Nissan Got the Memo, Says No to Cheating on the ‘Ring

The head honchos over at Nissan have responded to Porsche’s experiment with a GT-R on the Nurburgring. The official statement from Nissan is that the GT-R which ran the ‘Ring in 7:29 was running on the optional Dunlop tires, which are offered to all GT-R buyers. Furthermore, it was a standard showroom-spec GT-R which had no modifications to improve it’s power output.

So what about Porsche? Did they not opt for the better Dunlop tires? Were they running on the cheaper Bridgestone’s? Were they sandbagging and not pushing the GT-R as hard as they could? Maybe the driver they used just can’t drive as well as Nissan’s driver could.

Stay tuned, Porsche or Chevy should be chiming in soon.

Source: Drive.com.au

Porsche takes a Stand Against Nissan’s Lap Time on the ‘Ring

Ever since the Nissan GT-R ran around the Nurburgring in a blistering 7 minutes and 29 seconds, the auto industry has been ablaze. The GT-R is heavier and has less power than many of the cars it beat around the ‘Ring, but Nissan claimed it as their lap time in an official press release. Most people were shocked, many were stunned, but auto makers from around the world questioned the validity of the time, particularly Chevy. Now Porsche has done their own testing with a brand new GT-R they purchased from a US dealer.

Porsche claims their GT-R was completely stock, untouched with production tires and the fastest time Porsche could achieve was 7 minutes and 54 seconds, a full 25 seconds slower than Nissan’s claimed lap time. Porsche also ran stock 911 and GT2 models within two hours of the GT-R and got around the ‘Ring in 7:38 and 7:34, respectively.

August Achleitner, the 911 product chief at Porsche, stated “for us, it’s not clear how this time is possible. What we can imagine with this Nissan is they used other tyres.” If his guess is right, Nissan most likely used a semi-slick racing tire. Achleitner also wanted to be very clear that he was not speaking bad of the GT-R, in fact he commented that it was a very fast and consistent car, but the claimed lap time just didn’t make any sense to them.

This is a bold statement from Porsche and I for one can’t wait for Nissan’s response to it.

Source: CarsGuide