992 GT3 first drive
Four years ago, we declared the brilliant 991.2 Porsche’s best-ever GT3. So how can the 992 beat it? Total 911 takes to the track to find out
The new 992 is here, so how does it take the GT3 game to the next level?
For a while we thought this might not happen. Global pandemics and travel bans have played havoc with car launches, and getting to the GT3 first drive in Bilster Berg, Germany, was going to be impossible. Porsche GB had a solution though, and it’s parked on the tarmac at Bedford Autodrome, UK. The German registration plate underlines that even in the panic to get the new 992 GT3 across the English Channel there was enough time to add a little bit of humour to this early right-hand-drive example.
That plate’s not the only thing making us smile. Sure, we might be denied the rainbow of colour choice the German journalists got to pick from or, indeed, the rollercoaster-like crests and dips of the
Bilster Berg circuit at the official launch, but Shark blue and Bedford’s expansive, flat tarmac is more than reasonable compensation. It’s not raining either, which is a blessing in the UK, in spring. The fact this GT3 is all ours is pleasing too, so we’ll not be hotseating like we would usually be on an international drive event. It’s just us, the 992 GT3 and an open pitlane and empty track for the whole afternoon.
You know most of the details, but they’re worth repeating. Porsche’s homologation car, the GT3 is like no other out there. It has been around since 1998, when the then 360hp 996.1 GT3 was timed lapping the Nürburgring in 7 minutes and 56 seconds. Ever since, the GT3’S been not just Porsche’s, but the yardstick by which all true driver’s cars are measured, not just in relation to lap times, but also in terms of engagement and enjoyment.
The new 992 GT3 in front of me obliterates that time. In the right hands – not ours then – it laps in under seven minutes. Six minutes 59.927 seconds if you want to be exact. Absolutely bonkers. That’s progress for you. Sure, it’s more powerful, the 510hp helping, but there’s more to it than just the power. Underlining that while it’s only gained 10hp over the 991.2 GT3, it has absolutely monstered its predecessor’s lap time, slicing a scarcely believable 17 seconds from it. Ten horsepower doesn’t do that, there are other forces at work here.
Andreas Preuninger admitted as much when we joined him previously for a day in the GT3 prototype. Chasing power is a law of diminishing returns. No, his and his team’s engineering focus wasn’t about adding power, but enabling the engine to pass evertighter global regulations. That’s difficult with a naturally aspirated engine, which is why everything else – virtually all of Porsche’s range included – has either a turbo or some sort of electrical assistance. Making what’s essentially a race engine road legal while passing super strict emissions, drive-by sound and economy tests that exist today, is an incredible achievement. It is legal, but having wrung it up to 9,000rpm we can now see why some might not want it to be. Talk about addictive.
The engine, save some weight losses and a different exhaust (lighter again, by 10kg, despite particulate filters), is to all intents and purposes largely the same as that in the 991 Speedster, and indeed the 911 GT3 Cup car. The numbers underline that, its 510hp arriving at 8,400rpm, with peak torque of 470Nm arriving at 6,100rpm. The 4.0-litre flat six features Variocam camshaft control for both the intake and exhaust valves, the rocker arms being DLC (Diamond Like Carbon) coated and the valvetrain is fixed. The intake system features a light plastic manifold with a pair of switchable resonance valves and six individual throttles for maximum engine response. There’s dry sump lubrication with a fully variable oil pressure pump, with no less than seven scavenge pumps, and a fine oil separator that both reduces consumption and improves emissions.
The highly stressed crankshaft has large bearing diameters and wide connecting rod bearings – the connecting rods themselves are titanium, the crankshaft feeding oil to those bearings via a central delivery system, and fed directly through the crankshaft itself.
Porsche is quick to point out that in testing, its engineers ran the GT3 for 5,000km, at a constant 300kph (186mph) around its Nardo test track, stopping only to refuel. No significant gain in power, then, but the promise of durability, immediacy and visceral, aural thrills to be had. Who needs more power, anyway?
It’s the platform that’s significantly altered, being based on the 992. It’s necessarily bigger, the 992 wider and longer than the 991 before it, significantly so in relation to the front axle. Despite this, Preuninger and his team’s obsessive weight management has seen the 992 GT3 only gain 5kg over the 991.2 GT3, with the manual car being
1,418kg and the PDK weighing 1,435kg. It’s followed the tried and tested route to achieve that, with thinner glass (-4.7kg), lighter wheels (-1.3kg), carbon fibre reinforced plastic bonnet (-2.5kg), lightweight Lithium Ion battery (-10kg), engine mounts fixed to the cylinder head (-3.5kg), and other engine weight savings (-6kg). Over the standard 992 it loses 10kg by binning the seats, using thinner liners and sound deadening, and the PDK drops 20kg by losing a gear to retain 7, too. These are just the headlines, with savings also made everywhere else.
Start ticking option boxes and the PCCB removes 17.7kg over the standard brakes – themselves 17% lighter than the same-diameter ones in the Turbo, the GT3’S being thinner, internally ventilated and pitted rather than through-drilled. There’s a 1kg saving if you pick the carbon fibre roof, and you can opt