hesperus

Now that's embarrassing.

Anyone here speak German and can shed more light on what happened? It's a long video and looks like one of those laptime shootouts with modified cars. I suppose the 918 was there to represent hypercars for perspective.

Most important of course is that herr Rohrl was completely unharmed and the car looks fixable. I wonder if this was a factory car or a customer car.

To rub salt on wound, the 918's laptime was soundly trumped by what looks like a tuned Vette! DOH!

http://jalopnik.com/watch-legendary-...ors-1712651627

The Mick

The 918 was on an S GO license plate which means the car was owned by the Porsche press department.

tcsracing1

if owned by porsche it might not be 1 of the 918 produced for public?

leif997

Now I'm no pro; but most upper level DE and def club racers would have put "both feet in when in a spin" and that car would have backed away from the wall to a safer run off area to the driver's left. Good ol' Walt tried to counter steer and correct it with more throttle... bad result...

512bb

Not sure how you'd "both feet in when in a spin" in a PDK car.

It looked to me he did the right thing by burying the throttle to get the car spinning, it just looked like the car just did not respond with a full spin due to the downhill nature of that part of the track.

leif997

great point!

I'm such a dolt for not realizing that PDK issue.

Terry L

He was trying to catch and fix the spin. Otherwise he would have tried to lock 'em up.

AgentSpeed

That will buff right out...

ngng

asked my german speaking friends,

hf1

That was a very nasty neck lash. He was lucky but he will still be hurting for a week at least. Still can't figure out what the Europeans have against the HANS. Barely anyone wears it on videos from Europe.

sin911

A while ago saw a video of Walter racing uphill on a GT2 RS with no harness, or helmet competing against an R8 GT. So that should say something about the safety features for Germans Thank god they make solid cars lol!

tcsracing1

confidence is their safety devise... lol
Or as the germans say, "dont be such a girlie man yah"

TurboS

Translation from friend.
Walter says, he does not really understand why he crashed
He has taken that curve many times successfully
There must have been something slippery
He is speaking with a very heavy Bavarian accent and it's really difficult to understand "

With the convoluted drive train of the 918 it could have been an unforeseen glitch not accounted for in the programming....

MadScience

The premise of the video is top lap time for a number of categories of cars. His job was to get the overall top time as well, and he was completely convinced that it wasn't going to happen. No grip, only two corners where he could go fast, and not enough power. No power despite how perfect the setup was at the Nurburgring. His only hope for less failure was a temperature swing in his favor.

His best time was 1:30.35 (good for second), and he would have had to beat a time of 1:28.44. The Tikt Corvette was supposedly producing 850hp, which shouldn't really put it out of reach of a 918. Perhaps something really wasn't working correctly.

hesperus

thanks very much for shedding light on what was going on in the video

2 seconds on a 90-second lap is pretty huge indeed. even with 850hp and crazy aero, I agree the 918 with it's AWD and cup tires (i'm assuming) should have had the measure of a tuned 'Vette! or at least been more competitive.

wonder if the 'Vette was on full slicks?