Porsche 911 GT3 Cup & GT3 R Review | What’s it like to drive a Porsche 911 racing car?

driving the spectacularly good Porsche  911 GT3 RS it's hard to imagine how any 911 could ever deliver anything beyond  its astounding levels of pace telepathic feel and laugh out loud fun pound for pound  assuming you can get one for L price that is it's one of the most astonishing cars  on sale today and sits a top of perhaps the greatest model line in the history  of sports cars in short it's the real deal and yet Believe It or Not Porsche  reckons that it's got at least two 911 models that g

o beyond its most outrageous  Road car so intrigued we made our way to the famous esteril circuit in southern Portugal  for a chance to drive two 911s that you're under likely to ever see anywhere on the  public Highway namely the 911 GT3 Cup and gt3r the Motorsport equivalent of Stuart's iconic  Road car this is what happens when Engineers don't have to worry about things like Comfort  refinement or even where your mobile phone will sit in the cabin even by the standards of the GT3  RS these ar

e 911 designed to go fast and nothing else so Porsche 911 992 Cup car it's not often  you get a look around one of these up close so this should be pretty cool it's now been changed  so that previously it was 30% aluminium and 70% steel they switched that ratio round to make  it lighter than it was before it now weighs in about 1260 kg so that makes a big difference  with performance as does about an extra 25 brake horsepower it's now making 53 is that's a little  bit less actually than a 911 GT

3 RS but nobody's counting especially with the difference in weight  but it wasn't all about making it faster because after all this car has just got to race other  Porsches it hasn't got to race Ferraris and Lamborghinis that's what the gt3r is for so they  wanted to make it easier to use and a really cool example of that I think at least is that when they  take the engine cover off the back here and that's something that you can't do on the 9/11 Road car  anymore it's a shame but when they tak

e it off previously on the 991 you'd have to put it on  the garage floor somewhere and everyone would trip over it and that was a shame because it's  actually quite expensive but now there's these little kind of rivets where you can hang it off so  you've got your engine cover hanging off the rear wing which I think is a really nice piece of well  tidying things up that rear wing is a swan neck spoiler I think it's adjustable through about  11 different settings for different arrows so here at e

steril you've got a big long straight  and some slow Corners so you probably want a little bit less Wing but you can change that  all around the rear wheels they're wider than they were before I think it's now 13 in at the  back it's 12 in at the front so that's a bit of a difference and it makes the car a little bit  friendlier to drive because the 991 apparently was Infamous for how difficult it was to drive  quickly they said that if you could drive that thing fast you can drive any racing ca

r fast so  this is potentially a bit easier there's lots of carbon all over the cars I'm sure you can imagine  the door for example it's incredibly light that weighs about 4 kg and absolutely feels it and  then on the inside you'll see some shots of it now they've completely changed the whole cabin  area you've got a massive it's about 10.25 in digital dashboard screen it's really clear super  nicely laid out and also the steering wheel it's changed from the old round steering wheel and  now it'

s lemon or Formula 1 style one where you hold on to both sides but they've got a little  bit of carbon at the bottom which apparently was for the gentleman drivers to have a bit extra  to hold on to if they start to lose the car and they can gather it back up last thing to  mention the 911 GT3 RS doesn't have have any boot space because of course you got that Central  radiator but because this is based on the GT3 it's got a different radiator configuration there  is actually a bit of boot space

in there not that you're going to use it but it's there  now let's go and drive it before I get blown away so I've driven a lot of 9/11 road cars  this is my first time in a 9/11 racing car you're thinking how different can it be  well that's just got out the window leaving the pit Lane my God the responses wow oh  the throttle so sensitive the brakes oh what incredible feel you obviously got  a trail break a lot because well it's a 911 it tends to be a little bit light  on the nose but when you

've got such a lovely breake pedal that it's not a jaw oh  right good straight 230 km an hour into six gear oh my word the braking is Sensational such  a good feel we've got a little bit of ABS going on just to make it a bit easier for us n Pros  I'm trying my best to threshold break and not activate it when it is coming on it's a really  nice subtle ABS it's not like a road car RS I think a big thing is just learning to trust the  rear end because there is so much traction and you need to drive

it in a way where you  trust the rear end because that's one of this car's biggest strengths so if you don't  trust it you're not getting the most out of it so this is the 911 gt3r so whereas the cup car  pretty much exclusively but not entirely races against other cup cars so other Porsche 911s this  thing takes on Audi BMW Lamborghini Mercedes AMG at races like lemon and the nurburg ring 24hour  in fact it's going to make its debut at leemon in 2024 now it costs from 51,000 excluding taxes  a

nd options so probably quite a lot more than that when it gets down to it so with this car what  they wanted to do going forward into the next few years was not necessarily make it outright quicker  because is in this type of racing the balance of performance can mean that if you are too quick  they'll make it slower which is a bit of a pain but they wanted to make it easier to drive fast  for longer so speaking of that the aerodynamics especially on the rear end that's been changed  and tweaked

to make it easier on the rear tires and also make it more stable and more drivable the  engine it's not 4 L it's 4.2 Flat 6 they've bought it out it's now making 500 57 brake horsepower  so quite a lot more almost 60 brake horsepower more than the 911 GT3 Cup car another thing I'm  not sure if you can see it from here but the rear wheels have been pushed back and that's extended  the wheelbase by about 48 mm so the amount that you can play around with the Bas 911 in this kind  of category is ac

tually quite a lot because that's quite a fundamental change to how the car drives  and handles now the engine itself has has been banked by about 5 1/ 12° to allow for a larger  more generous diffuser under the rear end and they've also moved the airon compressor and the  alternator forward so it's about a meter forwards of the engine the suspension it is multi-link at  the rear and it's double Wishbone at the front the brakes they're AP Racing they're six pot  at the front and they are four po

t at the back and the entire chassis is an aluminium and steel  composite with the actual parts that are bolted to it mainly made out of carbon so the whole car  weighs in depending on the balance of performance that's such a big thing when you're racing one  of these is 1250 kg so it's a bit of a beast really looking forward to seeing how it differs to  the 911 GT3 Cup car because there are some clear differences on paper but how that translates onto  the track that's what I want to go and find

out so now we're in the 911 gt3r and I wonder  how different can it be because of course it's still a 911 racing car it's still on slicks  it's still rear engined but the first impressions that it's a lot smoother feels broader on the  track feels like a bigger car almost seating position also feels a bit different like I'm lower  down more laidback maybe more like a formula car maybe a bit more in a straight line but you can't  really tell it's quieter though I can hear myself think still make

s an awesome noise just feels  more settled those big wide tires certainly helping with that oh it rides over the bum a lot  more smoothly w wow the steering so responsive and the car just does what you ask of it can feel  my neck muscles working even on moderately warm tires probably just cuz I'm  not as fit as uh or maybe could be oh so much more grip out of the last quarter pedal field isn't as nice  as the cup car they usually run this they are with abs in the cup car they  don't it's a lot

longer travel on the pedal the throttle is a bit  easier to use not quite as sensitive don't think there's as much mechanical  grip as in the cup car doesn't feel that way anyway yeah I can see why this is the  car you'd rather use in an endurance race feel the eror working in the  quick of it pushing the back of the car down with that mive rear  wing and the slow stuffs are responsive when you R it over the curves the 911 GT3 cup and gt3r move the game on  from even the mightiest 911 Road casts

when it comes to outright performance a GT3 RS  may be close to the former yet the raw and visceral experience plus the skill required to  gain the performance out of them is on another level and while it's perhaps it's not hard  to imagine the joy of driving two examples of Porsche's enviable stable of racing cars what  also stands out is what makes them so commercially successful it's not something we usually  think of when it comes to Motorsport but like with its road cars Porsche has gone t

o  considerable lengths to make its racing cars as appealing as possible not just to the pro  drivers but also those that pay for and run the cars speaking to members of the racing  team that wasn't owned by Porsche who were running the gt3r on the day they confirmed  that the 911s are often quicker and easier to fix than rival cars something that counts  for a huge amount in endurance racing so next time you're wondering why Porsche's customer  Motorsport presence is still so vast then it's wor

th remembering that there's more to  an ideal racing car than just raw speed a