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The Porsche 911 GT3 RS is evo’s 2023 Car, and 2024 Track Car of the Year, a car that has proved it’s unbeatable on both road and track for driving thrills, but can it beat Radical’s track-only SR3 XXR and McLaren’s pure supercar, the 750S, against the clock at Anglesey Circuit? Our Leaderboard triple-test has the answer.
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0:00
We are at our home circuit at Anglesea and we're doing a slightly different take on our usual leader board
0:22
We've got three cars here today is our reigning car of the year and track car of the year, the GT3 RS, the McLaren's 750s
0:30
and the new Radical SR3XXR. At the moment, it's only one's game, I think
0:40
So each of these cars is quite different and have all got quite a few strengths
0:44
and a few, well, potential weaknesses. The radical is about half the weight
0:48
of the other two cars here, and it's on slick tyres, which will give it a bit more grip
0:51
It very definitely is an advantage, but the two road cars are on
0:55
the most extreme road legal tyres you can have, really. so I think the difference in grip won't be massive, but it will play a part
1:02
The Porsche's got an incredible set of active aerodynamics, this enormous rear wing higher than the roof on the car
1:09
active front wings, and although it gives away some power to the McLaren
1:13
which is 750 horsepower compared with the Porsche's 550, I think. The Porsche is a huge amount of downforce
1:20
so it's going to be interesting to see what happens there. Anglese is an interesting track because it hasn't got the really big straits
1:26
like a Silverstone or something. of that order but it's got a really interesting mix of corner so there's some quite big awkward
1:32
braking areas which the heavier the car the harder it is to get the thing stopped but then you've got
1:37
some really quite high speed corners which will suit the cars with more grip and more downforce so
1:42
I think at certain points of the circuit certain cars will will really shine so I think the radical
1:47
sort of latter part of the course where it's very tight and twisty I think it'll love those and I
1:52
think the McLaren will romp through the quickest bits and I think the Porsche is actually going to be very good
1:58
everywhere but it hasn't quite got the power of the McLaren and it's twice the weight of the radical
2:03
so it's going to be really interesting a good track day car i think it needs to have enough power
2:15
to be exciting clearly the McLaren is going to tick that box but equally you want something that's
2:20
light and agile and fun to throw around and break late and do all the things that you can't really do
2:26
on the road so clearly the radical is going to be brilliant at that. I think trying to decide which is going to be quickest is really very difficult
2:33
I'm not quite sure which way this is going to go. If I were a betting man, I think maybe the Porsche might have it
2:39
It's such a capable car. Even on road legal tyres, it's on a brand new set of Michelin Cup 2R tyres
2:45
It's going to be interesting. I think it'll be a case of whether the McLaren's extra power comes in
2:50
and whether the radical's sheer lack of mass kind of sees it through
2:54
but maybe the Porsche if I had to bet. I need to commit. Come on, commit, commit, commit
2:58
I think the Porsche is going to be quickest. It's such a special
4:23
It such a special thing like it doesn drive like anything else even other than other 9 it doesn drive like anything else even other 9 it doesn drive like anything else Even other 9 it doesn drive Once you get into it you just learn to use the revs
4:47
and it just feels so at home on a track and yet so approachable. It's a magic thing
4:52
I'm blown away by this car every time I drive it. It's really, really super stable in the high-speed stuff
4:57
which I guess is the aero working its magic. But it's also incredibly predictable in the low-speed stuff
5:03
It's really drivable, really, really. really good fun. This car just seems to be ready for more and more and more. You can really lean on it
5:08
You can use the curbs. You can be quite brutal with it and it seems
5:12
to take it lap after lap. It's consistent. If we had more time, if we had just
5:16
the Porsche here and you could keep adjusting, I think you would always find some
5:20
time and if you didn't find the time you'd find slightly different behaviour that maybe
5:24
you can tailor the car to your preference. So I would not say that we've got
5:28
the absolute nth degree from it simply because the amount of time you would need
5:32
But I love the fact that you can do and you could change the car to any circuit you go on
5:38
So I think it's a massive step forwards in terms of how you engage with your car during the track day
5:43
We've kind of left the diff in a neutral position. We've stiffened the dampers up a reasonable amount because it's quite a warm sunny day here
5:50
The track's quite relatively grippy now that we've been around it a few times
5:54
And the aero, we left that in dynamic modes to kind of make its own decisions because I trust that more than I trust myself
6:00
There's one thing that really kind of brought home the bandwidth of this car was on the cool-down
6:04
lap coming into the pits. Radio Wales traffic news came on, which just kind of shows you can
6:08
lap the Nordschlif and yet, you know, still listen to the radio and probably listen to a podcast
6:12
on the way home. It's amazing just, yeah, how flexible this car is
6:34
The McLaren's sheer power might help it here because although Anglesea is a very twisty circuit
6:42
it's a little bit like Monaco in some ways. There are some very fast sections of the track and we're expecting the McLaren to really eat up the straits
6:49
So it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. I just jumped out of the 750s
8:20
It's so quick round here. It's got so much straight line performance
8:24
All the straights seem about 30% shorter when you're in a 750s, I think
8:28
But it changes direction brilliantly, but it rotates so quickly that the rear is already working quite hard
8:33
so then when you try and pick the throttle up it's then quite easy to spin the wheels we're driving
8:37
with no driver aids on because we've found that just inhibits the car too much but you kind of feel
8:43
like you need a little bit of help just to manage the traction because it's sort of third gear out of all
8:47
the hairpins and it still lights the tires up so it's quite a it's quite a job to try and put the power
8:53
down it is a pretty wild animal as you'd expect of a car with that much power but the thing that
9:01
struck me as how controllable it is. It does slide around and it does light up the tyres really easily
9:06
Most road cars, particularly very powerful road cars like the McLaren, they're great. If you
9:11
drive at yours or the cars sort of eight seven eight tenths it fine but as soon as you try and push as fast as you can go or try and get to as fast as the car would go then you really find the limits of the tire We were speaking about the slick tires versus road tires earlier
9:26
and even on Trafeo-Rs, you can feel that they're not quite giving you the grip that are slipwood
9:32
which is as important under braking as it is under acceleration. So you're just managing all things going on
9:37
I think there's quite a narrow window of usability for the tyres, because they're very soft and they give their best quite quickly
9:44
I think you only really have a window of a few laps for them to do their best work
9:48
and you can do a cool-down lap, let them cool down a little bit. But I think there's a sweet spot where they're at their best
9:53
And eventually it just became clear we were past that window and we weren't going to get a quicker time anymore
10:00
But the car has so much more performance than engine performance, certainly
10:05
So to work beyond the limits of the stability controls and things
10:09
you will extract more acceleration, but it puts more onus on you
10:13
and then you have to manage the traction and you don't want to come right out of the throttle but it's a good fight
10:19
it's a great exercise and that's partly why you drive cars like this because they stimulate you and challenge you
10:24
It's got the variable drift control, they call it VDC, where you can sort of choose how much slip it gives you
10:29
and initially I thought that might be the way to go to have a little bit of a safety net to lean on
10:33
to kind of help the car find traction out of the hairpins but it turns out it is just quicker with everything off
10:38
No choice but to swallow a brave pill and drive it properly. The thing that really struck me with this car
10:43
as with all McLaren's actually is just how much feedback it gives you. I think maybe that's down to the really stiff structure, the carbon monocoque
10:50
It's really consistent, so it's just the same thing every lap, whereas some cars are a bit more unpredictable
10:54
So even though it is so powerful and Larry, you do trust it
11:13
So these are new seats? The radical is half the weight of the other two cars, but it's much less powerful
11:23
That car's got about 232 horsepower compared with 550 or so and 750
12:43
There's a corner where you have to break in the Porsche, in the radical you're changing up from fourth to fifth
12:54
It's a whole different ballgame in terms of how late you can break, how much speed you can carry, you have to kind of recalibrate everything
13:00
You sort of, your brain's telling you should be braking, but when you do, you've got miles of space
13:05
So it's quite a leap of faith to get anywhere near the limit of the car. Yeah, it's like a different world driving those cars
13:11
they're so light, like so, so light, that it changes direction in a way that no normal road car
13:17
would ever turn into a corner and carry speed. Obviously it has the aero as well
13:21
The Porsche has a lot of aero too, but it's a bigger, heavier car. So I suppose the arrow-to-size ratio and slick tires as well
13:28
I think it's easy to forget just what a different slicks make. I think in a way you'd probably want more grip in the road cars
13:35
because the tyres are working harder. The radical just seems to float
13:38
And part of that is obviously the grip of the tyre. There's no movement in any tread blocks
13:43
So every movement of the steering wheel translates to a movement in the front wheel
13:47
So I think we got in the ballpark of the car potential
14:03
but I think, as always, with a racing car, if you keep fine-tuning the setup and also fine-tune yourself
14:08
I think there was still a bit of time to come from me and from the car. I think we could have unlocked even more pace from it, I think
14:14
The confidence thing comes from knowing it will stick, and it does with the heavier, more powerful race cars
14:22
you've got more to manage because you've got the mass to manage. So I think the road cars feel more immediately familiar
14:27
but actually once you start to drive them harder, they will get harder to drive
14:32
whereas I think the radical actually gets easier to drive the harder you drive it. Once you trust it, and you get a feel for it, there's nothing like it
14:42
It's really hard to pick a favourite of the three cars because they're all so different
14:46
Although I really, really love the radical, if we leave it to one side for a moment and talk about the two road legal
14:52
cars. I love the Porsche because it had staying power for lap after lap after lap. It was really
14:57
easy on its tyres, relatively easy on its brakes, and you could really sort of push it very
15:01
very hard without the lap time ever dropping off. And it was so consistent the way it behaved
15:05
corner to corner. It kind of did the same thing, lap after lap, so you really trusted it. The McLaren was a bit more of a wild ride. But at the same time, for a 750 horsepower car, it was
15:16
again, really controllable. And even when it did lose grip and it started to let go, you always knew
15:21
where you were with it. So even though it was a lot spikier than the 9-11
15:26
partly because it's got so much more torque, it was still very controllable and gave you a lot of feedback. So weirdly, you still trusted it
15:31
You never felt like it was trying to kill you, even if it might have looked like it on the camera
15:35
My favourite was actually the radical. I just love that type of car
15:39
and I love how deep you can dig and everything you put into it, it gives you back
15:44
My favourite was, yeah, absolutely the Porsche. I'm a Porsche fanboy anyway
15:49
but I think what they've achieved with that car does take the best of either of the other two cars we've got here
15:56
and it mixes them together in a way that is really surprisingly approachable
16:00
because it looks so hardcore from the outside. And it's very advanced and lots of adjustability
16:05
which is quite intimidating. But once you engage with it, it's actually really approachable and rewarding to learn more about the car
16:11
and then feel that translate into the way it drives. So the quickest car of the three was the radical by actually by quite some margin
16:18
Speaking off the top of my head, I think the radical did a 106.4, I wasn't expecting it to be as far ahead as it was, which I suppose shows that slick tires
16:27
low centre of gravity and lightweight will always sort of come through at the end of the day
16:32
Much of the circuit suits the radical because its direction changes and lower speed
16:36
and the long corners that are here suit the slick tires and the wings. The Porsche and the McLaren were really, really close, like tenths of a second between them
16:46
Despite our predictions, the Porsche was the slower of those two cars
16:50
But the Porsche felt the better car throughout the lap. So make of that what you will
16:54
In terms of where these cars fit in the overall leaderboard, the radical is actually the second quickest car
16:59
we've ever timed around here. And the only thing quicker was another non-road legal track slash race car
17:05
which is the Revolution 500 Evo. Then the McLaren's a bit of a surprise
17:09
because it's actually a couple of tens slower than the 720s, which we've timed previously
17:14
which could be just purely down to conditions on the day. Or it may be that that extra torque and shorter gear
17:20
gear ratio final drive might have made it a bit spikier to drive. So I think if we could make some kind of Frankenstein's monster hybrid of all three cars
17:28
I suppose if you could magically keep the radicals lightweight somehow, while also incorporating elements of the other two
17:34
I think I'd have the approachability and the exploitability of the Porsche
17:39
because you can drive it like a racing car, be very neat and tidy, and really get nerdy with the suspension settings and diff and everything
17:48
And the McLaren, you'd take the power all day. long because it's an absolute nutcase of a thing. In a straight line it's quite addictive
17:54
When you've actually light up all the shift lights and you've got the thing on full song, it's almost kind of sensory overload. Your eyes are widening and everything's
18:02
coming past you so fast. So I suppose the McLaren's straight line speed, maybe the Porsche's
18:07
engine note and its configurability and just the radicals sheer nimbleness. If you could
18:12
combine all of those things, you'd have quite something of it
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