Nurburg, Germany - When the Porsche development crew took their new twin-turbo 911 GT2 RS to the Nordschleife last week they weren’t chasing any records.
With 515kW on tap from its all-new flat six it’s the most powerful 911 ever unleashed on the road, launching off the line to 100km/h in 2.8 seconds and topping out at 340km/h.
Their target was a lap of less than 7m05s around the full, notoriously difficult 20.6km/h circuit - but the lap record for street legal sports-cars, set in October 2016 by a Lamborghini Huracan LP640-4 Performante, stood at 6.52.01s. Out of reach, they thought.
Never tell that to a racing driver.
The two hotshots were Lars Kern from Germany, a Porsche factory test driver and a competitor in the VLN Endurance series at this circuit (which means he knows it better than most), and works endurance racer Nick Tandy, who flew straight back from racing a Le Mans Prototype 919 Hybrid in a six-hour race at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas to take part in the Nurburgring test.
Kern bettered the Lamborghini’s time on his first hot lap; he and Tandy did five flat-out laps between them - every one below 6m50s. Kern’s best effort, late in the afternoon (the circuit clock stood at 17:11 as he started his final lap) was an astonishing 6m47.3s, almost five seconds quicker than the previous mark and a huge 17 seconds faster than the team’s target.
As GT model line director Andreas Preuninger said: “It’s not just the record time we achieved, but also the consistent performance on every lap. We’re particularly proud that we did it with two different cars and two different drivers.”