^Thanks for the vid. I love how Chris breaks a car down.

 

Here in the states I race SCCA, with Ferrari teams and all other performance cars. I raced Porsche's for years but they just lacked the horsepower to keep up. The car that won the USA SCCA class I compete in and all other classes is a car you Euro's never mention. The Z06 Corvette. 505 horsepower Stock. This car has won since the original came out.

Ferrari, is usually in the back somewhere as vette after vette places. I would love to see teamspeed test out a ZR1. Yes, I owned a 911 turbo, a recent buyer of a 360 Modena, but my track Z06 has double the horsepower that just can't be made reliable in most other sports cars.

Please, don't discount the new American vettes. Ferrari's are beautiful but rarely can make it through a whole race. A Cadillac CTS-V is another gem on the track. No Ferrari politics, either or false claims.

 

I've assumed this about Ferrari since the early F430 press releases. But I see it differently than Chris Harris does, Ferrari does their absolute best to make the best car they can. They want their baby to perform the absolute best it can in the hands of the people who can make or break their company with the touch of a keyboard. I frankly do not blame them, many of these journalists are ham fisted drivers, who frankly, know nothing about cars but can be so convincing in their arguments that they certainly appear to know. I only accept my information from trusted sources, often the drivers of the cars I am considering, those having at a minimum the same track experience as myself.

 

Oh a Porsche fan boy...
Well, the difference between you and me is that I know what I'm talking about. I'll educate you and you can thank me later. This is Sportautos chief editor and the guy who drives the cars around the Nürburgring:
Horst von Saurma - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

I think what we're arguing about this particular point is that the Journalist *IS* an excellent driver (He'd have to be to get within 6 seconds!). But lapping the ring in this particular car is not his full-time occupation whereas the Porsche test driver's IS. Considering all that it's actually amazing that your journalist got within 6 seconds of that time, but the Porsche test driver having done 500 extra laps in the car in question most certainly accounts for 6 seconds.

If it was any "regular" journalist and he managed to get within 6 seconds then I'd say Porsche's claims are even massively conservative.

I didn't see the link but I believe Horst holds many ring laptime records in various cars. However the cars where the manufacturers themselves put the times down are rarely beaten by independents. They simply know more about the cars and can squeeze out a few more seconds. If the times are WAY off from Horst's times I would definitely cry foul though.

 

So ludas you're saying that a skilled magazine driver with a brief racing career is better driving a 911 than the Guy who gives his input on How to tweak the suspension of the
car? And a six second discrepancy between two drivers over a 13 mile course is not large enough to call a foul. Yes I like porsche, but unlike others I can see the greatness in other
manufacturers.

 

In 2004, Saurma set the Nürburgring lap record for a production car by taking the Porsche Carrera GT around in 7 minutes 32 seconds. Saurma's laps for sport auto are often taken as benchmark times for their respective vehicles.

 

Oh. Ok.

 

[QUOTE=frshcoupe;872565]About the M3 I think he's talking about the price point, not the performance. He says it on the back of the GT2 vs GTR squabble and then he alludes that regardless if the GT2 is a little faster, remember it's 130k GBP, and the GTR is 60k GBP, which is around the M3's price range (about 55k GBP if I recall).

 

I wouldn't put it past Ferrari