Porsche 911 GT3 is the fastest manual car at the Nurburgring
The Porsche 911 GT3 is now the fastest manual car to lap the Nürburgring, beating the previous record-holder by nearly 10 seconds.
Porsche has sent the recently updated ‘992.2’ around the Nordschleife – with ambassador and ex-racer Jörg Bergmeister at the wheel – in 6mins 56.294secs.
That’s not only 3.6 seconds quicker than the pre-facelift car with a PDK automatic gearbox, but it’s substantially quicker than the previous fastest manual car, the hardcore Dodge Viper ACR, which Porsche notes has a “significantly more powerful engine”.
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The American supercar, with a 645bhp 8.4-litre V10, claimed its record lap time of 7mins 1.3secs in 2017 – but that was around the shortened 20.6km circuit, and corresponds to a time of 7mins 5.8secs around the full-length 20.832km loop, according to Porsche.
By that metric, the stick-shift GT3, with a 503bhp flat-six, was 9.5 seconds faster around the Green Hell.
The car used for the attempt was equipped with the Weissach package – a £20k optional extra that brings a raft of weight-saving measures to shave 12kg over the standard GT3 – and was shod with sticky (but still road-legal) Michelin Pilot Sport Cup2 R tyres.
Andreas Preuninger, who runs Porsche’s GT division, 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.”
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