EXCLUSIVE 992 GT3 RS vs Corvette Z06 vs BMW M4 CSL w/ Randy Pobst — Cammisa’s Ultimate Lap Battle

Around a racetrack, these are three of the fastest production cars ever made. They have R-Compound tires, they have aero, and if it wasn't currently three degrees colder than the surface of Pluto, we might see lap times around Willow Springs faster than we've ever seen before. One of them is front-engine, one is mid-engine, and one is rear-engine. They all send their power to the rear wheels from a four-liter, a five-and-a-half-liter, and a three-liter with two turbos. Combined, they have more carbon than a crematorium. Speaking of carbon, we have a real record-setter here with us today. Their name is, their names is, Randy Post, and we have three of them. They are an SCCA Hall of Fame race car driver. They won the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona twice, and they crashed at Pike's Peak twice, and today they're going to... What are you doing? I am trying to say mostly nice things about yous. Social media? And what is with this smoke? It's heroic, Photo Bomber. Race car drivers gotta eat. Man, I love those guys. In a vacuum, any Porsche is impressive, because it would be impressive to fit any Porsche inside of a vacuum. Porsches typically don't find themselves in vacuums, they find themselves on racetracks, and on racetracks, race cars race more than just the clock. They race each other. Today, our race starts with the brand new 992 Porsche 911 GT3 RS. It has the 9,000 RPM, 4 liter, 518 horsepower engine that punches way above its weight. That's because the 911 punches below its weight. It is by far the lightest car here. That lightweight advantage wasn't quite enough a while back when we raced the regular GT3 versus the astonishingly quick Corvette Z06. The Vette was faster in a straight line. The GT3 RS has aero that's going to slow this car down even more in the straights, but in the corners, the aero will help. Will that be enough to keep up with the Z06? Is Randy prepared to use DRS? And what color underwear is Randy wearing? Nomex. Not a color. We've established just how fast the Z06 is in a straight line, but this is not what this Corvette is about. If you want to win a drag race in a Corvette, go get an E-Ray. We did. It was awesome. You should watch it. We'll link it below. The Z06 is the track special Corvette, and this car's Z07 package amps it up even further. This is 3.6 inches wider than the base Corvette, all to fit enormous tires. Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2Rs, same as the Porsche. The Z06's flat plane crank V8 revs to 8,600 RPM and makes the most power of any naturally aspirated production V8 ever, and 152 horses more than the Porsche. Does that mean the Chevy will be faster than the GT3? And what about the BMW? The CSL moniker is back, and don't underestimate it. First of all, Willow Springs is at elevation, and this has two turbochargers that will ensure that it makes its full power the entire time. That is decidedly not going to be the case with the other cars. And look, we all know BMWs make more power than you'd expect anyway. Second, the M4 CSL has the least extreme aero, so it'll suffer even less in a straight line. And despite being based on a big, fat luxury sedan, it somehow still weighs less than the Z06 does. Jason, this is a frapping street tire. How am I supposed to turn a hot lap on that? Well, step one, stop complaining. He's completely right. Look, BMW tried, but ultimately couldn't source this car's optional tire. The same Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2R tires that are on the other cars. Those are barely legal track tires. These are street tires. They're Pilot Sport 4Ss. But it is absolutely frigid here right now, so those tires might actually have a performance advantage over the Cup 2Rs. In other words, don't screw it up, Randy. And they're off. I told you them's Randys is quick. Now let's rewind the tape, go back, and find out what happened and how. That front straight is nothing but a big, long drag race, uphill and into a headwind. And so the BMW really had its work cut out for it because it left the last corner going 11 miles an hour slower than the Porsche. But it not only made up that 11 miles an hour, but also added another 5.3. It hit 153 miles an hour. That's a different league of speed. This BMW's got a lot of power. Twin turbos and they work. Randy was able to get on the brakes in the Porsche 50 feet after he got on the brakes in the BMW. And when he did, that thing pulled a brain-melting 1.7 G of deceleration. I can go deep, deep, deep on the brakes into one. Way better than the other two cars. Compared to the Corvette's 1.4 and the BMW, which got just under 1.3. The craziest thing is despite all of their differences, all three of these cars arrive here within a foot of each other. I'm all over me. Think of Willow's Turn 2 like a big long skid pad that goes up by six stories in elevation over more than 180 degrees of turn. And what this does is measure tire grip plus a car's ability to put a ton of power down to the ground at high speed. Well, this is where the Porsche 911's rear engine weight distribution really starts to pay dividends. Grip is incredible in Turn 2. 100 miles an hour. I've never seen anything nearly that high. The cars enter pretty close together, but the Porsche starts to walk right away. Its average speed through the corner is 7.6 miles an hour faster than the BMW's. The grip just isn't there. This thing is a handful. That's not really where the contest is here. It's still 3.6 miles an hour faster than the Corvette's. Feels good, but it's not generating the number. That is a huge difference in grip, and it results in the Porsche pulling a three car length lead over the Corvette by the end of this corner, and 10 car lengths over the BMW. The Turn 3 complex really separates good chassis tuning from great chassis tuning. In other words, it's a complete mother, and here's why. You coming in on camber under full braking, and just as you turn in, the road goes severely uphill. Well, that's a good thing. Uphill and on camber means you have a ton of grip. However, just when you think you have it all figured out, right at the apex when you're about to go back onto power, the camber, boom, goes away, which is a real bitch to control right over there while you're going uphill, but you have to because you have to get the car back over to the left-hand side in preparation for the second half of the S, which is a right-hand turn that goes up and over the crest of the hill. Great braking up the hill, into the power. Porsche picks up a bit of a push. Unusual there. However, it was right here in the braking zone where Randy first realized something wasn't quite right with the Z06. Oh boy, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, not stopping like I'd hoped. Our data clearly shows that in the braking zone for turn three, the Z06 couldn't even match the BMW's braking performance, despite the Vette's far more aggressive tires. Then, once Randy got the Z06 slowed down and turned, he had to manage the rear, though not nearly as much as he had to do in the BMW. This is pretty wild, man. I'm gonna wrestle this car. The very downhill complex of turns four and five are all about blending braking and turning, something the BMW did not do well. The Z06 was far easier to manage, especially on the way out of the corner. Good grip on exit. It puts power down. Meanwhile, the Porsche was rock solid and just extended its lead. Ripping down the hill. What a gearbox. Coming up next is turn six, which isn't all that much of a turn, but it becomes a jump if you're in a fast car, and the BMW is a really fast car. It's left. It's right. Over the hill. Well, definitely unruly over the bump. Six is a really important corner because its exit speed sets you up for the whole back section of the track. Here, the Porsche was perfect. This car doesn't roll. It doesn't pitch. The shocks are amazingly good at controlling the body. So I'm flat out over the jump at six. 120 on the exit. I've never seen anything like that. Randy had to be a little more cautious in the Corvette. I don't know if I can keep up with me It's a little wiggle, a little oversteer through the middle of six on the jump. The Porsche is the slowest accelerating car of the three, but enters the back straight at the highest speed. The BMW proceeds to hike up its skirt, spool the turbos, and explode towards the other two. Still, it's the Porsche that gets to turn eight first. Turning to turn eight, I'm thinking about the wing and the arrow. We're carrying a lot of speed, over 140 on the way in. Stuck, just stuck. Randy enters this corner at 143 miles an hour in the Porsche, 144 miles an hour in the Corvette, and 145 miles an hour in the BMW. Think about that. Look at that corner. He turns the steering wheel at 145 miles an hour. Nuts. Especially in a car without arrow, like the CSL. In case this seems anything less than completely insane, let's put it this way. These two cars on are averaging 130 miles an hour throughout the entire corner. During that time, the whole time, they're pulling between 1.2 and 1.3 g of lateral acceleration. That lasts for more than 17 seconds, and they cover more than a half of a mile doing that. If you experience that speed, that level of cornering force, for that long anywhere else on planet earth, you'd wind up in a casket. And if Randy tried to maintain that speed in the BMW, he would have wound up in the dirt too. Breaking a sweat here. Trying to keep up with myself, but now I know what all those other guys were going through at the races all the time. Modesty for the win. Randy's minimum speed here in the BMW is 119 miles an hour. The Porsche and the Z06 never drop below 127. That is the difference arrow makes. By the way, at this speed, the Porsche is making a thousand pounds of downforce. And yet to everyone's surprise, the Z06 and 911 are dead even coming through this corner within one hundredth of a second, though the Corvette is 130 feet behind the Porsche. Meanwhile, the BMW is two football fields back, halfway between the turn-in point and exit. Down to nine. I'm gonna come out on the front straight. I'll see if I can reel myself in with the torque. He'll need that torque because on the tight kink entering the front straight, the BMW dips as low as 90 miles an hour versus the Corvette's 98 and the Porsche's 101. Not quite as stable. I'm gonna be a little careful here. A little oversteer moment on the exit. Once out of nine, the drag race starts again to see how much ground the BMW and Corvette can make up. Oh, that flat brake V8 is sweet. And it's powerful too. It's barely doing it, but it is gaining on the Porsche. And boom, we're across the finish line. The Porsche wins. The slowest car wins around the track. It might be the slowest in a straight line, but the 911's combination of grip, aero, power, braking, and composure put it just ahead of the far more powerful Z06, which landed a mere nine car lengths behind, or just 6 tenths of a second. And the BMW? Well, it's 788 feet back there. The BMW might have been in a different zip code, but it is the fastest BMW we've ever tested around Willow Springs, beating even the big bad M5 CS by 6 tenths of a second, all without its sticky optional tires. In other words, this M4 certainly did its CSL badge proud. And the Z06? Despite the frigid temperatures, it tied the 759 horsepower Lamborghini Aventador SVJ, which Randy tested in ideal conditions. It very nearly kept up with a Porsche that costs almost exactly twice as much. And that Porsche, the 911 GT3 RS, is effectively a road-legal race car. It not only set a blisteringly quick lap time, but was easy to manage from start to its winning finishes. So there you have it, three very different formulas for track toys that share the same goal, speed. But surprise, if you want to set the fastest lap around Willow Springs in one of these monsters, you'll have to pick the slowest car.