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

  • banelingsbanelings@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Its never been useless. Yes a lot of it is PR. But it gives a neutral, “scientific” datasheet in relation to that car.

    Like for example here is the 919 going through the end of section 1. And here is the Nissan GTR Nismo. You can literally feel how the Nissan is resisting to turn/yaw and more or less conclude the downsides of the AWD system. It delivers power, but feels more like work compared to an exige or mx 5, but outmatches both of them - no need to ask a journalist.

    By that logic it would also be useless to listen to Chris Harris telling you that car X handles well/meh/subpar.

    • V12MPG@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      You can literally feel how the Nissan is resisting to turn/yaw and more or less conclude the downsides of the AWD system. It delivers power, but feels more like work compared to an exige or mx 5, but outmatches both of them

      How am I supposed to know all of this from looking at the lap time? This seems more like a defense of track testing than of distilling it down to a single number.

      • hi_im_bored13@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        Each record attempt comes with a video, from which you can extrapolate the above. The actual lap time itself (IMO) is largely useless, but the tools it provides are useful

        • V12MPG@alien.topBEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          Yeah these days you will probably get a video out of it though of course not all times are record attempts so it’s often up to the publication in question. I read the OP more as complaining about spec sheet racing.

    • Raalf@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Quite sure everyone saying it’s useless is referring to a real world commute, as multiple people have stated. Same way the original volt was rated for 200+mpg - PR stats are not always useful in real life.

      Edit: was the volt, not the Prius. I get my bullshit stats confused sometimes I guess.