We still pinch ourselves that the fine folks at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca allow us full run of one of the planet’s greatest racetracks, nestled in one of the most beautiful stretches of coastline in the world. Imagine winning that lottery, every summer.
If there’s one part of our Best Driver’s Car track days that I’ve seen change over the years, it’s the level of manufacturer support. Back in 2011, the only OEM who sent a support team was Ferrari. This year, the only manufacturer who didn’t was Toyota (besides, there was a tech from BMW there, so the Supra was covered). In short, car manufacturers are taking this event seriously.
What do these techs do? Put simply, they make sure the cars are in optimum condition when it’s time for pro driver Randy Pobst to lay down his fast lap. That can mean anything from telling us ideal tire pressures and drive mode settings to swapping out worn (or broken) bits.
Isn’t that cheating, the more conspiratorial among you might be asking? First, there are two kinds of racers: cheaters and losers. Plus, how much cheating could be done in full view of 60 MotorTrend staffers that wouldn’t be painfully obvious? The carmakers are there to help, and we appreciate that help.
The automakers tend to be naturally competitive with one another, too. This manifests as an equipment arms race. If AMG shows up with a fully kitted-out white-black-and-lime-liveried Mercedes-Benz Metris complete with an espresso machine, Porsche fires back with hydraulic jacks and tire warmers.
If this year’s Laguna days had a theme, it was failing to get things right the first time. Very occasionally, an OEM would look at a time Randy and our test team recorded and say, “We’d like to change something and try for a better time.” Let me reword that. Nearly all the manufacturers ask for a second shot. We rarely allow it. This year was different, as three OEMs successfully pleaded their cases. See what you make of the results.
Want more 2019 Best Driver’s Car content on the Supra, Mustang Shelby GT350, Urus, and the rest of the BDC fleet? Get the full story HERE, and watch all the Best Driver’s Car videos you can handle HERE.
Most notable was the Senna. Talk about pressure. In 2018, Randy and the Porsche GT2 RS set the production car lap record around Laguna Seca: a blisteringly quick 1:28.30, beating a Porsche 918 Spyder by over a half-second. Although the $294,000 911 isn’t anyone’s idea of cheap, the Senna costs almost $700,000 more. The Senna also makes nearly 100 extra hp (789 vs. 691) and weighs about 340 pounds less (3,011 vs. 3,355).
We surmised the Brit would slaughter the Porsche. But it didn’t. After the Senna’s first laps, it eked out a quicker time than the GT2 RS. Just. Not even 0.2 second. It had just set the track record, but naturally, McLaren thought it (and we) could improve on a few things.
The thing about McLaren is, it can develop a bit of tunnel vision. Forget the fact that there are 11 other cars present, all wanting attention. After much wheedling from the folks from Woking, we agreed to retest the Senna—but we had other cars to get through first.
Such as the 992 Porsche 911 Carrera S. Porsche used its tire warmers to great effect last year, when the toasty-tired GT2 RS set the Laguna lap record and the record at Willow Springs, Road Atlanta, and Road America. But unlike the heat-loving R-compound tires on the GT2 RS, the new Carrera S wears street tires, and preheating them was a bad idea—the new 992 laid down a slower lap than the 991.2 Carrera S from two years ago: 1:36.40 for the old, 1:36.72 for the neu. That is … nicht gut. Retest appeal No. 2 formally filed.
One final retest candidate, the GT 63 S, struggled with tire pressures, and Randy just couldn’t connect with the four-door coupe—at first. Too many modes or something. It was slower than the Jaguar Project 8, which set the Laguna Seca four-door lap record last year (with Randy at the wheel of a pre-production model). This time we put Randy in an all-kinks-ironed-out production version of the angry cat, and he popped off a 1:36.96 lap, improving on its record.
That was, until we re-lapped the GT 63 S with proper tire pressures: 1:36.26. Congrats to Mercedes; you are now the quickest four-door.
As for the Porsche, with the tire situation sorted, the 992 popped off a remarkable 1:35.52 lap, beating the old version of itself by nearly a full second. That’s progress. Speaking of progress, after being shown almost no love on Route 198, the Supra went to a dealer for a once-over. Given a clean bill of health, the red Zupra (get it, Z4 plus Supra?) felt much healthier when it was time for a lap. The crazy part? The Toyota beat the BMW M2 around Laguna, 1:40.57 versus 1:40.83. How did the 335-hp, automatic-transmission Toyota beat the 405-hp, dual-clutch M car? Let’s just say the Supra’s power numbers are comically underrated.
It all came down to the McLaren. Not only had the hypercar struggled to beat a dominant yet (let’s face it) garden-variety supercar, but the Senna had also bested the 720S it’s based on by just 1.67 seconds (1:28.11 versus 1:29.78)—and that was with the Senna on Trofeo Rs and the 720S on ho-hum Pirelli Corsas. McLaren had to go faster. Much was on the line.
Laguna Seca is a tough circuit for a number of reasons. Although tracks like Road America reward top-end speed, Laguna Seca has only one long straight, so it rewards corner exit acceleration. If a car relies on downforce for lap times, Laguna Seca doesn’t feature many sectors where downforce becomes a factor. Also, Laguna has three major braking zones within its 11 turns, so the track is hard on brakes, and cars that struggle to put the power down don’t fare well. Route 198 taught us that brakes aren’t an issue for the Senna, but Randy had complained about oversteer when exiting corners. He’d spent too much time fighting the car.
One last time, out Randy went. Everyone in the pits held their collective breath. Warm-up lap, flat out onto the front straight, and then … fast lap not happening, fast lap not happening again, and finally, on his last lap, tires just starting to lose grip … boom. The Senna became the first production car to lap Laguna in less than 1 minute, 28 seconds, recording a 1:27.62.
That’s a huge accomplishment until you realize the Senna’s time still isn’t quite 0.7 second quicker than the Porsche GT2 RS. Put another way, after being fettled over like a prima donna by a team of factory technicians flown in from England, the Senna still wasn’t much quicker than a Porsche. But that’s racing. Split seconds separate fastest from first loser.
When I was a sophomore in high school, our football team didn’t lose a game. We didn’t win every game, either, as we tied one. Call it undefeated-ish. I’m going to say to McLaren what Coach Shotlift said to the team as we took a collective knee in the end zone after winning that final game: “Well, men, you did it. You did it ugly, but you did it.”
The Science Behind the Hot Lap
Eleven high-performance cars and one quasi-racing car. There are two reasons I like the graphical technique we’ve created for depicting the performance of our dozen Best Driver’s Car candidates around WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. With each car depicted in its own imaginary lane—as if placed on a humongous slot car track—it’s easier to comprehend the otherwise confusing scene of 12 cars simultaneously re-enacting their single best laps. The other reason? It’s an excuse to generate giant spreadsheets, chock-full of sines and cosines, that mathematically translate into a graphical representation. That and, well, it’s fun to nerd out on Excel calculations.
What’s happening here? The lap time of the fastest car—the McLaren Senna—has been chopped into five equal segments. When the Senna reaches each of these waypoints, we see all the rest of the pack’s relative and simultaneous positions. In addition, we’ve spotlighted some of the more telling data at various locations. For instance, the top speeds occur on the front straight, where the Senna reaches 157.7 mph—36.0 mph faster than the slowest along that stretch, the Toyota Supra.
Later, we detail the cars’ vertical ascent speeds while climbing up from Turn 6 to the Corkscrew; think of it as if each car were rising in its own elevator car. Predictably, the Senna rockets upward the fastest, at 15.5 mph. What goes up must come down (the hangman’s drop of the notorious Corkscrew); the most tentative descent was the Challenger’s, perhaps suggesting a lack of driver confidence in the grip of a particularly heavy car as it suddenly got very light.
The lateral acceleration (cornering g’s) in Turn 9 might seem strangely high (2.03 g by the Porsche 911) until you realize that the corner is noticeably banked, amplifying tire grip. However, a better representation of cornering grip happens in Turn 11, which is very flat, while their highest braking g’s happen while approaching it (the Senna’s peak of 1.55 g’s is amazing). – Kim Reynolds
The post 2019 Best Driver’s Car Day 3-5: Lap Laguna Seca/Relap Laguna Seca appeared first on MotorTrend.
Source: WORLD NEWS
