Lord of the wings

The new, 992-gen 911 GT3 RS is the most extreme yet, so why not just buy an old racing 911 for your trackday kicks? Henry Catchpole explains why not

IT DOESN’T LOOK LIKE ITS GOT A sense of humour, but it has. It just hides it well. Static and silent ― you might almost say brooding ― in a garage deep in the heart of Porsche’s Weissach wonderland, the new GT3 RS strikes a pose that’s as serious as an off-duty comedian. This is a car that is overtly tooled-up. It doesn’t wear its 860kg of downforce lightly. It’s as clearly destined for a pitlane as a new Range Rover is obviously homing in on the nearest Waitrose.

But it can also crack a joke. Walk around the back, admiring the monstrous 13-inch-wide rear wheels wrapped in 335-section rubber as you go, then crouch down. See that little vent? Not the big vane immediately behind the rear tyre but just aft of that. Where the painted bodywork wraps down over the rear red reflector. That vent. It’s fake.

I know, what happened to ‘form follows function’? But that’s not the funny bit. Look closer. Moulded into the plastic infill are two words: ‘No vent’. Yup, Porsche and GT department head Andreas Preuninger preempted the possible purist backlash. Beat everyone to the punch with a punchline.

But enough of the silly stuff, let’s consider the vents and vanes that are real, starting with the nostrils in the bonnet. These are not simply larger versions of the pressure-relieving apertures seen on a GT3, but denote wholesale restructuring in the front of the car. There is now a new, central radiator that saves 7kg but doesn’t improve cooling and removes the frunk. The upside to the rejig is that it frees up the channels low down in the sides of the nose for active aerodynamics to be added. Peer into the depths or lie on the floor and look in front of the tyres and you can see flaps that are controlled by electric motors. Reminds me of the McLaren Senna.

While you’re around the front wheelarches, it’s worth turning the wheels onto full lock and having a look at the suspension, because the wishbones have been redesigned with aerodynamic teardrop profiles that are said to add up to 40kg of downforce to the front end. It all looks rather attractive, too. But back to the nostrils that vent the new radiator. Preuninger tells me that originally the openings in the carbon bonnet were unadorned, but it was found that the L-shape additions were needed to guide the hot exit air towards the sides of the car. The new fins on the rear of the roof then help to keep the balmy breeze tracking down the flanks. Without these aero additions the warm air would stream over the roof and then be swallowed by the engine intakes (which are positioned directly above the flat-six and not in the rear arches ― those openings are now reassigned to help aerodynamic airflow), which would obviously be undesirable.

The front wheelarches have the now-normal gills in their crown, but they have also been drastically cut away at the rear to help relieve pressure. What’s not immediately obvious (unless you pay particular attention to door handles) is that the doors are now made from carbonfibre and have also changed shape compared with every other 992 in order to help this extraction of air from the front wheel wells.

What you can’t miss is the new rear wing. It’s every bit as impressive in real life as it is in pictures, sitting just slightly above the roof line. But it’s not just big, it’s clever. Nestled in the tops of the swan-neck struts are the electrohydraulic actuators for the movable upper portion of the wing. At the opposite extremes of its movement it has a DRS function or acts as an air brake. However, it is also continuously variable between these extremes and works with the new flaps in the front to maximise performance and keep the car balanced. Porsche has redesigned the front suspension geometry, with the ball joint on the lower trailing arm repositioned to give the nose more support under braking and prevent diving so as not to upset the aero distribution of 30 per cent front/70 per cent rear.

Add in 14 different vanes under the car and the result of all this is 409kg of downforce at

200kmph and 860kg at 285kmph ― enough to require a 50 per cent higher spring rate than on the GT3. Combine this aero with tyres that have widened by 20mm to 275/35 R20 at the front and 335/30 R21 at the rear and you have a car capable of extraordinary performance in the corners. According to Preuninger, this new GT3 RS on Michelin Cup 2 R road tyres has higher cornering speeds than a 911 Cup car on slicks. That made me laugh even more than ‘no vent’ when I first heard it.

In a straight line the gains over the normal GT3 are not quite so stark, but that has been the case in previous generations as well. There were all sorts of rumours flying around internet forums about a possible rise in displacement for the RS but the flat-six has remained at 3996cc. There are, however, hotter, reprofiled cams, the intake system has been rerouted and the head has also been redesigned slightly to reduce the amount of oil flow and help the engine cope with higher G-forces. The result is that the flat-six is said to rev even more eagerly from 6000rpm to its red line at 9000rpm. Power has also risen slightly, by 15bhp to 518bhp at 8500rpm, but peak torque has actually dropped a tiny bit from 470Nm at 6100rpm to 465Nm at 6300rpm

The seven-speed PDK gearbox remains almost identical but the final drive has been shortened slightly to compensate for the larger wheels and keep the effective gearing the same as the standard GT3’s. Nonetheless, the RS’s claimed 0-100kmph time of 3.2 seconds is 0.2 seconds quicker than a GT3 with PDK. The top speed, understandably given all the extra downforce, has come down from 319kmph to 296kmph.

Wiping off all that speed are new iron brake discs at the front, which have grown very slightly from 34mm to 36mm in thickness. The pistons in the six-piston calipers have also grown by a couple of millimetres from 32mm to 34mm in diameter. Carbon-ceramic brakes obviously remain an option, while the new air brake function also plays a significant role in RS retardation, reducing the stopping distance from 200kmph by 2.5 metres.

With all the additional hardware and things like bigger wheels, the weight of the RS has gone up by 15kg over a standard GT3 with a PDK ’box, taking it to 1450kg. That weight is calculated with all the fluids, including a full tank of fuel, but also with all the lightweight options, like the carbon-ceramic brakes, magnesium wheels and the Weissach package, which swaps the anti-roll bars, rear coupling rods and shear panel to carbonfibre. With the WP, you can also specify a carbonfibre rollcage instead of the steel one, which saves 6kg and also gives you a rather better view out of the back, thanks to the way the tubing runs.

No Nürburgring lap time has been set yet. It’s been too hot, apparently. Could it beat the 6min 43.3sec set by the significantly more powerful Manthey Racing GT2 RS? Could it even dip into the 6:30s? Do people really care? I think some people do, yes. What excites me more are the opportunities Porsche has provided to potentially completely mess up the handling and make you slower around a track.

You see, on the RS’s steering wheel are four rotary switches with buttons in the middle. These are colour-coded to graphics on the dash and in Track mode you can adjust the dampers, for both bump and rebound, front and rear. You can also vary the intervention of the ESC and TC, but more unusually you can play with the diff settings both under power and while coasting.

I’ve driven a car with a Tractive suspension system that was variable for all sorts of parameters and thoroughly enjoyed tinkering, but this system not only adds elements but also makes the whole process more intuitive. It looks like a Fisher-Price My First Chassis Set-up kit, and I mean that as a compliment. If it was all hidden away in an infuriating touchscreen menu it would be far less appealing, but knowing you can easily fiddle on the fly ― and also reset it all to zero without any fuss ― makes it feel fun.

I’ve seen quite a lot of comments since the RS was revealed saying that it is now too extreme and anyone thinking of buying one (`3.3 crore ex-showroom) should simply purchase a race car instead. After all, when Preuninger himself says this shouldn’t be bought purely as a road car for Sunday morning blasts in the mountains (buy a GT4 RS for that), perhaps an old race car would be a better option for some trackday entertainment?

But I think there are some very compelling arguments in favour of a new RS over a race car, principal among them being approachability and ease of use. For all that it looks scary compared to a base Carrera, you know that the RS is still going to be a piece of cake to get in, start up and drive. Far less intimidating than most race cars anyway. And now, with the ability to change damper and diff settings so quickly and intuitively, it takes the RS to another level. We have yet to see just how much effect twiddling the knobs has, but almost as long as it is noticeable it doesn’t matter.

And while it might not be an ideal road car, I like that it can be driven on the road. I love the notion of it being parked up outside a pub or popping to the supermarket and leaving it next to that Range Rover. Out of its intended environment it will look even more purposeful and preposterous and impractical and wild and, well, humorous. And we could all do with a laugh now and again. ⌧