January 19, 2015

GT3 on ice, not on the rocks.



From horrendous driving to sublime control.

It wasn't always the case but, these days,  a Porsche GT3 is an odd if glorious choice as a rally car.

While having all the weight behind the driven wheels helps with traction and certainly helps swing the tail around hairpins, the platform  is only really viable on tarmac and relatively slow  compared to a state of the art WRC car driven by a one armed man.

But who cares,  good thing Europeans don't and have been using 911s for national rallies for long enough that the FIA was compelled to publish an RGT spec in the last few years.

RGT spec is for two wheel drive, series derived cars and stipulates, among other things,  a maximum power to weight ratio (1hp/3.4kg) and a manually operated clutch.

Since 2011 RGT cars have competed agains every other car in WRC (Remember Bill Caswell?)  but as of this season there will be an official RGT championship run only on tarmac rallies (Montecarlo, Germany with WRC, Corsica and Belgium with ERC).

The Monte starts officially today with the first shakedowns (or recce if you want to be cool).  Conditions up behind Monaco are cold with mixed precipitation expected, possibly snow when the competition starts mid-week.  

Mixed conditions is what Montecarlo is all about so it might very well be the same kind of crud François Delacour is driving though in the clip below.

On ice but keeping it off the rocks.

2 comments:

  1. I'd like to see how the GT3 handles the jumps on the Isle of Mann TT course, can it beat the record holding WRX?

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  2. Go go Porsche!

    ReplyDelete

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