NEW 911 HYBRID

WE ALL KNEW IT WAS COMING BUT IS THE NEW ELECTRIFIED PORSCHE 911 ANY GOOD? WE TAKE A RIDE ALONG FOR A FIRST TASTE

- ANDREW FRANKEL

WERE THIS THE observation of a public relations spokesperson in a press conference, I might have taken the comment with a fistful of salt. But this is no press man and this is no press conference. It's veteran Porsche racer Joerg Bergmeister-class winner at both Daytona and Le Mans and winner outright of the Spa 24 Hours - and right now we're sideways, power on, steaming towards the exit of turn one at the Weissach test track, a corner approached at nearly 260km/h. He's grinning and chatting away, providing the most literal and vivid illustration imaginable of the point he is trying to make.

We are in the new Porsche 911, the second-generation 992, on sale now in base Carrera form and in Carrera GTS guise the once traditional season ender now turned curtain raiser.

And whatever you read in all that's to come, which I hope is interesting, it is worth remembering that what matters is less what it is, and more what it does, as Herr Bergmeister is doing his very best to demonstrate now.

The problem is - and I've been here before, and it's one of the reasons I resist almost all attempts to persuade me to tell a story from the passenger seat - Joerg is just too damn good a driver. Put a merely decent pedaller behind the wheel and it would be far easier to figure out how much of what you were witnessing was down to the car, and what proportion was due to its driver. But here's a bloke who knows this car and track so well he can converse, make jokes and look at you while simultaneously balancing the throttle of a 398kW car with 90 degrees of opposite lock applied. So you'll be getting no definitive judgements from me today, and if you get them from anywhere else, they should be treated with the gravest suspicion.