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2021 Porsche 911 GT3 Crashes on Its Way to a Sub-7 Minutes Nurburgring Lap Time

Yesterday was not the best day for science during the Nurburgring industry pool, with two German carmakers losing their expensive prototypes in crashes that took place in pretty much the same area of the Green Hell.
2021 Porsche 911 GT3 992 17 photos
Photo: S.Baldauf/SB-Medien
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The first to give a rather violent boop to the Armco barriers with its pig-like snout was a BMW M3 G80 prototype after the driver lost control following a short trip over the wet grass surrounding the track.

Not long after, it was time for Porsche to say goodbye to a 911 GT3 (992) prototype in the same Hatzenbach section, following a similar short trip over the grass. This time, the car met the barriers with the driver's side, triggering all airbags but without destroying as much bodywork as the BMW.

Thankfully, the driver emerged from the car scratch-free, but his Panasonic Toughbook doesn't seem so tough after the car's scuffle with the track barriers. The man unsuccessfully tried to restart the notebook, probably in a quest to save some of the testing data gathered until the crash, but by the looks of things, the damage is unrepairable.

It's a coincidence that both cars crashed at around the same place, but it's also likely that both were being driven a bit harder than usual. Timed lap times are expressly forbidden during industry pool sessions on the Nurburgring, but the 2021 Porsche 911 GT3 is expected to one-up its predecessors by quite a big margin regarding performance.

Still packing a naturally aspirated flat-six, probably the last of its kind to be developed in Stuttgart, the upcoming GT Neunelfer is pretty much predicted to slide its Nurburgring lap time under the 7-minutes barrier.

Total output should sit somewhere around 520-550 horsepower from the high-revving 4.0-liter, with the biggest performance upgrades compared to the previous GT3 being related to the suspension kinematics, aerodynamics, braking, weight, and last but not least, tires. There will also be a wing-less Touring version with manual transmission for keeping the purists in check.
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About the author: Alex Oagana
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Alex handled his first real steering wheel at the age of five (on a field) and started practicing "Scandinavian Flicks" at 14 (on non-public gravel roads). Following his time at the University of Journalism, he landed his first real job at the local franchise of Top Gear magazine a few years before Mircea (Panait). Not long after, Alex entered the New Media realm with the autoevolution.com project.
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