New Porsche 911 GT3. DRIVEN. Revolution?

Many have knocked Porsche’s decision to take the electronic steering route, but the GT3 demonstrates just how hard the team has worked to perfect it. There’s buckets of feel, solid heft and sharper feedback from the front wheels – coupled with a fully variable e-differential – allowing me to place the front end exactly where I want it. Somehow – and I’m really not sure how – there’s much more feel through the wheel than the 911 Carrera, the car remaining planted as I experiment with speeds through long and tight corners alike.

As well as Porsche’s Torque Vectoring System, which now comes as standard on the GT3, another nifty addition is active rear-wheel steering, a system that through two electro-mechanical actuators either side of the rear axle shortens or lengthens tracking rods by up to 15 percent. This steers the rear wheels in the opposite direction to the fronts, ensuring a tighter turning circle than the older generation, though not at the expense of feel through the wheel. It’s a very clever system, one that can be used at up to 80kph and which keeps the rear wheels in-check. Turn off the traction control and they will start to step out – which is always fun – but solid work from the 305 rear Sport Cup tyres means they’re still difficult to break. Throw in a 20 percent improvement in downforce over the previous model – thanks to the new more aerodynamically savvy body – and grip in the GT3 is beyond belief. The suspension really earns its money in the new Porsche, and for only the most hardcore of rack days run will you feel normal suspension settings are insufficient compared with Sport.

Overall the GT3 is a big step forward from the previous car. As a performance machine it’s as impressive as we expected, thanks to clever engineering and a few nifty new additions to the drivetrain and chassis. It remains one of the few cars you can drive to the track, thrash all day long, and then drive home during your weekend. And yet as a daily driver on the commute to the office, the new GT3 is more versatile than its predecessor, offering plenty of room (for 2), a comfortable driving position and an intelligent (and responsive) PDK gearbox no longer requiring a knackering workout for the left leg.

I feel sure that the new Porsche 911 GT3 will alienate the purists – a curse most new Porsches have to bear – but am also confident that the sportscar will attract a wider audience due to its usability. Indeed, the lack of a manual transmission takes nothing away from the thrill of driving. On the contrary, I think it allows for a greater focus on driving and overall enjoyment of the car.

Without doubt, this is one of the best sportscars crankandpiston has driven in a quite a while. That is a revolution.