POWER OF 3
“When we introduced the first GT3 in 1999, it had 360bhp, barely. If someone would’ve told us in ten years there’d be a 4.0 with 500bhp, I would have said, ‘Yeah, come on…’, but technology goes on and on.” That was Porsche GT boss Andreas Preuninger, when we interviewed him at the Geneva Motor Show, 2015, at the 991.1 GT3 RS’s unveiling.
Today we’re experiencing that leap first hand with a drive in the first 996.1 GT3 and a comparison with its most recent and extreme descendant, the 991.2 GT3 RS, at Sonoma racetrack near San Francisco.
The two cars share much in concept and philosophy but as Preuninger reflected, technology goes on and on. Engine output might have barely risen in the last ten years, since the 997 4.0 GT3 RS to which he was referring at Geneva, but the GT3 RS is wider, faster and stickier, and it’s lavished with cutting-edge technology that makes it more competent in every measurable regard. This, however, doesn’t make the 996.1 GT3 an anachronism in comparison; of its time, perhaps, but only in the most positive sense.
The GT3 story begins with the development of the GT3 Cup for the Pirelli Supercup championship, which supported the F1 calendar from 1998. Only 30 race cars were made, but Porsche also had an eye on the new N-GT racing class, which came into force on 1 March 2000. Alexander Klein, boss of the Porsche Museum, who’s flown to meet the Porsche Museum car we’re driving,
