Quote:
Originally Posted by TRAKCAR
Enjoy it Fatih!
Feels great doesn't it?
Keep en eye on your rear pads with SC and TC on..
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The car certainly feels
great. I am really amazed with it.
The weekend was truly awesome; after 5 months being off track, it was much needed for me. First time with a 911, I was apprehensive, but the car turned out to be very stable, easy to push, and the power is relentless all the way to red line.
As I posted earlier, my lap times were lower the first two sessions and it just got worse from there until Sunday. I think initially I was the 'unconscious novice' and was just trying to drive without thinking. As I started to think more and become conscious about my driving and feel more of the car, I slowed down; I was just not familiar with the way the car was communicating, so I did not know how to interpret the signals. But on Sunday, I felt more and more comfortable with the car and my times started to drop steadily. I am going to write my opinion in an article later on for new comers to the GT3, but for now here are few interesting notes:
- I could not feel, yet, any difference between having the rear wing fully down or up between sessions. But with the wing full up, I cannot see anything in the back, so I had to adjust my side mirrors to compensate.
- Eventhough SC+TC ON does not feel to intrude abrubtly, I could barely feel it, it was strange that the light would flash when upshifting on the straights of all places.
- With SC ON I was, however, about 4-5 secs slower on average than when I turned it off, leaving only TC ON.
- With the PASM ON, the shocks are really nicely valved for a street car on the track that the curbs were not an issue, quite smooth still.
- The front end pushes a little on hairpins, but otherwise the turn-in is quite instentaneous and steering is very direct, as you would expect from any Porsche, but especially the GT cars.
- I hadn't imagined how wonderful it is to have such a high redline. Gearing felt great running all the way up to 8500, but hit the limiter one time when I forgot I was on 2nd gear where normally I would be in 3rd in the Cayman.
- There is still quite a bit of body lean, where it is a little beyond the point of giving good feeback to driver about the limits. I was loosing confidence on some of the corners due to the body roll. But seats are absolutely great
- On the back straight, the car hit 150 according to logger and on the front straight 142. That is about 12 mph faster for the back straight and 5-6 on the front compared to my Cayman. However, the real difference is how much faster the GT3 gets there compared to the Cayman. GT2 guys were about 6-7 mph faster on the back straight, but about 3-4 on the front. Again, the GT2s definitely get there a little faster than the GT3, but the difference was not very significant. The difference was more pronounced on the shorter straights and in between corners.
- Both of the GT2s were about 6-8 secs a lap faster than me on R888s.
- Stock brake pads held up through the whole weekend without any fade or other issues. But my pedal now has a very nice travel compared to before
- At the end, I was able to do 2:16s consistently on Sunday and started dipping into 15s on the last session, which is exactly 3 seconds faster than what I could do in my Cayman. Given the fact that I was so familiar with the Cayman and used R888s on it vs. first time and with street tires on the GT3, I think it is a testimant to how great the GT3 really is.