I was looking through lap times of different production cars, and there are some wildly out of place cars doing ring laptimes, some cars are faster than they seem they should be, while others are slower than they should be. Which got me thinking how some cars truly get tested in showroom condition, and others get the “marketing” treatment to produce a laptime a showroom car would never touch, solely to sell more cars. Then I found this article that talks exactly about just that.

https://www.thedrive.com/porsche/11012/nurburgring-times-dont-matter

  • Secret_Squire1@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    I agree and disagree. The Nordschleife is a better at representing real world performance than the standard racetrack. It’s bumpy, has faults, off camber turns, and lots of elevation. It’s more like racing a Californian canyon road than Spa or Road of America.

    Yes a single lap holding the record is nothing but PR. I would want to see how a car performs over 10-15 laps to see what its real performance is. Even still it’s a meaningless metric without a complete review of the car by an auto journalist on the track.

    For instance, my GT500 is estimated to be able to perform a 7:11-7:15. It’s roughly around the same time as a 991.2 GT3. But as a novice driver, I’m more than likely able to put down a sub 8 min lap in the Porsche than my GT500.

      • megacookie@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        But it might be somewhat easier to pull together a clean lap in a well balanced car with generally more grip than power, compared to something that wants to blow its tires out through past 4th gear and can carry way more speed on the straights making braking more tricky and critical. There’s also the matter of confidence in the car, which could be worth many seconds alone on a track as long and treacherous as the Ring.

      • Secret_Squire1@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        On most tracks but not the Nurburgring when being compared to cars within similar power levels. The ‘ring pushes cars weights around due to the elevation changes. GT3’s really inspire confidence on the track. The GT500 scares the fuck out of you at the limit.

    • rivers_to_rooftops@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      Love the GT500, but can you provide a source for saying it would pull a 7:11-7:15 lap time?

      That would be leaps and bounds faster than the lap times i’ve seen for it, which if memory serves is closer to 7:39. Manual ZL1 1LE put down a 7:16 flat, for reference.

      Fun fact, the Viper ACR holds the record still for the fastest manual transmission Ring time, as well as fastest american car time at 7:01.3!

    • Meinredditname@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      I don’t really see Spa as being all that different. Lots of elevation, mix of high and low(er) speed corners, so fairly similar. Nordschleife has lots more corners, and is bumpier, but the big difference is the length (and number of corners). A small bobble in a single corner & you’ve blown your lap. Those bumps at the Nordschleife make it so much easier to make a mistake, and all those corners give so many more opportunities for mistakes+ any one mistake will kill your lap… So, times at Nordschleife tend to favor cars that are really fast, but reliably so (or at least have big enough pocketbooks to give them enough chances at a good lap). There are some cars that are insanely fast, but more difficult to drive absolutely at the limit. They will be very hard to set a solid laptime with… it’s also rather expensive to have the ring all to yourself to go for that perfect lap, so it’s not like you get all that many attempts at it (unless you have that nice pocketbook behind you of course)

      So … I don’t think Nürburgring lap times are a great metric, but I do think they are a better metric than you’d get from lap times on a similar, but shorter, circuit. (Source: I have laptimes at Spa that I’m fairly happy with, but have yet to set a single lap at Nordschleife that I’d say is great, but Harry’s Lap Timer says I have an optimal lap to be proud of)

      • wildlyinaccurate@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        Sorry but I think Circuit de Spa is nothing like the Nordschleife. Spa has 20 turns over 7 km, 2 high speed sections, and 100 m of elevation change. It also has pretty decent run-offs. The Nordschleife has 150+ turns over 20 km, several high speed sections, 300 m of elevation change, and virtually no run-offs.

        Spa is certainly a challenging and dangerous circuit, but the Nordschleife has earned its reputation of being the most dangerous track in the world for a reason.

      • No_e92335xi_ore93@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        The point is that the nordshliefe test how the car breaks, turns (at different speeds), speeds up, at 95% which is what most street users will do. It penalizes cars that are very hard to drive and cars that are unstable over bumps and that’s very important to uses.

      • wildlyinaccurate@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        10 laps of the Nordschleife is over 200 km. I can’t think of any cars with big enough fuel tanks to go full send for 200 km. Most production cars will overheat their brakes and tyres after 1-2 laps of the ring anyways.