Porsche 911 GT3 manual sets new Green Hell lap record
A 911 GT3 has broken through the seven-minute mark to dislodge the V10-engined Dodge Viper ACR as the fastest manual around the Nurburgring.
It beat the previous fastest lap by nearly 10 seconds. At the wheel of the GT3 was Jörg Bergmeister. He set a new best time for a manual car of 6min 56.294sec.
That's 3.6sec quicker than the pre-facelift 992 with a PDK automatic gearbox. It is also substantially quicker than the previous record holder, the Dodge Viper ACR, which has a more powerful engine.
The American supercar features a 481kW 8.4-litre V10. It completed its record lap time of 7min 1.3sec in 2017. However, that was around the shorter 20.6km circuit and corresponds to a time of 7min 5.8sec around the full-length 20.832km loop. That's according to Porsche.
By their computations, the 375kW flat-six GT3 was 9.5sec faster around the current circuit. A GT3 from 2022 somewhere in the Alps.
The vehicle used for the attempt had the Weissach Package fitted. That's a $NZ45k optional extra that shaves 12kg from the standard GT3. It also ran Michelin Pilot Sport Cup2 R tyres.
Porsche reckons that increasing numbers of 911 GT3 customers are opting for the six-speed manual transmission.
The reason for the record attempt? The new owners wanted to know how fast a 911 GT3 with a manual transmission would be on the Nordschleife. That's why we Porsche used this instead of the PDK variant which 'is significantly faster.'
Porsche says that just over half of wingless GT3 Touring cars they sell have a manual transmission.
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Verstappen's efforts to go incognito, entering the test under a pseudonym, 'Franz Hermann', were predictably unsuccessful. 'Well, I knew it would come out,' he says. 'I mean, I wore my own helmet so I was hardly trying to hide it. I just didn't want to be on the entry list, that's all. I didn't want people rocking up at 8am.' Breaking the GT3 lap record probably did not help his bid for anonymity, either. Verstappen says he had 'a lot of fun' at one of motor racing's most feared circuits in the world, but scotches suggestions that he might surprise everyone by taking a sabbatical next year to indulge his non-F1 passions. It would make sense in one respect, I suggest, in that it would afford him the opportunity to see how F1's new regulations shake out and which team is the most competitive. 'No,' he says firmly. 'It is not in my mind to take a year off. I know in the future I want to do other things. And I'm already, slowly, you know, tasting a bit of it. 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I know it makes headlines, which is what drives the sport. But for me, it's not worth my time to try and counter that again. I race how I race.' He says he is '50-50' about next year's new regulations when he might have been expected to write off next year's cars as oil tankers which will require the drivers to 'coast' at some tracks in order to replenish battery power. Even the FIA's recent about-turn on swearing – described by Russell on Thursday as 'ridiculous' and 'strategic' on the part of the president – fails to get a rise. Verstappen was the first victim of the president's clampdown last year when he was handed what amounted to a community service order for swearing in a press conference in Singapore. 'Honestly, I'm not interested anymore,' he says. 'I live my life. As soon as I leave the paddock here, I don't think about it. I did my stuff on the Nordschleife. I have other projects going on with GT3 that I'm really passionate about. 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