Conflicted. That’s the sense I’m getting from Andreas Preuninger, Porsche’s GT department boss. Today, at the launch of his new car, the 911 GT3 RS, he seems a little preoccupied. Back at the Geneva International Motor Show, during the car’s unveiling, Preuninger was pretty candid about the futility of chasing Nürburgring lap times. He told us that the numbers associated with taking a car around Germany’s famous “Green Hell” have become the benchmark by which performance cars are measured. He has also stated that ever-increasing horsepower is not the right direction.
Yet power is up for the GT3 RS, and Porsche’s lighter, harder, more focused version of the GT3 is finally here. It follows the RS brief to the letter, so there’s more power – a 25hp increase giving 500hp – more torque, at 460Nm, and less weight, dropping 20kg from the standard GT3. RSs have always been incremental in their changes, adding up to a greater whole, so achieving that required the very best work from Preuninger and his team. This time around, however, the RS needed to be seen as a far more extreme version than previously.
On looks they’ve certainly succeeded. If you added some numbers and a sponsor’s livery, the GT3 RS could line up in the pit lane. That’s hardly surprising, as the RS owes its existence to racing. So every change on the RS is functional, with the sole aim of going faster. Unlike the regular GT3, the RS borrows its body from the 911 Turbo. That brings a number of advantages, the wider body allowing for greater front and rear track widths – useful when you’re squeezing the massive tyres from the 918 hypercar under there – as well as creating opportunities to manage the airflow.
Famously rear-engined, all 911s have had to breathe their induction air through the top vents on the rear lid/spoiler. With the 911 Turbo body, the inlets ahead of the rear wheels have allowed Porsche to completely redesign the intake system. The engine has been enhanced too, with a revised dry-sump, new oil pump, valve train, lighter cylinder heads and an increase in capacity from 3.8L to 4.0L. See those wing-top vents? They help produce downforce, while helping ease airflow to the rear air inlets. The GT3 RS produces 80 per cent of the downforce of Porsche’s GT3 R racer, yet manages that with a drag figure that’s only marginally worse than the standard GT3.
The roof is magnesium, shaving 1kg off the weight, and the reduction is from up high, too, helping to lower the centre of gravity. Weight savings are obvious elsewhere – there are basic door cards inside with strap pulls, lightweight seats, plastic rear windows, less sound deadening, a titanium exhaust and even the steering wheel is slightly smaller in diameter to save weight.
Sitting, clutched tightly in deeply bolstered seats, holding that smaller wheel, with the partial roll cage occupying the space where the rear seats would be in an ordinary 911, that more powerful, larger capacity engine starts easily on the key. Settling to a steady idle, there’s none of the slight recalcitrance of GT3 RSs of old. Like its GT3 relation, the engine is a paragon of civility, though the longer stroke here does mean the rev counter’s red line starts 200rpm earlier. Still, at 8,800rpm, it remains stratospheric, the peak 500hp coming at 8,250rpm, though at full speed (310kph if you’re asking, while 0 to 100kph takes 3.3 seconds) the engine produces about 13hp more, thanks to the ram-air effect.
On the road, the engine, the transmission and suspension are little compromised over a conventional GT3. It’s firm, but not uncompromisingly so; the engine tractable; the gearshifts immediate and smooth. Dare I say it, but the GT3 RS is a little bit ordinary, if unquestionably fast and notably more vocal. It’s usable then, in the way all 911s are.
It takes time on a track to truly reveal the GT3 RS’s outrageous side, where it’s in its element – fearsomely fast, the engine’s appetite for revs whip-crack in urgency, backed up by a rousing soundtrack and a transmission that’s telepathically brisk.
The grip on offer is genuinely otherworldly, the immediacy of the steering to input and the faithfulness of response unlike any other 911, the nose so tied down you’d swear the GT3 RS was mid- rather than rear-engined. Yet push up to and beyond its mighty limits of grip and it’s as playful as ever. It all feels a lot more serious though, more hardcore, demanding more from you because those limits are so much higher and speeds far greater.
That’s to its detriment on the road, where at times it’s aloof, slightly remote, making it all but impossible to enjoy its incredible breadth of ability where speeds are limited. On the track, it’s a different story, as the GT3 RS is an incredible, hugely involving and rewarding car.
motoring@thenational.ae
