Porsche’s 992.2 911 GT3 has now become the fastest manual equipped sports car around the Nurburgring Nordschleife by setting a 6 minute & 56.294 second lap record. Driven by Porsche brand ambassador Jörg Bergmeister, this surpasses the previous such record set by a Dodge Viper ACR in 2017 by over 9.5 seconds. Thanks to all of its performance relevant elements having been further developed, the Weissach Package equipped manual 911 GT3 even proved to be 3.633 seconds quicker than its 992.1 predecessor with the PDK dual-clutch transmission.
Andreas Preuninger, Porsche’s famed Director GT Model Line said, “More and more 911 GT3 customers are opting for the six-speed manual transmission. And more and more often we are asked by these customers how fast a 911 GT3 with manual transmission would be on the Nordschleife. We have now answered this question and – although we know that the variant with PDK is significantly faster – we drove our official lap time with a manual six-speed gearbox. Even without the automated, super-fast and precise gearshifts of the PDK, and with a conventional instead of electronically controlled limited-slip differential, the new 911 GT3 shaved around 3.6 seconds off the time of its predecessor with PDK.”
Bergmeister took to the 20.832 kilometer track in the manual 911 GT3 on a sunny late afternoon, with an ideal 12 degree ambient temperature and 27 degree track temperature of 27 degrees. The GT3 itself used road-legal Michelin Pilot Sport Cup2 R tyres (255/35 R20 front and 315/30 R21 rear), as the previous model had during its official lap.
He added that, “The new 911 GT3 inspires even more confidence at the limit than the previous model. I was faster in almost every corner. We learned a lot from the 911 GT3 RS, especially with the chassis. The car is much more stable on bumps and over the curbs. And thanks to the eight-per-cent-shorter gear ratio, there is noticeably more drive from the rear axle when accelerating with the same engine power. Even if it would have been a few seconds faster with the seven-speed PDK – with the six-speed manual gearbox I definitely had more to do on the fast lap – and it was therefore even more fun.”
To frame this achievement in another context, the manual 992.1 911 GT3 has now gone 0.706 seconds quicker than the Nurburgring lap record set by Porsche’s own 918 Spyder Weissach hypercar upon its introduction in production form almost 12 years ago. Let’s not forget that it had 377 hp and 612 ib-ft more torque thanks to its race-bred 4.6 liter V8 engine boosted by a hybrid electric system with advanced torque vectoring, active aerodynamics, a mid-engined carbon fiber composite superstructure, and of course the quick shifting PDK transmission. This simply goes to demonstrate the significant advances made in terms of chassis, suspension and tyre technologies over the intervening decade.
