:53.9 in the manual GT4.
I think most here agree that the setup a private owner would do for a big track day would be optimized and you could expect significant improvement over the factory street setup. Sure, it's entirely possible Porsche delivers these test cars with a track setup but we don't know. The difference between all these times is well within the margin of error even a simple alignment, corner balance and tire pressures could yield. And I include the M2 in that margin which, IMHO is pretty damn good for a sedan, I'm suitably impressed and I'm not a BMW fan.
I think most here agree that the setup a private owner would do for a big track day would be optimized and you could expect significant improvement over the factory street setup. Sure, it's entirely possible Porsche delivers these test cars with a track setup but we don't know. The difference between all these times is well within the margin of error even a simple alignment, corner balance and tire pressures could yield. And I include the M2 in that margin which, IMHO is pretty damn good for a sedan, I'm suitably impressed and I'm not a BMW fan.
M2CS makes nearly 500 hp - Sport Auto got 484 crank when they dyno'd it. Given it has a much better power to weight ratio (7.2 lbs per hp) than the GT4 (7.8 lb per hp) I would think it could put down faster times, but alas with DCT it is simply slower than both the manual and PDK variants of the GT4. On the Ring the gap is even larger. Additionally, the M cars comes with much more aggressive alignments from the factory than Porsches do, so I'd venture a guess that if they were factory the CS had an advantage in set up along with power/torque.
M2CS makes nearly 500 hp - Sport Auto got 484 crank when they dyno'd it. Given it has a much better power to weight ratio (7.2 lbs per hp) than the GT4 (7.8 lb per hp) I would think it could put down faster times, but alas with DCT it is simply slower than both the manual and PDK variants of the GT4. On the Ring the gap is even larger. Additionally, the M cars comes with much more aggressive alignments from the factory than Porsches do, so I'd venture a guess that if they were factory the CS had an advantage in set up along with power/torque.
The BMW is severely hampered by it's tire size. There's no way itll be able to pull the same g's around the corners that the GT4 and Lotus can.
Not discounting anything said above, but that was a pretty big drift in the double apex with the GT4. That was probably 1/4 to 1/2 seconds lost from not getting through there cleanly.
Last edited by lovetoturn; 10-23-2020 at 07:16 PM.
I'll also add that the lap in the GT4 did look much worse to me. Off the apexes a fair number of times, and rhe massive oversteer. The oversteer would easily cost a second on a 60 second autocross. I can only imagine how much time was lost on that lap with those slides.
Or the car was performing worse. It's the same driver, same skill level, on the same track. And those are very good times on that track, far better than the average Rennlister could ever manage. Uwe Sener often drives for Sportauto and he is a very skilled driver. Either way, they would have run multiple lap times and that would have been the best..
Another element to consider is track condition.
Having driven this track in 4 differnt cars (GT3 RS, M2, AMG GTR and GT4 Clubsport), these are pretty good times on this track. But it is a track where your lap time is very, very much based on the conditions on the day. The surface is very temperature sensitive so if it’s a bit cold, traction suffers a lot. For example, I was there only a few weeks ago with Porsche in a GT4 Clubsport. Timo Bernard was guest instructor. He went out in the GT4 Clubsport and put down a reference lap for us. His best lap time was 1:50.5. My best lap time was 1:53 flat. I was happy to get within 2.5 secs of him....but overall the lap times were 2-3 secs off because the day was pretty cold. So it wasn’t the driver and it wasn’t the car, it was the track.
I guess the gearing is just not short enough...
haha just kidding,
there are dynamics of human precision in terms of controlling a machine, need good sample size and take average or the best case.
Last edited by tthellott T; 10-24-2020 at 07:05 AM.
I guess the gearing is just not short enough...
haha just kidding,
there are dynamics of human precision in terms of controlling a machine, need good sample size and take average or the best case.
Obviously you are unaware that the Internet and Scientific method are oxymoronic.
Just kidding, I agree, we can use the GT4 vs. M2 vs. Exige stats but we can’t really extrapolate that to the other test done months before since there are no controls.
10-23-2020, 02:54 PM
