fleadh

The 488 is a really good race car and the Hankook tires are much better than I was expecting. Not as grippy as Pirelli's, but more durable without much of a performance drop over their life (ie: hard compound + nice construction). I only had about 12 laps in the car before this run and that including bedding in 2 sets of brakes for the race, but felt rite at home in it. Similar to the 458 GT3 but a little less torque off the corner/low RPM and the gearing was taller. Overall easier to drive, but probably not as "easy" as the AMG GT3. The 488 was really good on the brakes and I had heard that wasn't a strong point for the car... but for us, it was excellent. Wish we had an hour or so of testing to dial in the setup before the race... but it was still a really nice race car.

I need to get some laps in the evo-updated 991 GT3...

-mike

lcrain

I'll be out there this weekend in an na miata wrl car. Laps will be slightly slower....

Amazing lap, really astounding to me how deep you are able to take those braking zones.

TFBoxster

Nice lap. Thanks for sharing.

Where would you say the AMG GT3 strengths/weaknesses are in comparison? I understand it treats its tyres better?

audipwr1

Does it have ABS? The initial brake stab has a lot of confidence in it!

Veloce Raptor

Very solid, Mike. Particularly nice 5-10 !!

fleadh

Thanks for the kind words everyone!

Hmm... I think the 488 is a little better on it's tires than the AMG. But for us, it wasn't so during the race because the differential lost all it's preload in the opening stint of the race (re-setting it would have been a 10+ minute pit stop, so we soldiered on) and it was really hurting the rear tires. They'd spin up coming out of corners in all gears and over all bumps. The 488 is a little more "edgy" to drive as the rear of the car is more active and the AMG was generally very stable and easy to drive quickly. The AMG traction control also seemed a little bit better, but in all honesty with the differential problems we had in the race I probably didn't get a fair shot at a comparison between the two systems.

Ya, all the GT3 cars have ABS. It doesn't really change the way I brake though it mostly just helps be more aggressive over the bumps. In the 488 I was slower when ABS was activating versus braking rite on the limit. In the AMG it didn't really matter how much ABS you activated although it induces a ton of understeer on corner entry if the ABS was active. I found myself adjusting the brake bias more than normal in the 488, but again I think that was down to the differential being open.

-mike

enduro911

Thanks for posting, fleadh. Always enjoy living vicariously through the videos.

How does the Audi stack up to the Fezz and the AMG? Do you have a preference and is there one car that is noticeably better until it's BOP'ed properly? TIA.

TFBoxster

Interesting.

I'm surprised at the ABS comment with regards to the 488. I believe they both run the same Bosch system so must be due to the differences in chassis. Did you try dialling the ABS intervention down?

In the UK and Europe the AMG seems to be the most consistent car with regards to how it deals with BOP. It generally doesn't seem to have as big a difference in advantage and disadvantages from one circuit to the next or in differing conditions vs most other marques.

fleadh

Hah-- happy to help if I can. The GT4 Audi is a lot slower because it's more street car based (and GT4 by design should be a lot slower than GT3). All 3 are great cars for their class, so my preference would be whatever someone would let me drive. I've never driven a current generation GT4 or GT3 car without someones BOP so I wouldn't really know... I know the guy I sold my old 458 GT3 car to pulled all the weight and the restrictors out of the car and runs track days with it. The guys who've driven it said it's ridiculously fast...

Even though they both have Bosch ABS, each manufacturer programs it themselves so they aren't really comparable. They're both really good, I think it's just the design philosophy of the computer programmers and engineers who developed the cars -- Ferrari wants you to drive it like a race car, AMG wants you to take advantage of all the electronics.

-mike