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Porsche shatters the Nürburgring record we thought was unbreakable

arstechnica.com

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Re: Porsche shatters the Nürburgring record we thought was unbreakable

#61

Post by perl4ever »

gthtjtkt wrote: post #8

It wasn't unbreakable, nobody was trying to break it. Nobody wants to risk multi-million dollar, one-of-a-kind race cars on that track just for bragging rights. An unrestricted F1 car could've smashed the record at any point in the last 20 years.

I'm not convinced of that. When reading about this, I saw that someone did try a BMW F1 car, and it was pretty fast but not as fast as this Porsche. Then someone estimated the F1 car, unrestricted, could potentially be in the low 5 minute range. Now people in this thread are saying of course a F1 car could beat this record. I would only give it even odds since it sounds like speculation by people who are overly committed to their assumptions.

What I find impressive at any rate, is the motorcycle record of barely over 7 minutes.

Re: Porsche shatters the Nürburgring record we thought was unbreakable

#62

Post by KozmoNau7 »

vesrah wrote: post #53
maxxxxx wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

Equally legendary, often deadly, and also absolutely wouldn't even be considered if someone proposed it today.

And the Nürburgring has various safety features. The Mountain Circuit has basically nothing, just a road.

Re: Porsche shatters the Nürburgring record we thought was unbreakable

#63

Post by KozmoNau7 »

pmontra wrote: post #48
sandworm101 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is also not a tiny circuit with only a handful of corners. It is harder to tune a car for nurburgring than a nascar oval. So the theory goes that nurburgring results are more representative of overall (realworld) performance.

It's also very bumpy. More like a normal road than a race track. A team manager once told me that not every driver can go full throttle on the longest straight because of the bumps.

It may even be bumpier than the current standard for German public roads, which are generally of exceedingly high quality.

Most people know about the unrestricted sections of the autobahn, and it is certainly fun to flog a rental Opel Corsa with a 1.0L 3-cylinder engine to 160kph, while being overtaken like you were standing still by various Porsches and big BMW/Mercedes/Audis.

But the real fun is that the general speed limit is 100kph (62mph) off the autobahn and outside of towns, even for relatively small and curvy roads. Couple this with the generally very high standard of German roads, and you can have a hell of a lot of fun within the speed limit.

I'm in southern Germany at the moment, visiting my girlfriend's family. The winding roads in the Schwarzwald area are absolutely amazing to drive, even in the little Corsa we're renting. You have to really flog it in second gear to get any speed going uphill, but it is so damn rewarding. And you notice so many other people doing the same, in all kinds of cars and on motorbikes.

I know it's a bit of a cliché, but driving enjoyment really is part of the German mentality.

Re: Porsche shatters the Nürburgring record we thought was unbreakable

#64

Post by grecy »

maxxxxx wrote: post #41
grecy wrote: 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.

I don't see in what area it should have an advantage over a car with a gas engine.

I would think an 8.9 sec 1/4 mile is everything you need to know, especially when Elon has said that's the base model and there will be "performance upgrades" that make it faster.

If you're not familiar, just google the 1/4 mile time of any fast car you can think of, and then look into how hard it is to go from say 10.5 to 10.0, then 9.9

Obviously I know a lap time needs a lot more than straight line acceleration, but if the 1/4 mile time is anything to go by, this car is going to be the kind of fast we have never seen before. Anyway, time will tell and it's fun to think about.

Re: Porsche shatters the Nürburgring record we thought was unbreakable

#65

Post by Kudos »

jacquesm wrote: post #39
kirse wrote: 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.…

Too late to edit but Pflanzgarten has been renamed in honor of Bellof.

Looking at the linked list of sections, it seems the overall stretch is still called Pflanzgarten, just a subsection of that (Stefan-Bellof-S) was renamed in honour of Bellof.

Re: Porsche shatters the Nürburgring record we thought was unbreakable

#66

Post by blattimwind »

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #63
pmontra wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also very bumpy. More like a normal road than a race track. A team manager once told me that not every driver can go full throttle on the longest straight because of the bumps.

It may even be bumpier than the current standard for German public roads, which are generally of exceedingly high quality. Most people know about the unrestricted sections of the autobahn, and it is certainly fun to flog a rental Opel Corsa with a 1.0L 3-cylinder engine to 160kph, while being overtaken like you were standing still by various Porsches and big BMW/Mercedes/Audis. But the real fun is that the general sp…

> It may even be bumpier than the current standard for German public roads, which are generally of exceedingly high quality.

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/794/698/475...

> But the real fun is that the general speed limit is 100kph (62mph) off the autobahn and outside of towns, even for relatively small and curvy roads.

Well they certainly remain to exist, but sadly there is a tendency since ~10 years or so to stick a 70 speed limit anywhere where the road deviates the tiniest bit from a ruler. Nowadays they are often coupled with "no overtaking" signs. Apparently the level of driving skill has sunk so low, that people neither know how fast they can drive through a curve, nor can they realize for themselves that overtaking in a curve is forbidden anyway and they shouldn't need signs to remind them of that.

> I'm in southern Germany at the moment, visiting my girlfriend's family.

In the south road conditions are a bit better, but still many municipal and country roads are in either poor or piss poor condition.

Re: Porsche shatters the Nürburgring record we thought was unbreakable

#67

Post by stevekemp »

tzahola wrote: post #43

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

For some reason my favourite was always watching Sabine Schmitz trying to drive a transit van in under ten minutes.

Part two is the one to watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KiC03_wVjc

Re: Porsche shatters the Nürburgring record we thought was unbreakable

#68

Post by arghwhat »

sbierwagen wrote: post #44
arghwhat wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eighth? Slow down there. The car comes with 4, 5 being an add-on package. It could also use more than 52HP. I suspect you might be commenting on the video in the article, rather than this comment with a video of a 1993 Citroën AX 14D. Regarding the Porsche, I doubt it would have been useful. The car maxed out at 369km/h, and was unable to maintain the speed for long. I doubt it has the torque to pull further ahead in…

Whoops. I had assumed the comment with a youtube link and no other commentary was just hosting the youtube video from tfa, rather than posting an entirely unrelated video. How annoying. Far too late to edit or delete my reply, of course.

It's far from entirely unrelated. It's really quite entertaining. But yes, it might be good to click links in the future before assuming what their content may be.

As the saying goes, "Don't judge a book by its ISBN."

Re: Porsche shatters the Nürburgring record we thought was unbreakable

#69

Post by taneq »

perl4ever wrote: post #60
kirse wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

Didn't the Nissan Skyline GTR have this?

Re: Porsche shatters the Nürburgring record we thought was unbreakable

#70

Post by maxxxxx »

grecy wrote: post #64
maxxxxx wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see in what area it should have an advantage over a car with a gas engine.

I would think an 8.9 sec 1/4 mile is everything you need to know, especially when Elon has said that's the base model and there will be "performance upgrades" that make it faster. If you're not familiar, just google the 1/4 mile time of any fast car you can think of, and then look into how hard it is to go from say 10.5 to 10.0, then 9.9 Obviously I know a lap time needs a lot more than straight line acceleration, bu…

Straight line acceleration is pretty useless on a real track if you don't have the handling in corners. I assume the roadster will be pretty heavy. The Model S is also a beast going straight but cornering is much less fun with it because it's so heavy.
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