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Porsche shatters the Nürburgring record we thought was unbreakable

arstechnica.com

51–60 of 91 posts

Re: Porsche shatters the Nürburgring record we thought was unbreakable

#51
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowing nothing about this subject, I'm a bit confused by the parent: The first section talks about how incredible the performance is - "comically fast", "nuts", etc. The second to last paragraph seems to say that it is easily done. Would you explain to easily confused, non-car-racing-enthusiasts? EDIT: In fact, I should ask: What is the significance of Nurburgring?

"What is the significance of Nurburgring?" It's a very long and very tricky track. It has everything: superfast sections, slow sections, steep uphill and downhill, bumps, banking, often wet. If a car does well on this track it will do well almost everywhere. It's called the "green hell". I don't think there is another track worldwide left that can compare.

[deleted]

Re: Porsche shatters the Nürburgring record we thought was unbreakable

#52
post #2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBFjHjm0O5M

To some degree the car shape, type and age, and to some degree the driving style and using the course itself as a way to regulate speed, remind my of Initial D, an older anime series about racing from ~20 years ago.

Re: Porsche shatters the Nürburgring record we thought was unbreakable

#53
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowing nothing about this subject, I'm a bit confused by the parent: The first section talks about how incredible the performance is - "comically fast", "nuts", etc. The second to last paragraph seems to say that it is easily done. Would you explain to easily confused, non-car-racing-enthusiasts? EDIT: In fact, I should ask: What is the significance of Nurburgring?

"What is the significance of Nurburgring?" It's a very long and very tricky track. It has everything: superfast sections, slow sections, steep uphill and downhill, bumps, banking, often wet. If a car does well on this track it will do well almost everywhere. It's called the "green hell". I don't think there is another track worldwide left that can compare.

The Mountain Circuit on Isle of Man.

Re: Porsche shatters the Nürburgring record we thought was unbreakable

#54

As the years go by the Nürburgring gets ever more legendary. It is better known now than when they hosted F1 races on the smaller circuit they have there. You could imagine it was designed by sick Nazis to kill racing drivers however it predates max-Nazi-ism and was designed for testing cars, not drivers. Hence tomorrow everyone will have forgotten who got the fastest lap but they will remember what car they were in.

You could imagine it was designed by sick Nazis to kill racing drivers

There's a James Bond book about that.[1]

[1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U1ZV63Y

Re: Porsche shatters the Nürburgring record we thought was unbreakable

#55
post #43

Not bad, but this is still my all time fav Nürburgring lap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSMCfPASImQ

Oh wow. At first with the way he was thrashing around I thought he was some kind of idiot. But the fact that he didn't die makes me think maybe he's actually some kind of driving god.

Re: Porsche shatters the Nürburgring record we thought was unbreakable

#56
post #55
post #43

Not bad, but this is still my all time fav Nürburgring lap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSMCfPASImQ

Oh wow. At first with the way he was thrashing around I thought he was some kind of idiot. But the fact that he didn't die makes me think maybe he's actually some kind of driving god.

He was a brilliant driver in a car he had a lot of experience with. (IIRC he was a Ruf test driver) That was an amazing car with just far too much power in relation to how much traction it had, hence the sliding around and constant recovery from sliding around. A 500hp twin-turbo motor in a modified narrow-body 911 chassis without the super wide tires in the rear like you'd see on an older, wide-body factory Porsche 911 turbo. (they opted for low weight and better aero over traction)

That video makes other Nurburgring videos look a little tame by comparison. The car held the (street car) record on that track for a while.

Re: Porsche shatters the Nürburgring record we thought was unbreakable

#58
post #13

I have been daydreaming lately about how the Tesla Roadster 2 should be easily able to take the record around the ring for a production car. I'm hoping it will smash the record.

sheer speed isn't what sets records here, unless they engineer the car to have ridiculous levels of down force it won't break the top 10. the cars that run sub seven minute have the combination of acceleration, deceleration, and cornering ability, to pull it off. Not saying they cannot but considering the efforts the big names have been at this a long time and take a lot of their racing expertise to create cars which can do it.

Re: Porsche shatters the Nürburgring record we thought was unbreakable

#59
post #14

Comically fast, like video-game-I-can-just-hit-restart fast. A couple highlights of that YouTube video from sections of the track that are notoriously difficult: [YouTube Time] 00:49 -> 00:53 - Flugplatz at nearly 170mph is insane. Total trust in downforce and makes up many seconds if done right. 01:13 -> 01:25 - Fuchsrohre bottoming out at 200+ mph is nuts. 03:15 -> 03:20 - Interesting that Timo avoids the carousel.…

Worth noting that Stefan Bellof's Porsche 956 very probably had some restrictor plates or some such reducing how much air it could breathe in (its successor, the 962, usually did in race trim) when he set the old record. The 917/30 was probably the only Porsche that ever raced without significant technical rules in place designed to slow it down.

> The 919 Evo holds the Spa Record because the F1 record was done under all sorts of homologation restrictions. A sub-5 Ring time would easily be possible with a non-homologated F1 car similar to this unrestricted 919.

It's all about how much money you are willing to spend and how far you're willing to deviate from the tested racing formula, right? The 919 Evo is very fast but there are a few really obvious ways they could spend more to make it faster. I don't think they even re-geared the transmission for this track (he was hitting the rev limiter), and while they've changed some of the aero I think the powertrain was using retuned, existing stuff. It could be a much more powerful car. I mean, the gasoline side of the powertrain is a 2-liter four cylinder...

Re: Porsche shatters the Nürburgring record we thought was unbreakable

#60
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who knows nothing about cars, what surprised me was just how much of this was braking right after you accelerate, which in hindsight is obvious given the turns at crazy speeds, but still.

A good eye. One of the biggest lessons taught in any advanced car control course is that the brakes/gas aren't just for stopping/going. By using them to modulate weight transfer you can change grip levels at F/R, adjust vehicle yaw (+/- turning radius), smooth out suspension undulations, etc.

I would have assumed that it was primarily just because of the principle that to go as fast as possible, you need to be using 100% of your grip at all times either accelerating, braking, or turning.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_of_forces

I've sometimes thought that it would be a neat addition to a performance car's instrumentation to have a gauge that showed where you were in the traction circle.

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