Porsche loves the low key approach to Nordschleife time-attacks, and last week’s session to see what the new 997 GT3 RS could manage was no exception.
Armed with a stopwatch, a crash hat, an RS and a sizeable pair of testicles, an unnamed Porsche test driver clocked a 7 minute 33 second lap – that’s seven seconds faster than the cooking GT3. He did this in some light traffic and, pulling data from earlier laps, showed that the theoretical ‘best lap’ would have been 7m30s.
That compares to the Nissan GT-R’s 7m27.56s, while quicker lap records lie with the Gumpert Apollo (7m11.57s) and Radical SR8LM (6m48s).
Not that Porsche cares too much about the relative speed of the competition, or that the Corvette ZR1 and Nissan GT-R have all gone faster. Failed attempts to coax them into making a few catty comments about the Americans and the Japanese, indictate they’ve had enough of that banter.
There’s one question we’d like answered though – what’s the longevity of these road cars at such insane speeds. How many sub 7m30s laps can a 1740 kg GTR do before the brakes melt and the tyres go pop? Likewise the ‘Vette. May be a 4-lap challenge from now on might provide a true indication. Were it possible, our money would be on Porsche to get the job done.
