The Porsche 911 GT3 is the fastest road car around the ‘Ring with a manual gearbox

The Porsche 911 GT3 has set yet another lap record, this time at the Nürburgring. The time: 6m 56.294s around the 20.8km loop to become [deep breath] the fastest road car with a manual transmission.

Yes, manual gearboxes matter, and they matter deeply to Porsche. Can you feel the sun on your heart, yet? You will now. “More and more 911 GT3 customers are opting for the six-speed manual transmission,” said Porsche’s GT boss Andreas Preuninger.

And, he said, more of them want to know how fast a manual-equipped GT3 can blitz around the ‘Ring. As it turns out, a full 9.5s faster than the ballistic Dodge Viper ACR, which back in 2017 under a privateer effort managed 7m 01.3s around the 20.6km loop.

Porsche extrapolated that to 7m 05.8s as the time to beat around the longer 20.8km version of the track, gave in-house hot-shoe Jörg Bergmeister a big bowl of Weetabix and strapped him into the new 503bhp 992.2 GT3. As per The Rules, it was fitted with the Weissach Pack and wore road-legal Michelin Pilot Sport Cup2 R tyres.

With the track temp a toasty 27 degrees and the sun shining, Bergmeister rowed his way around the Green Hell to set that blistering new time. Not only is it 9.5s quicker than the Viper, it’s also 3.6s quicker than the 992.1-gen GT3 with a PDK gearbox. That’s right: Bergmeister’s right arm is faster than Porsche’s otherworldly auto.

“I was faster in almost every corner,” Bergmeister said of the new GT3 versus the old one. “We learned a lot from the 911 GT3 RS, especially with the chassis. The car is much more stable on bumps and over the kerbs.

“Thanks to the eight-per-cent-shorter gear ratio, there is noticeably more drive from the rear axle when accelerating with the same engine power,” he added.

Crucially however, there was one metric that was of utmost importance. “Even if it would have been a few seconds faster with the seven-speed PDK – with the six-speed manual gearbox I definitely had more to do on the fast lap – and it was therefore even more fun,” he said.

Turns out fun matters, and it matters deeply to Porsche.