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Nissan has refuted Porsche’s falsification claims concerning the GT-R’s stunning Nordschleife lap times.
When Nissan’s chief test driver Tochio Suzuki hustled a standard GT-R around the forbidding Nurburgring in only 7m 29s on 17 April this year, Porsche engineers were at a loss for words.
The Nissan was quicker than both the 911 GT2 (7m 34s) and the 911 Turbo (7m 38s), and Stuttgart’s chassis, powertrain and suspension engineers were waving recriminating fingers at each other in parliamentarian fashion after the GT-R record lap.
Porsche hot laps
It’s an open secret manufacturers purchase each others cars to use as a comparative engineering benchmark during research and development cycles. Just as Nissan had done in the GT-R development cycle (when a 911 Turbo was parked in the Nissan pits at the ‘Ring) Porsche imported a GT-R from America.
It then let an anonymous 911 chassis engineer - and Nurburgring expert according to Porsche - loose in the GT-R, as well as a 911 Turbo and GT2. The GT-R could only manage a 7m 54s time with the Porsche man onboard, whilst both the Turbo and GT2 were significantly quicker, posting 7m 38s and 7m 34s times respectively.
Porsche has been as diplomatic as possible concerning the entire affair, postulating the 7m 29s GT-R ‘wonder-car’ simply had to be running on slick or semi-slick tyres.
August Achleitner, the 911 product chief is in no doubt. “This wonder car with 7:29 could not have been a regular series production car. What we can imagine with this Nissan is they used other tyres such as a semi-slick race-style tyre and not standard road tyres. The Nissan is a good car. It’s a very consistent car. But this car is about 20 kilos heavier than the Turbo.”
Nissan’s driving lesson invitation
Nissan has refuted the claim by releasing a second onboard GT-R lap video of Suzuki posting the record time and inviting all comers to contact Dunlop’s PR department for a viewing of the actual tyres used during the test – a set of run flat SP SPORT 600 DSST CTT’s. Porsche though, used a car with Bridgestone Potenza RE070R tyres.
Sumitomo rubber industries, who manufacture Dunlop tyres, are a huge Japanese industrial concern, and subscribe to a typically redoubtable oriental standard of transparency.
It would seem Nissan’s cheeky claim concerning the inability of Porsche’s chassis engineer to drive the GT-R properly is the likely source of the lap time discrepancy.
“We offer performance driving courses for prospective and current GT-R owners to help them get the best performance from their car. We would welcome the opportunity to help any auto manufacturer with understanding the full capabilities of the GT-R.”
Kazutoshi Mizuno, GT-R product specialist and chief vehicle engineer, must be loving life at the moment. He vows to be back with his team in April next year at the Nurburgring. Perhaps then Porsche will do something sensible - like bring Walter Röhrl along to do its driving comparison.
When Nissan’s chief test driver Tochio Suzuki hustled a standard GT-R around the forbidding Nurburgring in only 7m 29s on 17 April this year, Porsche engineers were at a loss for words.
The Nissan was quicker than both the 911 GT2 (7m 34s) and the 911 Turbo (7m 38s), and Stuttgart’s chassis, powertrain and suspension engineers were waving recriminating fingers at each other in parliamentarian fashion after the GT-R record lap.
Porsche hot laps
It’s an open secret manufacturers purchase each others cars to use as a comparative engineering benchmark during research and development cycles. Just as Nissan had done in the GT-R development cycle (when a 911 Turbo was parked in the Nissan pits at the ‘Ring) Porsche imported a GT-R from America.
It then let an anonymous 911 chassis engineer - and Nurburgring expert according to Porsche - loose in the GT-R, as well as a 911 Turbo and GT2. The GT-R could only manage a 7m 54s time with the Porsche man onboard, whilst both the Turbo and GT2 were significantly quicker, posting 7m 38s and 7m 34s times respectively.
Porsche has been as diplomatic as possible concerning the entire affair, postulating the 7m 29s GT-R ‘wonder-car’ simply had to be running on slick or semi-slick tyres.
August Achleitner, the 911 product chief is in no doubt. “This wonder car with 7:29 could not have been a regular series production car. What we can imagine with this Nissan is they used other tyres such as a semi-slick race-style tyre and not standard road tyres. The Nissan is a good car. It’s a very consistent car. But this car is about 20 kilos heavier than the Turbo.”
Nissan’s driving lesson invitation
Nissan has refuted the claim by releasing a second onboard GT-R lap video of Suzuki posting the record time and inviting all comers to contact Dunlop’s PR department for a viewing of the actual tyres used during the test – a set of run flat SP SPORT 600 DSST CTT’s. Porsche though, used a car with Bridgestone Potenza RE070R tyres.
Sumitomo rubber industries, who manufacture Dunlop tyres, are a huge Japanese industrial concern, and subscribe to a typically redoubtable oriental standard of transparency.
It would seem Nissan’s cheeky claim concerning the inability of Porsche’s chassis engineer to drive the GT-R properly is the likely source of the lap time discrepancy.
“We offer performance driving courses for prospective and current GT-R owners to help them get the best performance from their car. We would welcome the opportunity to help any auto manufacturer with understanding the full capabilities of the GT-R.”
Kazutoshi Mizuno, GT-R product specialist and chief vehicle engineer, must be loving life at the moment. He vows to be back with his team in April next year at the Nurburgring. Perhaps then Porsche will do something sensible - like bring Walter Röhrl along to do its driving comparison.
