M3ike. Can you post the link for your rennteam write up please as I looked on there and couldnt find it?

 

There you Go:

So as requested my write-up from last weekend's Porsche Sportscup Germany in Spa.

Recently the itch to race again after having done my last race in 2012 at the Ring got stronger and stronger. As I rate Spa together with the Nordschleife and Portimao the best tracks I've driven and as time permitted I took the opportunity to take part in the Sportscup at Spa. First hurdle to overcome was renewing my race license. So far I could participate in RCN/VLN with the national licenses but the Supersports and the Endurance races required an international license. Before I was granted it and handing over more dosh than the national license I had to hand in all my former results. Luckily they still granted it to me.

The plan was to start with my mate and former 2 times VLN overall champion as a kind of "old sack" team in the Cayman GT4 CS. Just before the long weekend started I got the offer to drive a 991 Cup for the same price but bowed out as haven't raced for 4 years and admittedly in Spa there are some pretty fast corners which despite the better aero of the Cup require a big set of ***** to go really fast.

As the actual events takes place on Saturday and Sunday we took the opportunity to set the car up on a track day the day before. Unfortunately I could only drive around 8 laps in total that day which for me was not really much to get up to speed again as a guy in a 991GT3RS totalled his car at the end of the Kemel straight when hitting an oil spot. Luckily he had the full cage installed and got away with some bruises. Again a reminder why I stopped driving road cars on track, you can be as careful as you want, if you hit oil or water things can turn sour.

Sour was the setup of our car as well. We suffered from big mid-corner understeer and push on acceleration. Turn-in was good though and in high speed corners like Eau Rouge, Pouhon and Blanchimont the car gave confidence. Luckily my mate has fantastic skills in setting up a car and our mechanics worked perfectly on the car. In the end we took out the grills at the front for more downforce, put the rear ARB on hard, increased the ride height at the rear and put much less toe-in at the rear. This helped not only to preserve the front tires during the races but also helped to rotate the car to set it up for the corners. High speed stability was still very good as well as stability under braking. The brakes which are from the Cup are anyway one of the standout features of the car. As the car has no brake booster I specifically trained my legs to be able to push the whole race. The brake performance itself is fantastic, we drove sprint brake pads (couldn't notice a difference from the endurance pads to be honest) and almost no wear, absolutely consistent brake performance and pedal feel. The ABS is great, it only kicks in when the slicks are cold and you have 12 settings connected to the TC. We always drove on setting 3, so almost no assistance. The TC is absolutely non-intrusive, only when the rear tires got hot during the race it cut in at La Source, the hairpin. Through the Pif Paf chicane you could steer the car with the throttle, really big fun.

As Porsche didn't want to have the car too manly they exchanged the manual for a PDK, 7. gear blocked. Again, when racing the PDK is amazing as it really helps you to focus on the racing line. Also when you fight with other cars it gives that little more brain capacity to overtake/defend. The engine itself is in my eyes nothing special. It really sounds very coarse inside, very flat power band. We also had problems with the oil and water temperatures, oil went to 146 degrees and water above 110 at one point so we decided to flush the whole cooling water and also exchanged the oil overnight. When driving to the Ring Sunday evening after the event in my RS you really appreciate what a masterpiece that 4 litre engine is.

Due to the loss of seat time we decided to drive not only the Endurance race but also the Supersports races. With that we gained another free practice and a qualifying. This helped me a lot. In the qualifying I was not able to use the peak of the new slicks, you have to be on it lap 3 and 4, after that they drop but stay constant. My mate was much better in that so he drove the qualifying laps and I nursed the tires as you have to use them again during the race so we thought this would give us more grip towards the end of the races (which was the case).

In the first Sprint race which is 35 minutes my mates got 6. places out of 13 cars. I managed to do the same in the second race and was driving quicker with worn tires than during qualifying as I found my rhythm. There are 60 cars starting together (RSR, GT3R, new and older Cups and the Caymans), some Pro drivers (current and former) like Klaus Bachler, Mario Farnbacher, Christian Menzel so level is very high.

It was unusually hot for Spa in September 26 degrees and we only run the aircon in the warmup lap to cool down the interior, during the race we shut it off for max power.

In my first race I got a good start, went outside La Source and was setup on the inside for Eau Rouge. Already there in the first lap to cars crashed and you had to drive through a cloud of dust. The whole race I had good fights with other Caymans and managed to overtake even in the last lap.

The Endurance races have a different format, it is 50 minutes and between 20 and 30 minutes you have to pit and change drivers. You have 1.30min minimum stand time in your pit. It sounds easy but when you come in, full of adrenalin, exhausted you have to be careful not to drive above 60km/h in the pitlane and at the same time starting to loosen your harness so your mate has it easier when jumping in.

In the Endurance races we managed 4. and 6. places out of 11 starters, car run like a charm also on worn tires. I drove my quickest laps then with 2.384min, the fastest lap in the race was by Christian Menzel at 2.354 but then dropping also to 2.37 and 2.38. I have to say I was very happy with the result, it was huge fun, we didn't have one scratch on the car. The fights with the other drivers were always fair.

Also the whole experience with the Porsche lounge, food and atmosphere was fantastic. The only downside is now that the bug bit me again!

Some pictures:








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Great write-up M3ike.

Below a video of a fellow rennlister running 2:43.3 at Spa. Stock car on rather used MPCS2.



The lap was done towards the end of a session, so you can see the overheated tires letting go here and there.

His first half a day of dry running at Spa as well

 

M3ike. Thanks alot for that write up, really enjoyed the commentary and bit Kudos for you in jumping in at the deep end after some time out of a race seat. Please keep us updated of any further racing adventures. Really enjoyed reading this....

 

Another great lap! After seeing this and the prior 2.41.9 a few pages back you'd have to imagine that with perfect conditions, tyres etc there must be a 2.40.XX in there somewhere. Im looking forward to watching someone achieve that hopefully next season...

 

Was about to write the same thing but with a '2:39.xx' and a 'pro driver' in the sentence

 

Great stuff!!

 

When I was at spa there were a few 991 gt3 rs and one or two other 991 gt3

Many of the other gt3 rs were a few seconds slower and another gt3 was doing many laps around 2.42 and 2.43 and my average laps was usually between 2.43 and 2.44 but maybe also because of traffic or he knew the track better but my best lap was a little quicker than his best lap.

There was also one gt3 rs that was maybe going on the race cars session that did a best time of 2.39

 

Maxi. that makes complete sense. I would expect a 2s delta same driver, same day, same conditions - stock GT3 vs GT3RS at Spa...you are obviously an experienced or talented driver however. More seat time and less traffic - I think you can get that average down to 2.42 and maybe dip under 2.41 for a personal best lap...

 

Thanks for your kind comments, appreciate. Plan is to drive the 991.2 Cup in Portimao in february and if time and funds permit again in Spa at the sportscup 2017

 

I just did one session on a local track in italy with the gt3 as I wanted to try the car there with trofeo r before putting new mpsc2 for winter.

The weather was a little cold around 50°F and the trofeo R are really completely used you almost can t see the tread at the rear and not much better at the front and I use -3.2 front camber and -2.7 rear camber.

I wanted to compare that with mpsc2 and around -2.5 front and -1.8 rear that I used before even if knowing that it was with really worn trofeo R and usually I was doing a good lap in I think around 1.29 or maybe 1.28 in that track but my best lap improved a lot at 1.25.7 and I did many 1.26 and 1.27 so it was really faster.

I did not think that the tyres could be that fast even if really worn but I also think about Dundon Motorsport topic that say that lower air intake temperatures make a lot of difference on the gt3 so I wonder how much is that because of good geometry settings and tyres and how much because better engine performance at colder temperatures.

I think that the worn trofeo R lack some grip out of slower corners of course but in some way feel better compared to when they are newer.

 

Some photos from Portimao

 

Is it my imagination or is the grey turbo's front end look a bit high?

 

Track is likely falling away, possibly combined with effect of being on throttle.

 

There is fun part of the track where you blast up a blind crest on full throttle and if you are going fast enough you get air. That's where the photo was taken.

One of the interesting aspects of Portimao is the large number of dramatic load changes a car is subject to in a single lap. The pictures just don't give you a true idea of the size of the elevation changes.