Porsche GT3 RS Has the Run of Its Life Against the Hardcore BMW M3 CS

A Porsche GT3 RS versus a BMW M3 CS is a fight that would make the jungle rumble if it were a heavyweight title fight between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali. The question that overshadows this metaphorical simile is, who’s who on this track?

On the one hand, we have a pure athlete with all the right moves to stay on top of the world: the Porsche GT3 RS – a machine with a boxer in its heart. Or, AS its heart, to be mechanically – and Germanically – accurate, since the Renn Sport variant doesn’t fall far from the 911 tree.

A four-liter horizontally-opposed naturally-aspirated nuclear blast is fitted at the rearward extremity of this Porsche. There is nothing new about this architecture; it’s been around since before Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. was born in 1942.

Like the formidable Ali, the latest and greatest 911 GT3 RS punches hard and fast: 518 hp and 343 lb-ft (525 PS/465 Nm). It's light-footed, nimble, agile, fast, and carries aerodynamic tricks up its track-aiming sleeve. The ultimate goal is to be the quickest car when the road has a change of heart and decides to alleviate from a boring rectilinear design.

And the GT3 RS is precisely that: a scalpel that cuts corners with laser-sharp precision, thanks to a massive rear wing fitted with a drag-reducing system and several other air-bending, physics-taming goodies.

A drag strip isn’t the car’s natural habitat since its 9,000-RPM redline doesn’t rub shoulders with high-ranking generals of the torque army. Not to be misunderstood: the 911 GT3 RS is not exactly a grocery-getter (unless it’s 4:50 in the morning and you want fresh milk in your tea by 5 o’clock). The race-ready Porsche is monumentally quick and bullet-fast, but it’s not designed for straight-line terminal velocity.

More to that point would be its opponent from today’s race – the BMW M3 CS, a sedan with room for a family of four – to say nothing of the labradoodle waving its tongue at the cars left behind. Because that’s what this junior M will do to just about anyone on the highway – walk past it with absolutely zero remorse shown.

Descending from a four-decade bloodline of adrenaline-dealing mechanical engineering, the M3 CS is fitted with xDrive for perfect traction on every occasion. That’s good and bad in a drag race: it delivers blitz-fast launches but somewhat caps the top end.

Luckily, the ultimate M3 carries enough firepower to spare and still has plenty left to discourage almost anyone. 542 hp and 479 lb-ft (550 PS and 650 Nm) is the gearbox equivalent of a cannonade – the result of fitting a turbo on the three-liter straight-six and then topping it all up with another air-compressing turbine.

Unlike the vacation-friendly Bimmer, the Porsche puts all its power down via the rear wheels – something not usually seen as an advantage in a race against an all-wheel-driven opponent. But given the GT3 RS’ particular architecture, with the engine's weight and seven-speed dual-clutch box pushing down on the rear axle, that detail becomes insignificant.

Also, the weight plays in the Porsche’s favor – 1.45 tons on the sprinter 911, compared to the sedan’s heavy burden of an extra 300 kg (the M3 CS weighs 1.77 tons). Given all the facts mentioned earlier, mathematics would be very helpful in providing a complicated formula for determining the winner. Gearheads, however, don’t have enough time for algorithms and polynomials.

In this particular instance, for example, the exact time needed to perform said calculations is 11.1 seconds flat – that’s how long it takes for both cars to reach the far end of a 440-yard arrow-straight strip of clear English runway. The launch control on the Porsche sounds like a dive-bomber dropping from the sky toward its target, and the start is aircraft-carrier-catapult-fast.

But the M3 is no garden slug and wastes no time putting its iron sights on the finish line. The standing start races are a neck-and-neck rush from start to end. The Porsche takes a marginally close-call overall victory, despite the BMW’s best efforts of gaining ground under full throttle.

On the rolling start stage, the twin-turbo family car has no trouble whatsoever gapping the GT3 RS – once it gets its gear shifts sorted. Without a decisive overall verdict, it’s anyone’s guess which of the two machines gets to take the trophy home. Granted, the Porsche won the standard drag races fair and square, but let’s point out the slower reaction times of the BMW driver.

If it came down to choosing from these results alone, it would be equally difficult to call it a day: the M3 CS is under half the price of the 911 GT3 RS (and has a trunk to put the trophies in when driving back home).