Porsche 911 R
DESPITE ALL THE hype about the 911 R, the crazy prices being asked and even Porsche positioning it as a 911 optimised for the purest driving pleasure, there seemed very little chance that we would conclude it was the best driver’s car on sale (at least in theory) in Britain.
Why? Most obviously, there was the opposition, in the form of the 2015 winner, the Ferrari 488 GTB, plus two stunningly capable Mclarens: the 570S and 675LT. These are not only far more powerful mid-engined cars from even more exotic brands, but they also represent manufacturers absolutely at the top of their game and are among our favourites not just of sports and supercars built today but of all time. For Porsche, there was an inconvenient precedent, too: both cars from which the 911 R is derived have been represented here before – the GT3 in 2014, the GT3 RS in 2015 – and victory came to neither. What chance, then, for the 911 R in 2016?
Come the three-day road and track test in north Wales of the 11 cars we thought best to drive in the land, it was a close-run thing. The difficulty here is that being merely a heroic track-day warrior will never win it for a car, any more than being so supple on the public road that its composure falls to bits the moment it reaches the end of the pit lane.
And the secret to the 911 R’s success was not how well it did on the road for which was designed, but how little it gave away on the track for which it was not. Indeed, such was its balance and feel that although both the Mclarens and the Ferrari were able to post faster lap times, the Ferrari alone earned more points from the judges for its track ability.
This surprisingly small deficit meant that once we headed out into Snowdonia, those weapons it had that the others lacked could be felt to full effect. Its normally aspirated engine sang the best song and its manual gearbox brought a level of driver involvement the others could not touch. Crucially, its relatively compact dimensions and superb visibility gave us the confidence required to enjoy it to the full. It was a virtuoso performance, resulting from combining the best characteristics of the GT3 and GT3 RS, adding a manual gearbox and executing it all with devastating fluency.
Which meant that by the time the final scores were all totted up, the 911 R didn’t just win, but it did so reasonably comfortably. It will take something quite exceptional to unseat it later this year.