There is much more to Porsche's 911 GT3 R Hybrid programme than trying to win the Nurburgring 24-Hour, as we discovered when we drove the latest incarnation of Porsche's racing future.
Though no one beyond the factory knew it at the time, it's now dear that when
Porsche first demonstrated its 911 GT3 R Hybrid racing car last year, its purpose was rather greater than just making a car capable of winning the Nurburgring 24-hour. Yes, it led the race for over 22 of those hours on its 2010 debut, so proved to be rather capable in that regard, but it is only now, when its racing career may even be over, that its true significance is becoming apparent.
Porsche won't say whether the 2014 car with which it will go to Le Mans as an official factory team for the first time this century will be a petrol/electric hybrid, but then it doesn't exactly need to. When engineers tell you the real point of the GT3 R Hybrid is to act as a testbed for components they'll need to put on the LeMans car, it's something of a given. And the progress
Porsche is making is phenomenal.
So let's recap, just for a moment The GT3 R Hybrid is as described: Porsche's staple GT3 specification racing car, modified to incorporate a hybrid system which takes energy that would otherwise be lost while the car is braking so it can spend it while the car is accelerating. Unlike any hybrid road car, this energy is stored not in a battery, but in a flywheel situated in a large black box on the passenger side of the car, capable of spinning at up to 40,000rpm and being drawn upon by two electric motors feeding power to each of the front wheels. This system works well on a race track because the braking areas where the energy is gained is known and quantifiable. Even so, it works better at certain tracks than others: the system can provide an electrical boost to the front wheels for almost seven seconds, but only if it's properly charged first which, ideally, means lots of braking from high speed into slow corners: so it would be brilliant at Monaco and literally worse than useless at Indianapolis.
Regulars may remember this is not the first time GTPP has become acquainted with such a car. Indeed, the first generation model was featured on these pages back in 2010 (Issue 106), but such is the pace at which this technology is advancing, the original is already something of a Sinclair ZX Spectrum compared to what you see before you now.
In just one year's development the output of the hybrid drive has risen from 160hp to 200hp while its weight has dropped by almost 100kg. Tell any race engineer in the world you've found a way of taking that much weight out of his racing car and he'll think you're either a god, Colin Chapman returned from the grave, or both. In the meantime the system has become more reliable, the flywheel now able to provide full electrical boost on a million separate occasions before it needs changing. lt now incorporates traction control for the front axle which talks to, and agrees strategy with, the extant system looking after the rear. And if you look in the car you'll see the whole package contained within one carbon fibre box instead of the flywheel and its associated converters and vacuum pump scattered about the car. This means the
Porsche has been able to ditch the twin fuel tanks required by the highly unorthodox packaging requirements of the first GT3 R Hybrid and reverted to a single 110-litre tank in the nose, saving weight and improving weight distribution.
Even on the outside there's no mistaking the 2011 car: the aerodynamically undesirable huge vents in the rear wings required to cool the old hybrid drive have gone, replaced by a water-to-oil heat exchanger.
It's easier to use too: the 2010 car hybrid system was driver operated, requiring a tug of a paddle before it would activate; now it is fully automated and takes its cues from a number of different sources such as throttle opening, steering angle and lateral load. Not only does this give the already hard working driver one less thing to think about, which is always welcome in any racing car, it also radically reduces the chance of the system deploying when it can't be used to the full, such as when full traction at the exit of a comer is not yet available.
But though the system is smarter, faster and lighter, that's not why I'm strapped into it and heading down the Estoril pit lane. Nor is it simply to gain an insight into the direction
Porsche appears to be heading for its next Le Mans car: the significance of the GT3 R Hybrid now extends far beyond even that. Fact is it even has a relevance not only to Porsche's upcoming return to Le Mans but for cars destined for the public road. Though the 918 Spyder will use conventional lithium ion battery hardware instead of a flywheel to store energy, the engineers writing the software for both cars are one and the same. Moreover, Owen Hayes, who is the race engineer for the GT3 R Hybrid, says the actual GT3 R Hybrid system, flywheel and all, need not be restricted for use simply on race tracks.
"The technology is so new it is, of course, hard to see where we'll be with the system in a few years time. Then again, it's very easy to see how far we've come with it already and realise that this is just the very start, the dawn of what can be achieved. If you're asking if I can imagine an ultra-sporty
Porsche road car using this system on road and track in the not so distant future, the answer is 'yes.'"
Back in the car I'm trying to figure out just how the hell it all works. On the steering wheel alone there are now 19 different controls, as weil as a LCD readout telling you revs, gears and other vitai info relating to powertrain condition, the usual bank of LEDchange up lights, and another bank of lights showing the boost of the hybrid drive
Happily life has been made a little easier in certain other regards. In addition to the automatic deployment of the hybrid drive, there are now paddles instead of a lever for the six speed sequential shift and, as you'd now expect, it automatically lifts the throttle on upshifts and blips it on the downs, so you use the dutch to exit the pits and thereafter not at all.
Jorg Bergmeister leans in. This tall, skinny and humorous German is the car's lead driver and something of a legend in
Porsche circles: "You're gonna have a lot of fun. The car is very easy, forgiving and fun." Easier than a normal GT3 R? "In certain conditions, for sure - having that power at the front wheels can help balance the car," he replies.
Hayes however has a warning, but not the 'please go easy and don't bend my million pound motorcar' one you might expect: "You have to drive it hard. If you don't generate enough energy, the hybrid system won't work.
We had one bloke in it recently, a good driver apparently, but he simply couldn't drive the car properly. Never got to experience what it was like and threw it off the track."
First I do a couple of laps propelled by just the mighty 4.0-litre petrol engine. The car weighs 1300kg, the same as a standard GT3 R in Nurburgring 24-hour trim because teams deliberately ballast them to get the benefit of the larger air restrictor this weight limit brings. It has around 460hp and to me feels plenty fast enough. Of the GT3 racing cars I've driven, the closest comparison I can make is to the
Mercedes-Benz SLS GT3. While there's not much to tell between ultimate lap times, it's like comparing a race horse to a greyhound. The
Porsche feels half the size, twice as agile and far more physical. It moves about far more than the Mercedes, especially at the rear and, over the course of a full stint, I think it would be far more tiring to drive but perhaps more fun.
I come in, Hayes flicks a switch to engage the hybrid drive and sends me out again. Sensibly he has also selected the softest map possible for the hybrid motor so I am going to get all the power but delivered smoothly rather than in one big bang. When you're talking about boosting the car's output from 460hp to 660hp at the flex of a foot, that's a smart move.
So as before I go flat down the main straight at 160mph, hit the brakes as hard as I can on the downhill approach to the first corner, note this is the only area in which the car feels quite heavy, and watch blue lights appear on the dash telling me the system is fully charged. Think about that for a moment: in one deceleration zone, it has saved enough energy to put 200hp through the front wheels for nearly seven seconds. It's not quite free power because the system adds weight to the car, but it's damn near it.
Into the tight right at the end of the straight and back on the gas, extremely curious to discover what happens next. Which is this: because the extra power comes in so gently and is transmitted through wheels that hitherto have had no part to play in the powertrain, it couldn't feel less like a turbo cutting in. There's no lag, and no traction concerns to worry about. More than anything it just feels like someone's added a couple of extra litres of displacement to the engine while providing the car with the longitudinal grip to cope with it. What you notice most is the noise of the flywheel, drowning out the sound even of an unsilenced racing flat-six.
In fact, until you realise the little straight that used to separate turns one and two has effectively disappeared, it doesn't even feel than much faster, so beautifully is the power delivered. But it is: there's a kink in Estoril's back straight which you barely even notice without the hybrid working. On full boost it's still flat-out but needs all the road and all your attention. When later I got to pore over the data, I discovered the apex speed was a little under 110mph without the hybrid, and well over 120mph with it. I never got to do representative back-to-back laps with and without the hybrid because I was still leaming the circuit when I first went out, but I'd guess that even around a reasonably short track like Estoril, the hybrid would be worth around five seconds a lap.
But that's not what impressed me most. The single most surprising and even startling aspect of the GT3 R Hybrid is exactly as Bergmeister described: it's far easier to drive with all that extra power. The memory that will never leave me is not how fast it gets down the straights with 660hp, but how fast it gets out of the comers with four-wheel drive traction. It remains delicate, throttle adjustable and, I am sure, more than capable of punishing the unwary or cavalier but so long as you don't try to take undue advantage by jumping on the power too early in the comer, you can use the extra power of the system not just to go faster, but to go faster sooner, acquiring additional speed through the exit phase of the comer you can carry all the way down the straight beyond.
By any standards it was a dazzling performance, one which after a further eight laps left me desperate for a fresh set of slicks and a dozen more tours. "Imagine what it's like in the wet," said Bergmeister as I grinned and gabbled out some scattergun thoughts. With the traction of the additional drive at the front and the flat-six sitting over the rear wheels, I am sure it would make any two-wheel drive GT3 car look utterly impotent.
Porsche does not yet know whether it will continue to race the GT3 R Hybrid. But whether its life continues in public or private, continue it will for there is important work to be done. Hayes is fond of comparing the technology to that of a late 1980s mobile telephone. And that's the most exciting thing of all: if that's where they are now and an iPhone is where they're heading, however impressive the GT3 R Hybrid is, it is dearly nothing at all compared to what's coming. When will that be? I don't know, but June 2014 at a track in north west France would be a better bet than most.
Story: Andrew Frankel
gtpurelyporsche dot com
October 17, 2012, 6:55 am
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