The one comparison everyone wanted to see. The three top offerings from Ferrari, Porsche and McLaren finally on the same track, driven hard by their owners. And instead of a drag race or an airfield, the proving ground is the legendary F1 track, Spa-Francorchamps.
These are real production cars as you buy them from the showroom floor, not special one-off versions of the cars custom tuned to perform a record run while supported by a full team of engineers. While of course this isn’t the ultimate pace these cars can achieve, never think that the above on-boards are slow laps parading around the track.
Putting all these together wouldn’t be possible without the help of these great private owners. Mark driving the wheels off his brand new 918, Florian passing the keys of his LaFerrari to Adrian Sutil that is just taking the LaFerrari for a drive to get a taste of the Italian beast and Gerard jumping out of his Lamborghini racecar to do a quick exhibition lap in his… road car, the P1. All three cars are unique in their own special way (Since as you’ll see; while similar in performance, they achieve it with a completely different approach) and anything that can easily lap in the 2 m 30-40s range at Spa-Francorchamps on street tires deserve serious respect.
Petrol. When you’ve used one, you’ve used them all, right? Not necessarily. We recently spent some time at Shell’s Trackside Laboratory at the 2015 Belgian Grand Prix to discover what goes into an F1 fuel, how it affects a team’s performance, and how it compares to the stuff you put in your road car.
Is F1 fuel the same as road fuel? … More
Factory Porsche racer Patrick Long has a million-dollar historic 911 3.0 Carrera RSR from 1975 to pedal, less than half the horsepower of the fastest cars in the class, and uses every ounce of talent and racecraft he owns in a classic duel between overdogs and an underdog at Monterey.
What began as indifference quickly morphed into an obsession.
It also turned owner Alexander Bermudez from a water-cooled Porsche driver into one who describes his 964-based “hot rod,” The Growler, as “unapologetically raw”—and just the thing for slaying tight mountain passes.
“For me, it’s just about the emotional experience,” Bermudez says. “The Growler is a pretty interesting blend. It’s not too raw, but when you want the feedback from a raw car, it gives it to you—and gives it to you in spades.”
From Trinidad and Tobago, cars weren’t exactly a focus. After all, Bermudez saw his first Porsche only after he’d moved to London! Two enthusiast owners before him spent a considerable amount of time and money making this 1990 964 go quickly, but Bermudez was intent on finishing the car.
Completing everything from grafting on a new sunroof-less roof to adding Recaro seats and roll cage, nothing has escaped attention. Its massaged motor, lighter weight, Carrera RS suspension, and other performance modifications have turned the car into a seriously impressive canyon carver.
“Because it’s so light, it has the speed and acceleration you’d typically find in the water-cooled cars, and yet, because it’s slightly older and has automatic steering taken out of it, it has really good steering feel,” he says. “The closer you get to the edge, it becomes more comfortable, because it’s telling you exactly what’s going on.”
Spending some weekends racing with the Porsche Owners Club has helped to teach Bermudez how to go fast, and most importantly, what he wants from a performance car.