Porsche 911 GT3 RS

Porsche Has Unleashed Yet Another Racecar With Licence Plates Onto the Public Roads — We Drive the New 911 Gt3 Rs in Germany

- Dejan Jovanovic

What romantics —Weissach’s new 911 GT3 RS has just lapped the Nordschleife in 6 minutes and 56.4 seconds. Only two other road-going Porsches have gone sub-seven: the million-dirham 911 GT2 RS and the million-dollar 918 Spyder.

Now sixes at the ‘Ring are going for chump change — this GT3 RS, it gets you there for less than seven hundred grand, and nothing for the money balances drivability with this level of frenetic performance.

A sub-seven minute Nordschleife lap is a big deal, and down offDöttinger Höhe every manufacturer worth their carbon fibre has a shop set up for ‘Ring development.

Porsche has now taken the relationship to the next level. The first GT3 RS came out in 2003 and this will be the sixth one, but in that time the generation gap became a giant leap. The difference around the Nordschleife over a lap between that first car and the last model launched in 2015 was around 30 seconds, and this latest sixth-gen just went 24 seconds faster still.

Which is crazy, especially when you consider that a GT2 RS with some turbos along for the ride does the ‘Ring nine seconds faster — the GT2 RS recorded 6:47.3. So 180 additional horsepower only gets you half a second a kilometre taking into account the 20km Nordschleife lap distance.