Richard Meaden has the very first drive of the new 2023 Porsche 911 GT3 RS, and it is everything you expected and so much more.
First the bad news. Frustratingly this first drive of the 992 GT3 RS is as much defined by the question we can’t answer as those we can. Restricted to track driving only – albeit on the mighty Silverstone GP circuit – we can’t tell you what the new RS is like on the road. This won’t stop us making an educated guess (more of which later), but a definitive verdict will have to wait. Most likely until next year, as far as Australian roads are concerned.
The good news is we can tell you without reservation that the 992 GT3 RS is the biggest single step on from its predecessor since the 996 GT3 RS back in 2004. It’s a truly sensational machine. Even more dramatic in the metal than it is in pictures, it makes a 992 GT3 look like a Carrera and worth the price premium on kerb appeal alone.
The new RS isn’t all about aero, but downforce was very obviously a driving force in its design and inevitably plays a defining role in its performance. Aside from the massive wings and sharply sculpted bodywork the most radical element is the new central radiator. This does away with the old three-radiator design to allow airflow to be channelled more effectively across active flaps set deep within intakes on left and right sides of the nose. This race-derived cooling pack occupies the luggage compartment, meaning RS drivers will need to pack light.
The result is a whopping 860kg of downforce generated at 285km/h. That’s twice what the 991.2 RS mustered, and three times as much as the 992 GT3. If you’re after some non-Porsche context, it’s 60kg more than the McLaren Senna. There is an Auto DRS function, which activates above 100km/h and 95 per cent throttle. Similarly, an Airbrake function which tips the front and rear wings to their maximum angle of attack under heaving braking from high speed. If you’re a wannabe F1 driver you can also activate the DRS via a button on the steering wheel.
Aero might be a dominant theme, but so is adjustability. Everything from compression and rebound settings on front and rear dampers to the lock rate of the limited slip differential and intervention levels of the TC and ESC can be minutely adjusted via rotary switches mounted on the steering wheel. It puts an unprecedented degree of control at the driver’s fingertips and, by definition, is the first RS to exist at the forefront of digital dynamics.
Reassuringly, and somewhat against expectation, it’s possible to explore a meaningful portion of the adjustment within the time constraints of our short but sweet stints. Thanks largely to the simplicity of the interface and the honesty of the RS’s responses. Feeling its behaviour change click-by-click is an absorbing process and a new kind of driving experience.
We had bone dry conditions during our test, but colleagues who drove the car a day earlier on a wet and drying track said the range of adjustment across damping, differential and TC/ESC made it possible to dial-in the RS to the trickiest conditions. It could also be the key to the RS offering greater compliance and approachability on the road than a regular GT3 – not something you’d expect from a car that’s so overtly focussed on track performance.
Despite the radical makeover there’s reassuring familiarity in the RS’s 4.0-litre naturally-aspirated flat-six and seven-speed PDK transmission. The motor really has been squeezed until it pips to find an extra 11kW in the face of stringent emission regs. This gain lifts the total to 386kW at 8500rpm thanks to the adoption of RS-specific cylinder heads, camshafts and throttle bodies (now one per-cylinder). Airflow management has also been optimised to ensure hot air is channelled along the flanks of the car, while colder, denser air runs over the roof and into the intake scoop in the top of the engine cover.
That scintillating 9000rpm engine and super-sharp 7-speed PDK ‘box (now with a shortened ratios and final drive for added in-gear snap) is one of the all-time great partnerships. Though not night-and-day different to the GT3, there’s a definite uptick in urgency and intensity. Against the clock 0-100km/h arrives in 3.0sec, 160km/h in 6.9. Top speed is 296km/h, some 23km/h down on the GT3 despite DRS.
It’s when you plunge into the first big braking area that you appreciate the RS is different gravy. Porsche always employs a ducks-and-drakes system when launching cars on track. Normally it’s with three ‘ducks’ following a pro driver, but on this occasion it’s one-to-one, with our instructor pedalling a Manthey-tweaked 992 GT3 running on Michelin Pilot Cup 2R rubber, while the RS sits on regular Cup 2s. Despite little in the way of a warm-up within a few corners the RS feels imperious, stealing several car lengths in the first big braking zone and making additional ground all the way to the apex. You feel like a hero.
It’s the same story through fast corners, the RS giving so much confidence as you commit at turn-in and allowing you to chase the throttle sooner and harder than your brain tells you is possible.
Steaming into the Maggots Becketts sequence is where the RS driving experience truly crystalises. Approaching the first left-right hard on the throttle and well into fifth gear, you lunge into the meat of the corner, brake hard, change direction, downshift one gear, change direction again, pop in another downshift and change direction again. All in one seamless motion and leaning on immense lateral grip.
Having the Manthey GT3 ahead is a useful marker, as it clearly struggles to settle in those moments from corner entry to apex where the RS feels majestic. Knowing how good the GT3 is – not to mention the advantage to be had from Cup 2R tyres – the way the new RS carries speed is sensational.
No ‘Ring time has been set (yet), but the target (using Cup 2Rs) is sub-6min44sec. That just happens to measure it against the monster 515kW/750Nm and 340km/h 991 GT2 RS. Given the Nordschleife’s many steep uphill sections and long straights reward raw grunt, Porsche is putting a lot of faith in corner speed.
If there’s a downside to the downforce, it’s that carrying such pace through the corners reduces the delta between the speed you join each straight and the peak you achieve by the end of it. In short, because it’s so good on the brakes and through the corners you know it could handle plenty more grunt. It felt churlish to ask the question, and we couldn’t get anyone to admit to one being developed, but a 992 GT2 RS would be truly mind-blowing…
All of this ignores the perennial question of speed versus enjoyment. Downforce is a magical thing to experience and explore, but it’s a particular kind of challenge and a very specific reward. It’s true to say that with the move to double wishbone front suspension the regular 992 GT3 already dialled-out the 911’s last remaining handling quirks, but with wider rubber (335/30 R21s on the rear!), firmer, flatter multi-adjustable PASM suspension and that remarkable aero package, the RS now has surgical precision.
It’s not all grip and no slip – you can still feel the front begin to push wide if you ask too much of it, likewise the tail might shimmy in protest – but the balance feels very neutral and the behaviour very much that of a road car instilled with the discipline of a race car.
What will the RS be like on the road? An event, certainly. Few things can top its searing powertrain for purity and excitement, and if the damping can be dialled back to offer true compliance, then outrageous poise and pinpoint precision is a given. Tantalisingly, if the range of adjustability in the diff and TC/ESC gives similar scope to be more playful on the road then the 992 could just be the most talented RS yet. To be continued…
Richard Meaden