Bathurst 12 hour comes down to two final laps.

12 hours of racing at Mount Panorama came down to just one lap where the Nismo Athlete Global Team Nissan GTR literally stomped the competition.

The GTR had a massive top speed advantage all throughout the race and on the final restart, with less than eight minutes on the clock, Katsumasa Chio delivered, moving from third to the lead of the 2015 Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour.

In a race that seemed to be led mostly by the safety car, the final sprint was preceded by yet another restart which saw some fantastic racing between the Bentley of Matt Bell and the Audi R8 of Laurins Vanthoor, the race pole sitter and new holder of the lap record at Mt. Panorama.

It looked promising for the big Bentley but then a Porsche spun and got beached so it was back to yet another  full course caution.  At Bathurst they don't do local yellows so the stage was set for Nissan to do its Godzilla thing which it did, with ease.

A great result for Nissan in a year that will mark its return to major endurance racing at Le Mans in June with the innovative Nismo GTR LMP1 front wheel drive car.

Here are the final two restarts.

http://www.racecar-engineering.com/news/nissan-lmp1-revealed/

NissanConnect Nismo Plus will make your reality virtual

Nismo has announced its NissanConnect NISMO Plus software which will take data logged on your real Nissan GT-R and recreate a virtual version of your actual driving in Gran Turismo 6 on the Playstation.

While we would imagine this must be limited to tracks available in the game, it's amazing how "consumer level" systems are catching up to the most sophisticated simulations available only to the very top of motorsport.

How good of a passenger are you?

Car and Driver

Most track guys I know are terrible passengers.  I will never forget my first time at the Nürbugring, riding in the back seat of Dale Lomas's Alfa 75  with Steve and Carlos...  it was, shall we say, interesting, with Dale doing his best to scare the crap out of us.

Nothing though compared to what we have here: the world champion of brave passengers, Car and Driver's Tony Quiroga...

Could you do it?
(PS: I would love to see what those Dunlops looked like after a lap!)

Nissan GT-R Nismo development Story

If you have a half hour of time, this clip from Nissan is quite a bit more interesting just the single lap video you may have seen, well, on every other car site on the internet.

ありがとう Nissan!   

Who's driving that Nismo GT-R at the ring?

If you follow (as you should) Bridge to Gantry.com or read Jalopnik, you will know Nissan have taken over the Nürburgring Nordschleife to run a  NISMO GT-R.

The point, clearly, is to set a new record and we are told the time they are shooting for is under 7:10.  That would be faster than a Gumpert Apollo and a Viper ACR and would make the NISMO GT-R the fastest non hyper car ever (if that makes sense.)

Getting a time like that is not for anyone and Nissan have secured an ex Formula One driver for the job: Sebastien Buemi.

You know just having a driver named Sebastian is worth a few seconds so look for a record to fall.

Needs More...

Tobias Schulze pushing hard at Flugplatz in Top 40 Qualifying by Jochen Van Cawenberge

"See those HUGE front dive planes on the Kazunori Yamauchi Nissan GT3 GTR?  They are too small."

That will buff right out

"Brilliant" passing maneuver does not quite work out for this Moskovite Nissan GT-R. (crashphoto.ru)



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Axis 1 Lap: Day 2, Summit Point, West Virginia

Day2 of the Tire Rack One Lap of America started at Summit Point, every one there early in the morning after getting in late the night before. The first real time trial was going to see the big dog , high horsepower cars shine. The Godzillas did not disappoint, I unofficially clocked Leh Keen in the TopSpeed Motorsports Nissan GT-R do a 1:23 lap...from a standing start! His fast lap was a 1:17 on street tires... just amazing combination of car AND driver.

Speaking of, I messed up our morning heat. The car felt awful with weird breakaway midcorner, not confidence inspiring on the key fast corner of Summit. I came in 33rd overall only to remember I had not reset the shocks after the autocross run no wonder the car felt wrong. Before the afternoon run, and after a quick phone conference with CG, the other end of the Axis of Oversteer, I changed the balance so the car would push and lopped off 13 seconds from my cumulative time! The afternoon limited the damage and we ended the day in 6th overall, first among the competing BMW. Not bad for an old car!



After the event wrapped we drove to South Carolina where, tomorrow, we'll rung at carolina Motorsport Park and the BMW PErformance Center, then we drive to Daytona! I must be insane.

Here is video from Contour and Traqmate overlay (with apologies to Risi,) of the second session. Cars get one reconnaissance lap then three laps from a standing start are added for the final result.


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Porsche GT3RS MkII Nürburgring time: 7:33

Here's one that will keep the internet flame wars going between fanboys of both sides.

Let's examine that GT3 RS lap time for a second because it's very impressive. Essentially the same lap time as the much more powerful GT2 (7:32.2) and 10 seconds faster than the Mk1 RS, it is even more impressive especially when you consider that, according to the report on EVO, Porsche engineers reckon that a traffic free "theoretical best lap" lap would be closer to 7:30. That's one hell of a mid life refresh for any car.

Now about the flame war, there really should is no cause for one. Let's put aside that nobody outside of NIssan has been able to duplicate the feats of the Nissan drivers (legendary magazine tester Horst Von Saurma "only"managed a 7:38), EVO makes a very obvious and valid point, so what if you can only do it for one lap?

Absolutely the GT-R is fast but, at 10/10ths how long can the GT-R hold up? We asked people with experience running the GT-R, specifically at the Nürburgring, about this issue and what he got back is not pretty: even when not driven at full Toshio Suzuki pace, tires are only good for one lap then they go away. Running costs including consumables and service work out to an epic 200 Euro($300) per lap!!. Nissan recommends a full service after every second track day, you can see how that could get tedious after a while.

But what would be worse would be having to stop after every lap and cool everything down while the buddies you just taunted with your best "ha, ha, I only paid half of what you paid" speech go right on through for more fun!

Discuss!





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FIA GT1 Nissan GT-R in action

So what if it's RWD and has a 5.6 liter V8 rather than a turbo V6 and 4wd, at least the tail lights are stock!

And here is the rest of it.

Power Wars: Scuderia vs GT2 vs LP560 vs GT-R

Scientific? No. Relevant? Not really. Entertaining? Sure.
Best Motoring having fun with 500hp+ cars.





Home

Honors Even

What a great video clip. This commented comparisons between laps in the Porsche GT2 and the Nissan GTR is the kind of thing that sets Driver's Republic apart from their competition. Excellent stuff, trust us..click PLAY






back

The truth about the Nissan GT-R

I hope you have read Drivers Republic latest "issue".  They got to do the comparison we all would like to do and concluded that, essentially, Porsche was right when they claimed something was odd about Nissan's Nürburgring lap times. Chris Harris is a good driver, probably better than most auto journalists so his impressions have more weight with us.  When he says there may have been 15 seconds more in the GT-R but certainly not 30,  it's believable.

Of course the counter argument will be that the condition for the Nissan driver's run were different, it was much warmer, it was dryer, better driver etcetera  so,  I imagine this will not put anything to rest.

Axis recommends you read the article and while you are at it subscribe to Drivers Republic.

Here is the GT2 lap,  the GT-R's lap is after the jump.

Monticello Motor Club Videos and Traqmate Data

Lapping MMC South Course on October 24, 2008. BMW M Coupe.

CG and I were at the Monticello Motor Club on Friday, first time actually driving. It was a NASA/PDA track day on the South Course but the club's management was kind enough to give everyone a taste of the full track in the afternoon. Then, apparently, some clown ruined it for everyone and we were relegated back to the South Course for the rest of the day...oh well.

It's a very exciting facility, the full track is spectacular and even the smaller south course is fun to drive. At about two miles it has a great variety of turns that reward good lines and trail braking. Prospective members should note we found proposed future improvements to the track layout spot on and that those designing the course are very much on the ball.

The track will get its final paving layers and curbing next year and when complete it will really be something special. If you get a chance to drive any of the courses at the Club, don't miss it. As a reference, I annotated pictures with some hints that might save you precious laps when you finally do get there. We saw many people struggling to find the line all day and we so hate to see laps wasted, trust us, painted lines are OK to drive over!
The last four frames pertain to the full track. A video lap of the full track is after the jump HERE
Download my Traqmate files for the SOUTH COURSE and the FULL COURSE.



In the parking lot there was a very healthy dose of exotics including two factory cars, a Nissan GTR and a bizarrely optioned Corvette ZR1 there to do a comparison test for Playboy of all things. The driver evaluating the cars was described to us as "an intermediate student over driving the cars"... see why we want to do our own tests?

Nissan GT-R and Porsche GT2 vs the Axis STFU3000

We've all marveled at the reported performance of the Nissan GT-R, many wondered if such performance is even physically possible. Porsche for the first time ever weighed in, magazines raved, web sites castigated, video evidence has been questioned. In other words, there has been much entertainment for tracktard gearheads.

Now, call us cynical skeptics, but so far we have not seen evidence that satisfies us one way or the other about the GT-R and other cars it has been compared to. "Godzilla the Giantkiller"is just too good a magazine selling headline not to be taken with a grain of salt. There have been many tests but none have had the level of detail or transparency to convince us fully.

So here is what we propose: Axis of Oversteer will supply a Porsche GT2 and we make an open call to curious owners of a Nissan GT-R to provide Godzilla for head-to-head testing.

Let's get something out of the way: I've read comments about Axis being a Porsche fanboy site. I can assure you we have no vested interest in Porsche A.G. Of course we LIKE Porsches, what true car maniac does not but our main interest is performance. CG owns a GT2 it's true, but I guarantee that is only because he could not find a 430 Scuderia at a premium that would not include the removal of precious body parts. We drive BMW and Audi, I even have a soft spot for Renaults when I go to Europe! We get into arguments with people all the time because we call for the death of the stick-shift and proclaim the virtues of paddle-shifters (though, ironically, at the moment none of us owns a car with a robo-box!). In other words we are interested in how to go fast not in what to go fast in.

I can guarantee we don't care what the results will be but we DO CARE how conclusions are reached and how data is gathered.

So how would this work? Obviously this would be in consultation with with the GT-R owner but the main goal is to eliminate as many variables as possible.

Here are the basic points:

1. Cars will be tested on the same day, under the same conditions.
2. Cars should be stock (disclaimer: CG installed rear seats in his GT2).
3. Both cars will carry data loggers and video cameras.
4. All results will be made available on our site.
5. We are based in NYC so testing would be at one of our local tracks, to be determined.

Here are the safety/insurance points:

• A fair test requires the same driver in both cars, ideally a number of different drivers in both cars and we understand that this might be a sticking point. While we welcome support from track insurance companies that may want to be involved in this project and allow for a more complete test, CG is willing to guarantee the GT-R owner MSRP as a contingency. CG would drive and the GT-R owner would ride in both cars to even things out. If someone can guarantee for the GT2 then we can have a further data point.
  
• There has been some controversy about the GT-R warranty, we would run the GT-R in whatever mode the owner is satisfied will not void Nissan's coverage.

Again, in the interest of full disclosure, while CG can play the part of the Stig's latin cousin very well, he is in fact the head of a successful company and happily married with 3 kids....you would not be putting your life in the hands of a Red Bull fueled Gran Turismo 5 champion.

We would like to thank Chris H for his help formulating this idea and look forward to getting to the bottom of this, we truly are curious and want to find out what we can.

Join us, we'll gather data, feed it into the nearly infallible Axis STFU3000 Supercomputer and let the chip fall where they may!

Feel free to leave comments with your suggestions and if you are that GT-R owner CONTACT US asap!











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Nissan tells Porsche to get better drivers

If you are still following the Nissan vs Porsche saga. Nissan has come back with pictures of the tires they claim were used for the famous "record" breaking run and a video offering the Porsche drivers some tips on how to drive faster...

Pass the popcorn.... Words HERE






And here is the rest of it.

Nissan vs Porsche: catering to pimply teens and gullible journalists.

Must read of the day from SpeedSport:Life:

Some highlights:

"...Nissan knew that ‘Ring times would be a critical component of their marketing push for the R35 GT-R. Their potential buyers, weaned on Gran Turismo games and generally rather enamored of meaningless driving statistics, would accept no less. Never mind that the average GT-R owner would find himself being lapped by Showroom Stock Chevy Cobalts during a trackday; they’re a numbers crowd, they’re addicted to numbers, they repeat the numbers endlessly on the Internet, they love the numbers. The GT-R would have to develop the numbers.

What happened next was almost surreal. The impressionable people at Edmunds were invited to witness “production car testing” at the ‘Ring, where touring-car hotshoe/F1 washout Toshio Suzuki proceeded to set some very interesting lap times with a “production” car. These times were duly reported as a “new official record” and picked up by the world in general. Never mind that the lap times of a turbocharged car in factory hands require an entire shaker of salt to be taken seriously; never mind that the car could have been in any state of tune from the dampers up without Edmunds’ being any the wiser; never mind the fact that the car’s performance was very far away from what one might reasonably expect given the stated power and weight. Edmunds reported it anyway, and the “new production car record” flew around the Internet. Mission accomplished. Numbers delivered. Thanks, Edmunds!

A little journalistic integrity would have gone a long way here; it also would have helped to have someone on the staff who had, oh, I don’t know, raced something at some point in the past. It hardly mattered for long, as Nissan then cheerfully reset its own record to 7:29 in private testing. Again, this was accepted as gospel by the motoring press. A car with approximately the power-to-weight ratio of a Porsche 993 Turbo runs thirty-four seconds faster around the ‘Ring than said Turbo? Sure, why not? Must be the magic electronics and, er, downforce.

Journalistic stupidity is like blood in the water; it draws sharks who are eager to profit as a result. The next Mako to strike was General Motors, which proceeded to set a couple of “production car” times in caged cars! Here’s a hint, friends: Rollcages make cars faster. Simply replacing the Autopower cage in our ’94 Neon ACR with a stiffer custom cage took 1.5 seconds off our lap time around Mid-O – equivalent to seven seconds on the ‘Ring. Why? The car twisted less and planted its tires better. Caged cars go faster. It’s as simple as that. But GM claimed it was for “safety”, and the Press As A Whole swallowed the explanation without comment. The final blow was the Viper ACR’s outrageous 7:22 laptime, which is, ironically, probably the most “legitimate” time of the bunch despite being the lowest. The problem is that the Viper ACR is only nominally a street car; it’s America’s answer to a street-legal Radical SR8.

It’s now possible, therefore, for pimply seventeen-year-olds whose driving experience is limited to piloting Mom’s Camry around the local Fashion Bug’s parking lot to authoritatively draw a “comparison” between, say, the 8:28 laptime set eight years ago by von Saurma in a naturally aspirated 993 and the 7:24 of a Corvette ZR-1 - but it’s a house built on sand. The conditions are simply too dissimilar to really understand anything about the way the cars actually perform. For that, you’d need to have your own test drivers, your own private time at the ‘Ring, and standardized conditions under which to test.

Porsche happens to have all of the above, so it’s not really a surprise that they have, at long last, decided to enter the Nurburgring publicity game with a bang. Their new test times for the 997 Turbo and GT2 are more aggressive than what they have previously reported, and their GT-R test time appears to line up pretty well with von Saurma’s independent test of a production car. They’ve taken a relatively bold step in publicizing their times; it’s really the first time that one manufacturer has offered a direct public commentary on another car’s Nordschleife capabilities. Apparently, the gloves are off, which is probably bad news for competitors who rely on ‘Ring times to give their cars a little bit of that much-desired Green Hell mystique...."

Read the full article HERE

Godzilla Farts: Porsche calls out Nissan's GT-R

The Freep forwarded this:

Porsche accuses Nissan GT-R of cheating the 'Ring

Porsche has just run its own back-to-back tests with the Japanese company's GT-R supercar and says it could not get within 25 seconds of Nissan's claimed record time of seven minutes 29 seconds in April. It also found its 911 Turbo and GT2 were both quicker than the GT-R.

"This wonder car with 7:29 could not have been a regular series production car," says August Achleitner, the 911 product chief for Porsche, speaking to the CARSguide at the Australian press preview of the latest 911 Cabrio. "For us, it's not clear how this time is possible. What we can imagine with this Nissan is they used other tyres." He believes the time achieved by Nissan with ex-Formula One driver Toshio Suzuki would only be possible with a semi-slick race-style tyre.

Achleitner says Porsche took a standard GT-R, running on regular road tyres, and ran it around the Nurburgring within two hours of its own cars, on the same day with exactly the same weather conditions. He says there was no tweaking of any kind and the GT2 and Turbo both ran on regular Porsche road tyres, the Michelin Sport Cup.

"We bought the car in the US. We drove a GT-R with new tyres," he says. Achleitner was initially protective of the exact lap times, which were run during a program when Porsche also compared its upcoming four-door Panamera with a range of potential rivals. But he eventually revealed his team clocked the GT-R at 7 minutes 54 seconds, with the 911 Turbo managing 7:38 and the GT2 getting down to 7:34.

The laps were not run by Porsche's usual hot-lap specialist, former world rally champion and race winner Walter Rohrl, but one of the company's chassis development engineers who is an expert on the Nurburgring. Achleitner says the back-to-back comparison was run because Porsche was concerned by Nissan's claims for the GT-R, which is heavier than the 911 with similar power.

"The Nissan is a good car. I don't want to make anything bad with my words," he says. "It's a very consistent car. But this car is about 20 kilos heavier than the Turbo . . ." In the end, Porsche believes its testing has achieved the right lap times for the Skyline GT-R and benchmarked it against its own 911 heroes in the right context.

"For us it has been clearly the result. This technical puzzle now fits together. With the other numbers we had problems to understand it," he says.

CG adds this:

"Interesting. Porsche is extremely conservative on making any claims (they never release official Ring times and its mostly hearsay and verfied by Auto magazines like Sportauto with their own driver Von Saurma)..

There has to be something true about the complaint but nevertheless almost every magazine has proven that the GTR can be faster than the 997 Turbo at the track."

Comments?

And just in time, here is 5th Gear's take on the Porker-Godzilla fight. This is the best comparo test yet, Bruno Senna analyzes the performance difference between the two cars and point out what has generally been missed in other reviews I've seen: the semi auto gearbox blows the luddite stick away and the friendlier weight distribution on the Nissan more than makes up for the extra lardiness compared to the 911 Turbo.
The points against the GT-R, brakes and massive fuel consumption.

Either Porsche comes up with something tangible or they risk looking rather ridiculous, more so because the GT2 is the only car amougst those mentioned in the article above that comes from the factory with DOT-R tires, Michelin Pilot Cup!






And here is the rest of it.

The laws of physics are obviously a matter of opinion

...I'm impressed....

King of the 'Ring

Axis readers have spoken, according to our absolutely unscientific poll, when the dust clears it will be the Porsche GT2 that will best the Nissan GT-R and Corvette ZR-1 as "King of the Ring"...



For that to be the case Walther Röhrl needs to get to work, the current claimed time for the GT2 is almost eight seconds slower than the 7:26.4 recently set by GM.

However, in this video the old master seems pretty casual about the time set, like setting a significantly faster time would be easily accomplished... is there more time in the Weissach monster? Will Porsche feel the need to claim that particular record?
And what of the upcoming Lexus LF-a a Honda NSX?

Break out the popcorn!