It's probably safe to say we've had the debate about
the 991 GT3
's mechanical spec and the
rights
wrongs
of the transmission and technological 'progress'. For now.
After all that on-paper discussion, what better way to draw a line under it all than seeing and hearing the thing in action? Our man at the Nurburgring Dale has been doing just that and shot the following snippets of video footage from beside the Nordschleife showing the GT3 getting a very thorough work out at the hands of the development team during the recently restarted industry pool sessions.
Two things we learn from this. One, they're not hanging about. And two, it sounds epic, especially bouncing off the rev limiter at 9,000rpm. Who cares what transmission it's driving through?
Dale also makes the following point: "In a normal GT3 you often use third gear through the hairpin [Wehrseifen] as it's just too difficult to make a nice shift as you swap the car from right to left. You turn in on the camber, but as it goes neutral near the apex you need both hands against the power oversteer that naturally follows. And in a manual you hit the limiter in second just at that critical moment. So it's quicker to be slower, sacrificing some punch out of the slower corner to make a better exit from the second faster corner and down the straight to Breidscheid. In the three passes of the new car you can see the driver is blasting out of the hairpin in second and hooking third on the apex of the right." Oops, and we weren't going to talk about the gearbox...