A Porsche 911 GT3 Test Mule Covered 3100 Miles At A Constant 186mph

Porsche has casually revealed some of the procedures it went through to prepare the latest 911 GT3 for sale, including the impressive feat of having maintained a constant 186mph around the Nardo Ring for a total of 3106 miles.

The circular test facility in Italy, conveniently owned by Porsche, was the base for the challenge. It involved around 220 laps of the 14-mile circuit, depending on exactly how Porsche measured the distance and rounded off its figures. With the only stops made for fuel, it was a gruelling achievement for machine and drivers alike.

In terms of raw driving time, not factoring-in fuel stops, the feat would have taken no less than 16 hours and 42 minutes to complete. With plenty of splash-and-dash pit-stops, plus (we assume) driver changes, the test must have taken an hour or two longer than that.

The 503bhp engine also spent 22,000 hours on the test rig running on simulated circuit profiles and focusing on full-throttle running for extended periods. At 4.0 litres it’s the equal-largest engine ever to grace a production 911. Maximum power comes at 8400rpm, with the rev limiter set for the magic 9000rpm.

Buyers of the new GT3 will have to wait until May for the first deliveries but it’s set to be a hell of a machine thanks to extensive aerodynamics work on top of the mechanical engineering. More than 160 hours were spent in the wind tunnel, including running some 700 simulations of air coming at the car in myriad different ways, from loads of different angles and at all sorts of speeds.

Downforce is up, too. At 124mph the new GT3 is said to offer 50 per cent more than its predecessor in the standard trim. By tweaking settings that figure can be raised to 150 per cent more. Remember, this is just the normal GT3 – there’s still a GT3 RS to come. Looking at the GT3’s stats, the RS will basically have to be a race car with number plates…