Porsche: "Nissan GTR 7.29 impossible"

[blacklotus99]

Well well, this could get interesting...

http://carsguide.news.com.au/site/motoring-news/story/porsche_accuses_nissan_of_cheating_at_nurburgring/

Porsche has accused Nissan of cheating in the GT-R's record bid at the Nurburgring racetrack.
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.

[ViR2]

Porsche just cant "loose" top Jap's, so they are trying to "invent" facts

GT-R is more technologicaly advanced then any Porsche, and they have to admit it

[blacklotus99]

Nothing to do with technology.

This is a serious accusation against Nissan that they faked the production car times for the purposes of publicity for their new car.

The fact that the accusation is coming from a senior figure within Porsche makes this all the more interesting. The supposed tested times between the GTR and the turbo are not even close.

[84_Carrera]

Discussed on Rennlist. I posted up some stuff I found online where the Nissan engineer admitted the car was a Ringer & was using semi-slicks vs. stock street tires as well.

All moot with the ZR1 anyway.

[911nut]

Originally Posted by ViR2

Porsche just cant "loose" top Jap's,

Yeah, there was a time where we in the U.S. didn't want to lose to them either. Now they own us and we don't seem to care....

[Adelaide901]

Read this article by Jack Baruth - its a great read and unbiased:

http://www.speedsportlife.com/

Nissan have done the dirty before with the R34.
What is interesting is Horst von Saurma's lap time of 7:50 in an out of the box GTR - it isnt the first time the truth has come out.

At the time Nissan set the record they were spending weeks there. That didnt sound like they took a car of the production line and ran it.

[vanwyk4257]

There was a brand new Nissan GTR at a DE I participated in a couple weeks ago. The car was very fast, but I too find it very hard to believe that car running a 7:29 was stock. You simply cannot defy physics, no matter how much technology you employ. No matter how technologically advanced the GTR might be it simply cannot be that much faster (if faster at all) than a 911 turbo or GT2.
I seem to recall reading somewhere that there were already lots of people questioning whether or not Nissan's power figures were accurate too, i.e., cars were not showing the advertised power when being dynoed.
I think Nissan made a big mistake by hyping the car up as much as they did, when you raise expectations that much it's difficult to meet or exceed them, hence the apparent situation at the Nurburgring.

[ChkbookMechanic]

The GT-R is an impressive car but I think everyone knew in the back of their minds Nissan did some tweaking to get those times.. I've heard using race tires and upping the boost as the biggest reasons. Perhaps this just gives them an excuse to sell a 10k option package that gives you a retuned ecu and racing tires on the car.. they can call it the Nurburgring Assault Package.

[RWebb]

has nissan made an official reply yet?

[curtisaa]

I really believe it's amazing that Porsche and Nissan are being mentioned in the same sentence. Throw Honda ( Acura) in the mix, becuz they're tring to replicate the Nissan lap time with their car. Who would have thunk ?, Porsche would be looking over their shoulder @ a Japanese carmaker. Knowing the Asian culture, they will prevail over Porsche even now that they are so close.

[Geronimo '74]

Originally Posted by RWebb

has nissan made an official reply yet?

Now that's something I would like to read...

[sl951]

Yes .. reply from Nissan
http://www.autoblog.com/category/nissan/

[gtc]

I smell a special episode of Top Gear brewing, starring the 911, the GTR, and a certain Sabine...

[aturboman]

I smell a special episode of Top Gear brewing, starring the 911, the GTR, and a certain Sabine...

I agree but use the Stig driving; Sabine will be accused of biased since she is German.

They need to buy each car from retail dealer stock to eliminate any chance of "aces' being sent by the manufacturers.

A head to head grudge match against the clock should settle it;3 laps each and take the best time.

[thomschoon]

The issue should be how fast is a $70k Nissan versus a $70k Porsche. The GT-R is a lot of car for the money.

[petevb]

I ran some numbers and believe it's very likely the ring record GTR was putting out significantly over stock hp.

To put it into perspective, "stock" hp seems all over the map. Some customer GTRs trap at 12.0 @ 115, vs others at 11.5 @ 122. If you use a performance sim to calculate the power the former is a 350 whp car, while the latter is more like 440 whp. So clearly some GTRs are faster than others...

If you take it one step further an time the GTR down the straights at the 'Ring, you'll see that it does unusually well against the ZR1, and is actually significantly faster down the longer straights than the 600 hp, much lighter Viper ACR. Using the sim to model that performance I came up with ~490 whp for the ring record GTR, probably give or take ~20. It's hard to say for certain (headwinds, etc make it tricky) but my bet is that the GTR that ran the record was a very, very fast example. Whether there are other "production" cars that are just as quick remains to be seen. We'll know soon- you can bet every magazine that can is booking ring time as we speak...

[juicersr]

Ok Porsche... you've just called Nissan out. Now just do a pay-per-view. Walter vs whatz-his-name-san... same day, same conditions, with an untouched production version of each car with whatever tires as options. Everything settled in about 7 minutes.

[J0hnny]

Originally Posted by petevb

I ran some numbers and believe it's very likely the ring record GTR was putting out significantly over stock hp.

To put it into perspective, "stock" hp seems all over the map. Some customer GTRs trap at 12.0 @ 115, vs otheres at 11.5 @ 122. If you use a performance sim to calculate the power the former is a 350 whp car, while the latter is more like 440 whp. So clearly some GTRs are faster than otheres...

If you take it one step furthere an time the GTR down the straights at the 'Ring, you'll see that it does unusually well against the ZR1, and is actually significantly faster down the longer straights than the 600 hp, much lighter Viper ACR. Using the sim to model that performance I came up with ~490 whp for the ring record GTR, probably give or take ~20. It's hard to say for certain (headwinds, etc make it tricky) but my bet is that the GTR that ran the record was a very, very fast example. Whethere theree are othere "production" cars that are just as quick remains to be seen. We'll know soon- you can bet every magazine that can is booking ring time as we speak...

Since GT-R's are in the roads, the dyno sheets from them are way too different, theree are some cars that are about 420 whp and some othere pulling out more than 500 awhp, now some dudes say that is because all the engines are hand built... I don't buy that, even if there are hand built one certainly can not expect that kind of hp difference...

[ALXinNZ]

Originally Posted by aturboman

I agree but use the Stig driving; Sabine will be accused of biased since she is German.

They need to buy each car from retail dealer stock to eliminate any chance of "aces' being sent by the manufacturers.

A head to head grudge match against the clock should settle it;3 laps each and take the best time.

Well It is fast!! Top Gear with the stig managed a time of 1min19.7sec around there test track. The Enzo 1min19sec, The Atom 1min19.5sec, Lambo lp640 1min19.8, with th Carrera GT 1min19.8

My Brother is a GTR nut and has the R32 and just finished a big block 3 litre for it I am sorry to say all I had was the Top Gear lap time board but that is gone too. I just tell him mine looks faster than his.......

[Jgordon]

Further to that, if you're putting out cars with 80 hp differences for the same money, aren't the customers with the lower hp examples going to be slightly upset?