Ex-Stig THRASHES The New 911 GT3 RS Around The Top Gear Track!

Usually Porsche, or Porsche as it's known to the connoisseurs, is known for suave sophistication. Understated performance panache, like the milk train man. Then you've got the GT3 RS and there's an elephant in the room. I don't know what it is, can't put my finger onto it, but maybe it's the colour. This is not a 911. It looks like one, but that's because Porsche are clever. It's basically their GT Le Mans car, dressed to look like a road car, but it's not. This is very much a racing car. It's been very highly focused around the driver to deliver unreal performance. This is the fastest car they've ever made. It's quite incredible how much quicker it is than the GT2 RS that came before it, the 991. And this car generates twice the amount of downforce than the previous generation GT3 RS. Statistics-wise, 450kg. It's got this 4.0-litre flat-six engine delivering 525bhp at 0-60mph in 3.2 seconds. Top speed 184mph, but it's the aero that really tells the story with this car. 410kg of downforce at 124mph, 860kg of downforce at 177mph. That's more than the McLaren Senna, and that's an extremely aerodynamic beast. And with high downforce can become quite high pressure. You get a very high drop-off point. If you lose downforce and you go a bit sideways, you can find yourself in deep doo-doo. What's amazing with driving this, it's very much like driving a Porsche race car. It's really built around the driver to be a work tool that you can pound on. Composite brakes deliver fantastic braking performance. The car even has DRS on the rear wing. You know that one, the F1 drivers press the button, the little flap goes down so they can overtake each other. To have that on a road car, you say, really, do I need that? As soon as you go to a track, you're like, yes, I want that. Now with 525hp, that's great power, but with this much aerodynamics, that's also a large amount of drag. So being able to pop that flap down, giving you extra straight line speed when you don't need the wing working for you, is actually quite cool. Before turning up the wick further, I thought it was important to pull over and chat with engineering nerd Mike about what is actually gluing this thing to the track. Come on then, Mike. Fill your boots. I know you love this bit. Yeah, 860 kilos. Can you feel it on the track? Yeah, massively. It gives you so much confidence. I mean, there's a reason that people want to take this to the track. So starting from the front, every 911 up until now has had three radiators. Small one, small one, big one. This now just has one big one down in here, which means they've used those spaces to channel air and create downforce. But even this, even this massive outlet here, they've got these kind of strakes in here to guide that hot air directly over the car. Because what you don't want to do is have hot air kind of spraying out everywhere because that creates friction and less aerodynamics. So that's really freaking cool. These things are super aggressive. I mean, can you see them from the driver's seat? Yeah, just about. I mean, it's sort of, when you look at Formula 1 cars now and the hypercars at Le Mans, they're so complex. And these things, you're like, you know, some cars, you know the ones I mean, sort of lower end of the spectrum of price range. They bolt stuff on to look cool. With Porsche, nothing's on this car that's not functioning. And the downforce it's making is unreal. And I love the way that they're using thermal dynamics to create downforce as well. They've gone for everything. It's so cool. And then tucked in here, I don't know if we'll be able to see them. Yes, you can just. The suspension arms themselves have a wing profile. So like your rear wings, they're almost like miniature rear wings on both sides so that they create downforce. Apparently, 40 kilograms of the downforce is from the suspension. That is wild. It's mega. It's all cumulative, isn't it? They've stolen grip from every bit of air they can get hold of. Yeah. But by piling air in through here, you then create too much air pressure in the wheel arch. So they've just completely cut out this whole section here, as well as these ducts, just to get air out of there. Because if you trap it in there, you then push up the front, you're understeering. I mean, 911s have that reputation for understeering sometimes. They do squat. I love it with aerodynamicists. One of their favorite things to do is cut stuff off and make them quicker. And that's typical. I remember the Carroll Shelby story from Daytona. They cut the back off the car, tear drop shape, cut the back off, the air flew out faster. That's kind of what's happening here with the wheel arch. There's even active aero underneath. We won't be able to see it just now, but there's strakes and all that stuff underneath. It's just doing its thing. Like this TRS, the last one was nuts. This is just unbelievable. It's almost like an RSR. It's almost like a GT Le Mans car. It's just incredible. That's how it drives. But you've also got a phenomenal amount of steering lock. So you can still throw this thing around. Manipulate the car in a way that racing cars, that's it, lock to lock. This, you've got all the performance package of a racing car plus the usability. Yeah. And then moving down here, these ducts are normally intakes for the engine, especially on the turbocharged cars. So you'd expect that to be the same, but actually it's not. That's straight into a brake duct. Because this needs so much brake cooling being a track car. Then these are quite cool. These are quite simple. But basically your hot air is coming out of the radiator. These are making sure it channels over the windscreen. And then these make sure it still channels it down through your wings. Again, what you don't want is the air just spilling off sideways. You want to keep it attached so that it heads to that thing and pushes the back of the car out. And look, I mean, this is a road car. It's a beast. How is this legal? I know. It's mad. You could just head out round Guildford in this. Pressing your DRS button until your heart's content and flapping it around. The thing is, you look at that, that is purposeful. And to get that right, like we've seen at F1, remember the first couple of years of DRS, wings flew off. So we're past that, fortunately. And this is on a street car. It's a production car. So it has to work and it has to be capable of being pushed a million times without having an issue. But it's so well designed. The cool thing is you can press it yourself and activate it. But when you're ripping around, it just does it for you anyway. But you might get the nth degree of extra straight line speed by pressing it yourself. I do wonder, like GT3 versus this. It's got a similar swan neck wing. You want to keep that lower side of it completely clean. That's what creates the downforce, not that. I wonder this versus a GT3 with a few of these trinkets taken off, if there's that much of a difference. Probably you could make the difference. I probably would get the exact same lap time. The funny thing, I think anyone could jump in this car and not be frightened of it. Which is what's crazy. And despite how big that tail is, you don't see it from the inside. When you look in the mirror, you don't just get a block of wing. Which I think in some of the previous models, because it's higher. I mean, from the outside, it's like, wow, that's a massive wing. But you can't get around it. It isn't there for show. It's there to do a job. It does it so well. This car is also kind of Kylo Ren spec. Black with the red. So, so cool. I'm very jealous of you today. You should be. I just had to sit beside him. Well, we're not even stopwatching today. My normal job would be stopwatch, but I'm just watching you today. I'm on the internet a lot to do my job and keep the Drivetribe and more Drivetribe channels running as they do. And something that I have running constantly in the background on my devices is a VPN from the sponsor of today's video, Surfshark. Surfshark is a virtual private network that will keep you and your devices safe online. Especially when using potentially dodgy Wi-Fi that may have people lurking in the shadows to steal your data and track you here, there and everywhere. Surfshark offers unlimited devices, so you can keep your phone, computer and TV safe and protect your family devices as well. Whenever I'm out and about at places like Dunsfold Airdrome and I need to crack on with some work, it's reassuring to know that that icon is sitting there and Surfshark is doing its thing to protect my data. You can also get data breach alerts to notify you the moment your email, ID, credit card or other personal data gets leaked online. Things you want locked down quick. For you guys, we have an exclusive offer where you will get four extra months free on your Surfshark subscription by going to surfshark.com forward slash Drivetribe or clicking the link in the description below or scanning this QR code on screen now. There's no risk trying Surfshark either as there's a full 30-day money-back guarantee. Get yourself a VPN, keep safe online, let's see that arrow doing its thing. Now this car's been out for a year and I've seen that pretty much everybody's had hold of it. For me, what I'm really curious about is the individual settings that you can adjust on this car to fine tune the car to a track. This is a track I know very well. Dunsfold, driven a zillion cars around here done a million laps but I've never driven a car where you can adjust the shock absorber settings and the differential. Now the shock settings, it's quite an interesting one. You can really tailor the handling to what you want it to do. So through the hammerhead here, I'm getting understeer coming out of the corner. Well I can park up in a minute and adjust the rebound, try and keep the nose tucked down. I might soften the front bump, try and get the compression into the front of the chassis, bury the nose into that front tyre, get the fronts working but I don't want to lose too much traction on the way out. Now similarly on power, you want the diff to tighten up, you don't want wheelspin. On the way into the corner though, you want it to be open, you want that rotation but if it's doing either of those two things too much, I can adjust the rear differential using the e-diff and fine tune it. I think the first thing I'm going to try is the shock absorbers, suspension and let's just check it out. So compression, so I'm going to actually drop that off. I'm going down to minus four and rebound. Let's turn that up. I always like to go a good dollop. Let's see what happens. Right, so softer on the nose, quite crisp now at the apex. Now it is a bit like Princess in the P. These are going to be minor-ish adjustments but I am starting to feel it. The other thing I can adjust is the traction control. It's not just an on-off switch, you can actually reduce it by grades, sort of six different settings on the dial there. Here we go, hammerhead, moment of truth, turning right, still understeering actually. All right, that's interesting. So I've still got understeer at that sharp corner. There's now two things I can do. So I'm going to go max out on the rebound, hold the front down. Compression, maybe I'm too soft on compression. Now let's play with the diff. All right, let's try that. Open diff. In both directions. So that means the car should rotate but it also means, because I've set it soft at the rear arm power, it might get some wheel spin. One thing it should get rid of is understeer. Traction control is set down at its lowest setting, at setting one, before I turn it off. If that doesn't get the tail moving, I don't know what will. It makes a bit of difference. I'm not going to say it's chalk and cheese, but it's slightly different. The car was behaving and the rear was compliant. However, it was time to turn the traction control all the way off to see if we could break things loose. The tail is mine. Interesting. It's much freer now at the apex in Chicago. I think hammerhead is such an unpleasant corner anyway that it's really difficult for any car not to understeer a bit here. Let's see if I can get it to move around when I change direction. Into the left. The tail is on the move. Now that I've coupled it with a bit of traction-off action, the car is just very good at delivering the power. Where I really can feel the dynamic change is over here in Chicago. It's quite a looping right-hander. Not as slow or tight, but in these low-grip conditions, round she goes. Impressive. This is really a car you can take to the track, take to the ring. If the bumps are throwing you around too much, you can soften her up. If the car is rolling a bit too much, you can stiffen it up. There we go. Right, I'm driving it properly now. You can hear that little bit of wheelspin over those bumps. I'm happy. I found my happy place. These are the settings I like. I better take a photo shot of it just to note them down so I don't get lost playing with the dials. Now, I was told explicitly not to set a lap time here. It's not a day for it. It's a bit chilly or whatever, but it'd be rude not to, so I'm going to set up for a fast lap. And I'm not going to use a stopwatch. I'm just curious about what this feels like when I really send it. So, here we go. Let's line up on the old start line. Familiar territory. Full throttle. Release the brake. And we're off. Amazing the difference, actually. I did a start a second ago. Tires were slightly cooler. This time, no wheelspin. Coming up to the first corner, really smash the brakes, and the rear just doesn't budge. Wonderful steering efforts into here. I'm trimming the tail, getting a little bit of rotation just when I want to on the exit. Not too much understeer. Love the way that it flies around the apex of Chicago. A little bit too much oversteer on the way out, but that weight in the rear just squats the car down, even with zero traction on. Very late on the brakes. Actually, I'm going to brake a fraction later at Hammerhead. Change of direction. Fantastic. Hard into the power. She rides those bumps so well. Corner I spun twice in in the Carrera GT. Coming up to the follow-through. Like I say, confidence from this rear wing is high. Carrying a shedload of speed through here. Even though there's a few little patches of damp, and it's bumpy, you can imagine it around the ring at the very high-speed corners. Gambon, very easy to make a big mistake. Carrying in tons of speed, treating it like a racing car on slicks. It's not coming unstuck down a gear for the last corner. Again, carrying in a ton of speed. Just user-friendly. I mean, I barely break a sweat. Maybe I'll get a little bit quicker with a few consecutive runs, getting the tyres really in the zone. But that felt fantastic. I love this car. I mean, what a wonderful bit of kit. You can do everything you want with it. Take it on track, personalise it. Drive it like a hooligan. Just a very playful all-rounder. But at its heart, it's the tip of the spear. Porsche's fastest ever road car. Absolutely, congratulations, guys. If you're watching this video, I salute you.