Godzilla (as they call it) Vs whatever it seems

[LeonOfTheDead]

just found this on leftlanenews:

Corvette engineers say ZR1 will best Nissan GT-R's Nürburgring lap time

Nissan GT-R laps Nurburgring in 7 minutes 29 seconds

i have to express my doubts about this.
up to now, the record-holder is the Pagani Zonda F Clubsport, which run the 'ring in 7:27.82 the september 25th 2007. the record was registered with some judges from the guinness IIRC. i know there'are some radicals/donkevoorts and others which run even faster, but theyr aren't proper road cars, and in some cases they aren't standard models neither. another supercar accredited for a previous record is the Porsche Carrera GT with 7:30. not an official record btw. what i would like to point out is that both the zonda and the carrera gt weight more or less 1,2-1,3 tons, have a carbon fiber chassis, over 612 hp the german and 650 hp the italian and a very good downforce, even if the zonda doesn't have a proper vacuum effect.
the other contenders like the radicals etc have less hp, let's say 350 hp maybe more in some cases, but weight something like 500 kg.
now the nissan comes up with this thing, the new GT-R, fast, for sure, but just a second behind the zonda?! with standard tires?! it weights 500 kg more, have 200 hp less, but the plus of the dsg gearbox and the all-wheel-drive. but i am pretty sure they aren't so powerful to match the time. otherwise, a supercar doesn't make sense anymore...
what i find even more weird is that no one is going to doubt this numbers, even with the new ZR1 coming next.
in a private test in a small circuit in italy, Franciacorta, the lapped a bmw 320si with standard tires (which are already sportier than standard ones) with the same car but equipped with the slick tires of the WTCC cars. considering the road car is setted specifically for those "standard" tires so it wasn't tunned to fit slicks, they managed to cut the lap time by almost 10 seconds, on a track which is long something like 2,8 km. i am wondering what a semislick can cut from the time on the Nordshleife, almost 21 km long.
opinions?

[Niko_Fx]

I love how they keep claiming that the ZR1 this, the ZR1 that.... Given the GT-R's weight, it would need 714hp to match the ZR1's power-to-weight ratio.

They should be ashamed that they're trying to defeat the GT-R with so much power.

[LeonOfTheDead]

I love how they keep claiming that the ZR1 this, the ZR1 that.... Given the GT-R's weight, it would need 714hp to match the ZR1's power-to-weight ratio.

They should be ashamed that they're trying to defeat the GT-R with so much power.

i suppose the zr1's engine could be more reactive and with the torque better distributed on the range of the engine, btw, this underline even more my disappointment: a "tunned" vette pretending to be faster then the latest gt-r pretending to be better the probably better supercar on the market right now. i am sure they both are two amazing cars to drive, even if i find them both ugly.

[clutch-monkey]

well, i already have doubts about the GTR's time as it is (to be fair, it'd still be ridiculously fast if they did it properly) so maybe chev could pull some numbers out it's ass, with neither of them realising how irrelevant a nurburgring time is in practical terms.

[orne]

Yea Leon, I had pretty much the same thought when I heard of that.

I suppose the definitive test was if made by an independent party(Sport-Auto magazine comes to mind) to a random car. We really can't be sure of what kind of changes those specific test cars have, from engine experiments which could compromise reliability to suspension setups that would be undriveable on the road.

Still, what they have achieved with the GTR is impressive and appears to defy physics!

[LeonOfTheDead]

well, i already have doubts about the GTR's time as it is (to be fair, it'd still be ridiculously fast if they did it properly) so maybe chev could pull some numbers out it's ass, with neither of them realising how irrelevant a nurburgring time is in practical terms.

i prefer the "jaguar's attitude" to the ring. they use it as a benchmark since it creates all sort of difficult situations of an open road but in safe condition, paying no attention to the time the are able to achieve.

[Ferrer]

i prefer the "jaguar's attitude" to the ring. they use it as a benchmark since it creates all sort of difficult situations of an open road but in safe condition, paying no attention to the time the are able to achieve.

Exactly.

I don't care what time does the GT-R get. I still can't like it.

[LeonOfTheDead]

I don't care what time does the GT-R get. I still can't like it.

karma: +1

[Roentgen]

I know very little about the ring and how they record the times, but would it have anything to do with the driver? Maybe a good driver will get around faster, even in a slower car, and vice versa...?

[P4g4nite]

I've never raced around it but I hear that track isn't all billiard table flat, I suspect that with it's super tricky AWD the GTR is able to turn power into forward momentum more often than high powered RWD cars. Maybe.

[LeonOfTheDead]

I know very little about the ring and how they record the times, but would it have anything to do with the driver? Maybe a good driver will get around faster, even in a slower car, and vice versa...?

you are right, but in this case they both used professional drivers with ton of laps about the track in their career.

I've never raced around it but I hear that track isn't all billiard table flat, I suspect that with it's super tricky AWD the GTR is able to turn power into forward momentum more often than high powered RWD cars. Maybe.

it's sure the driver of the gt-r could be less worried about how much power the tires are ready to deliver to the ground in every moment since there is an army of cpu to think about that and split the power to every single tire, but IMO, the supposed pro given by the AWD isn't equivalent to the 500 kg gap in weight and the fact that the carbon fiber in the gt.r isn't used as a structural element but almost only to save weight so in body panels and some components, AFAIK. the race car of the 24 hours race aren't equipped with TC or similar gadgets, deliver at least 600 hp and are RWD except for an RS4, at least in the last two edition, and speaking about the contender for the overall win. the drivers used in this test are usually the same guys who every year race in this event and sometime are test-driver of the same factory on the ring, so i think an AWD system it's an help, but not so relevant to cut down a time at a supercar level.

[P4g4nite]

The 'ring has something like 100 turns, the GTR has shown that it can do straights as well as anything and if it's AWD is giving it an advantage over traction problem parts that will translate into a huge amount over such a long lap.
Furthermore, it isn't lagging that far behind in power. Motortrend's tests indicate it has at least 507bhp and even as much as 570 not outside the realm of possibility, with more torque than a Z06.

Not saying Nissan are definately on the level but this car has been out performing what the numbers would suggest in each test since it came out.

[LeonOfTheDead]

The 'ring has something like 100 turns, the GTR has shown that it can do straights as well as anything and if it's AWD is giving it an advantage over traction problem parts that will translate into a huge amount over such a long lap.
Furthermore, it isn't lagging that far behind in power. Motortrend's tests indicate it has at least 507bhp and even as much as 570 not outside the realm of possibility, with more torque than a Z06.

Not saying Nissan are definately on the level but this car has been out performing what the numbers would suggest in each test since it came out.

even if i consider the usual fact that japanese sport cars have more hp that what the automakers say, it's still very heavy. and i found it's very silly to say one of your car has let's say 450 hp and then selling it with 500 hp just to surprise some enthusiast. it's a trick like when they introduced a new model in a very very low numbers at the beginnig, so they are all sold out in a short time and then everyone will get mad for that car just because no one can have it.
the only real thing i'm surprised with is it's price. i guess the decided to use the GT-R as a big add campaign, taking a very little profit from its selling numbers, but huge profits from its reputation.

[2ndclasscitizen]

even if i consider the usual fact that japanese sport cars have more hp that what the automakers say, it's still very heavy. and i found it's very silly to say one of your car has let's say 450 hp and then selling it with 500 hp just to surprise some enthusiast. it's a trick like when they introduced a new model in a very very low numbers at the beginnig, so they are all sold out in a short time and then everyone will get mad for that car just because no one can have it.

Or more likely, it's a case of honesty, rather than optimism. For instance, the 1000hp Bugatti spec the Veyron at is a guaranteed minimum output, not a figure you'll get if it wasn't made on a Friday arvo by the apprentice, it will have at least 1000hp. Nissan's probably doing the same, being slightly conservative in their quoted output so people don't get disappointed if their car doesn't make as much power as the brochure says.

[LeonOfTheDead]

Or more likely, it's a case of honesty, rather than optimism. For instance, the 1000hp Bugatti spec the Veyron at is a guaranteed minimum output, not a figure you'll get if it wasn't made on a Friday arvo by the apprentice, it will have at least 1000hp. Nissan's probably doing the same, being slightly conservative in their quoted output so people don't get disappointed if their car doesn't make as much power as the brochure says.

the veyron prodeces circa 1060 hp to be sure to have the declaired 1001 hp.
the difference is of the 6%, not really much. for the GT-R the difference between declared and tested seems to be as far as 20%...it's no more optimism. and i also think this is a kind of problem you could have only with extreme products like the veyron, a gt-r is pretty a standard car for a lot of reasons (from an engineering point of view). imo, they can be pretty sure about how much power the engines will have, without the need to add so much power just "to be sure". also, when i read about the 1060 hp of the veyron, it seemed clear from the article that the difference between 1001 and 999 hp is more "psychological" than mechanical, so they needed this kind of trick.