Dan39

Anyone have any idea when the new car will be independently tested and reviewed?

Porsche's sub 7:30 Nurburgring claim suggests it should be able to compete with the 12C and 458, which is surprising but hopefully true.

911dev

It should easily be capable of achieving a sub 7:30 considering all the new tech, power, shorter gears, etc... The .2 was only 10 seconds slower. I expect 0-124 sub 12 secs, 0-100, 7 seconds.

Yargk

I don't have an answer for you, but I can't wait till Sport Auto gets ahold of it. They haven't published the downforce numbers so I'm looking forward to that from Sport Auto as well. (I wish the american car magazines stuck their test cars in wind tunnels too!)

GrantG

Will be interesting to see how close to accurate the Hockeheim projected time is too (1:08.0)...

http://fastestlaps.com/tracks/hockenheim_short.html

Macca

I believe the new GT3 will have its world wide press release in early September in Europe. This will be a 2-3 day affair. You will start to see independent reviews after that date. Customer cars will not be delivered before that date. I expect that magazines such as EVO and some of the European titles will "acquire" cars to do their own testing shortly after the press release. They will probably use factory demonstrators in the first instance but there will be a que. Most journalists like to try and arrange thos for shortly after the launch event and some even take cars to Europe and secretly garage them to compare the test car against on a quiet piece of road or at the track! I would say youll find teh first non press release reviews start to flow by late September early October.

The Ring time is already considerably below 7.30 as unofficially reported by Ring side observers. The 4WS system seems to be a a large contributing factor here. A recent post mentioned a Christophorus or similar article that quotes a Porsche engineer stating that the 4WS was the equivalent of 70 bhp or 100kg when comparing like to like ring times. Its great to see Porsche as the innovator again even if its already a past used technology.

My understanding is that Porsche are yet to announce a Ring time because they have to settle on a figure. Sub 7.30s were set during development when the car wasnt even on the final production rubber. I believe they have a bit of a "marketing challenge" on their hands. If they publish this time at its aggressive best then they leave themselves a smaller window for the RS version remembering that the bulk of the benefits are already present in the standard GT3s new chassis, engine and 4WS. In order to beat a published time of say 7.27 (assume this wasnt the quickest time they posted but a mean average of test drivers) for the stock GT3 then they would need a 50 bhp benefit with more agressive rubber and different suspension settings with maybe 40kg weight reduction to achieve a 3-4 second advantage for the RS. They would also have to post an "aggressive" RS track time to achieve this. Given its unlikley the RS version will benefit from ALL of the above benefits the problem becomes compounded.

Its a bit of a delimma and I suspect the reason Porsche are still quiet is they are trying to understand the RS potential on the Ring (winter has just ended so testing resumes now) and furthermore they are buying time for recent 4.0 RS customers to still enjoy the accolade of the fastest and best GT.

On a recent thread on this board someone posted a test driver running a 7.42 in a 4.0 RS around the Ring (no traffic). I watched that video twice and the guy was working every inch of the track and pushing that car very hard. It had me wondering just what an achievement it is to knock 14-15 seconds off such a time. I have no doubt the PDK makes up for at least 4-6 seconds of this, the chassis would be similar and I guess the 4WS is good for 3-4 seconds. When you watch that drive you realise quickly how academic this whole subject is. There would be a handful of people in the world that could run a 7.26 in the new GT3 and I aint one of them! Add 60 seconds and I still aint one of them!

P_collector

Hi Macca,

well written but we discussed this issue of the lap times ..many times. Whatever the time will be, Porsche knows that scoring 1 point in the wet handling (as the case with the 991 and worse then GT2RS) will cause again an "uprise". I have no doubt that the 991 GT3 can with super soft tires and factory drivers hit sub 7:30. But in the acclaimed sport auto test a few other factors also count.

Whatever, Im betting on a 7:31 - 7:34 in the Sport Auto test. Factory times dont interest me at all. Keep in mind the 458 was test at 7:38 and the Mclaren at 7:27..and in no way it can be on par with the Mclaren....

Sport Auto test is planned for september - october..

Macca

Porsche.collector - I understand it defies all logic. I know the test drivers were hitting under 7.30 on pre production settings but have no idea what tyres they were using. I have that on first hand account (you can PM me if you wish to know more). As crazy as it may sound this car I believe will achieve 7.30 in the Sport Auto Test. AP is on record more than once saying this car betters 7.30. As much as I agree with you Porsche testing this car and final production tyre choice may mean that no one realistically replicates that time I was a strong statement to make on film unless Porsche believe there still some room up their sleeve. I think you will find the 4WS gives this car much more than the sum of its parts.

All that said I still like you find matching the Macca 7.27 rather hard to swallow myself. As I said in real world terms is academic.

Petevb

I think a sub 7:30 is entirely probable. Factory claimed lap times shown below, with the 991 shown at a 7:27. Past GT3s have seen a jump in performance nearly as large during the 996 to 997 platform change, and that was a much less significant overhaul. With the addition of both PDK and RWS, each of which will drop significant time, plus the more dramatic chassis changes, the 991 claimed lap time isn't much of a surprise.



I also don't think the RS will have too much trouble beating it significantly. With a more aggressive aero package alone I suspect there will be significant time to drop.

Re the McLaren F1, consider the example of group B rally cars. These monsters were banned for being too fast and dangerous in the mid 80s, but more modern rally cars running restrictors and half the power will wipe the floor with them on a course due to advancements in brakes, tires, transmissions, etc. It's been nearly two decades since the McLaren came out, and advancements have been made in all areas. Progress...

DrJay

The McLaren came out last year Pete...

Petevb

Ahh, that McLaren. I hear Macca and think F1, the real thing, not the new wannabee.

7:27 does sound slow for the new one. Didn't Evo have the Maserati MC12, CGT, Enzo, etc all in the mid to high 7:20s? I'd have expected the new McLaren to do better given the better part of a decade of development in tires, etc. Anyway, rest of the post stands. If you look at the rate of progress the times quoted so far are about what I'd expect.

P_collector

Hi Pete,

showing such a graph is useful..but youre forgetting that a large part is due to tires. The biggest gains from tires was already to the benefit for the 997..this technological improvement has already been used. Pdk has also already been used - not in a GT3, agree..but keep in mind the 7:44 from the 991S. So if one believes that the 991 GT3 will hit 7:30, or less in the test..it will be more then 14 seconds better then the 991S..and this is what I dont believe in. In previous generations, this gap was never so big..why now..?..and the closer one gets to 7:30..the more difficult it becomes..

According to you logic - and the graph - why haven we beaten yet the record time from Stefan Bellof at the Ring of around 6:20 ..? Simple answer from my side, road cars are way too heavy..and besides, offer almost no downforce..any race car driver will laugh at the 100Kg downforce at 200 km/h...from a 4.0RS

thats why Jeremy Clarkson is wrong when he once said.."soon street cars will be as fast as older F1 cars"...yes..if their weight is close to 500Kg and if their downforce is close 1t..agreed...but I dont see such a car yet. Maybe the P1..but we shall see..

@Macca: I re-confirm my bet here - 7:31-7:34 - PS: be aware that I betted with someone else (but not in this forum) on the 991S at exactly 7:44..at first I had to take all kinds of criticism...but surprise surprise - I wasnt that wrong.

Lets see if my bet this time will be good as well.. #
If you loose - you´ll send me a good NZ wine.. .if I loose I´ll think of something...

Macca

Porsche.collector. Sure. Im happy to bet. You choose one number only and I choose one number only and who gets closest wins. Sport Auto Magazine = 7.30

I don't understand your time for the 991S. In Christophorus I read that the driver there can consistently get under than number. Here is an excerpt. Even if this is on Dot R rubber same as 991 GT3 that's now less than 8 seconds above 7.30. If we consider the additional horsepower, the advanced suspension settings, the 4WS, the modified pdk, the different gearing and the 9000 rpm why isn't 8 seconds possible?

Petevb

Of course much of the gain came from tires. As it always has. As both cars will not be running the same rubber, I'm certain much of the gain over the 991S will still be due to tires.

7:44 does sound slow, but if you want to play that game there are at least a couple reasons the gap should be larger with this generation: The obvious ones are PDK for both cars and RWS.

In previous years, such as the Sport Auto tests for the 997S and 997.2 GT3, the 997S had the advantage of PDK. They measured the gap at 10 seconds when tested within a year of each other with the same driver (Horst). However the 991S has now lost the advantage of PDK (both cars have it) and the GT3 has added RWS, both of which should widen the gap in lap time.

That's easy: the 'ring was deemed to dangerous for the fastest classes of racing cars to continue to be raced and developed there, so development stopped. At any track where development in the top classes of racing has continued lap times have fallen dramatically since that time. You've seen the videos of a modern F1 car side by side with a turbo-era 80s car at a track like Monaco or Spa? Not even remotely close. For example, Monaco GP pole speeds:

And keep in mind this progress was despite things like grooved tires, smaller engines, etc designed to slow the cars down.

Put in perspective, if the 'ring had continued to see this pace of development, we'd expect the current lap record to sit a bit under 5:30. Unfortunately it's rightly considered too dangerous for that game to have continued.

Progress like this is just as visible in road cars, which are keeping pace behind their race counterparts. It's inevitable...

http://www.motorsportsetc.com/info/spd_mon.htm

Nick

I thought Andreas said the 991GT3 will do a sub 7:30 on the Ring? If so, why would he say that publicly if he did not have evidence to back the statement. Porsche's statements regarding model performance usually are very conservative.

wanna911

My question is if they will follow suit on the 991S and actually post videos. The time for the 991 S was the first I had seen officially. The rest are always flat numbers with no 10ths involved, giving credence to Porsche having taken segment times and pieced together a TBL.