Porsche 911 GT3 RS first drive review: Epitome of race cars for the roads

The Porsche 911 GT3 RS has been a dream car of mine for the longest time. For the uninitiated, here's a quick explainer of what the car is all about.

The original GT3 moniker was introduced back in 1999 with the 996-generation 911 as a homologation model to allow the cars to enter the FIA GT3 cup.

You can already guess where this effort led to — weight reduction, a more powerful, high-revving engine along with aerodynamic upgrades for more downforce to increase the car's performance.

Later on, Porsche decided to take things further and came up with the first-ever 911 GT3 RS in 2003. More weight was shaved off with the use of carbon fibre components, polycarbonate rear window, tweaked engine and suspension, as well as even more aggressive aero parts.

This time round, I've found myself behind the wheel of the latest 992-generation 911 GT3 RS — if you thought the 996 GT3 RS seemed ludicrous, the 992 takes it to the next level.

Race-derived, track-dominating aerodynamic package

For most cars, the exterior is led by design ideologies, but with the 911 GT3 RS, the approach is vastly different. As a high-performance derivative of the 911, its basic design, such as the shape of the car and the head lights and taillights, are in line with the base car — what's different here are the various aerodynamic bits and pieces that the car has been adorned with.

The original 911 (996) GT3 RS had an oversized rear spoiler that produced 35kg of downforce at 201km/h. The 911 (992) GT3 RS today produces a total downforce of 409kg at 200km/h. This is also twice the amount of downforce that its predecessor, the 911 (991.2) GT3 RS generates.

It takes just one glance at the car to understand how it is possible. Starting with a wide and low body, the 992 GT3 RS also has a substantial front splitter, large vents with air deflectors on the bonnet, louvered openings on the front fenders, along with side blades behind the front wheel to direct the exiting air to the side of the car.

The aero add-ons doesn't end here — there are even fins on the roof to direct heated air that has been evacuated from the bonnet outwards to ensure cooler intake temperature. The rear wheel arches also feature intakes and side blades for optimised airflow.

This all ends at the tail-end with a rear diffuser and a massive swan-neck rear wing consisting of a fixed main wing and a hydraulic adjustable wing element featuring a Drag Reduction System, just like F1 cars.

To the uninformed, the GT3 RS' exterior might look excessive and maybe even a little ridiculous, but for performance and race car enthusiasts, it is what dreams are made of.

The magnificent symphony of a screaming naturally-aspirated flat-six

Porsche's GT3 RS has always been about the purest, most engaging driving experience. That is the reason why it, like Porsche's race cars such as the 911 GT3 R and 911 GT3 Cup, has a naturally-aspirated engine.

And it is quite a special engine — this 4.0-litre flat-six engine features motorsport-derived technology to produce 518bhp and 465Nm of torque. The high-revving engine produces peak power at 8,500rpm and has a rev limit of 9,000rpm. It allows the 992 GT3 RS to complete the century sprint in 3.0 seconds and on to a top speed of 296km/h.

But there is a huge part to the story that you won't be able to tell from numbers alone, such as the symphony it creates when you press on the accelerator and the heavenly noises it makes as it gets close to the red-line.

Being a naturally-aspirated high-performance, high-revving engine that is hooked up to a lightning-fast PDK dual-clutch transmission also ensures an incredible driving experience — engine response is immediate and the quick gear changes ensure no wasted time.

Track duty? It's a walk in the park with the 992 GT3 RS

I can keep going on and on about all the mechanical wonders that the engineers at Stuttgart have managed to work into this beast of a car, but this piece would have to be a couple pages longer, and you could probably just read the spec sheet for that as well.

So, I'm just going to talk about my driving experience. The capabilities of the 992 GT3 RS was confirmed the moment I entered the first turn at Sepang Circuit.

Gunning it right out of the pit exit, the engine responded instantaneously to the copious amount of throttle input, and the engine revs climbed quickly while it belts out that sonorous flat-six soundtrack that I can still hear in my head today.

The massive carbon-ceramic brakes make quick work of slowing the car in preparation for the turn, which it handled beautifully without breaking a sweat — we could probably take it up a couple notches and the car would still have handled it without fuss.

The next highlight of the experience occurred at the turn five and six consecutive sweepers, which is the perfect spot to discover the high-speed handling performance of any car — my own car with sticky tyres and no aero parts reaches the limit of grip at the ballpark of 130km/h here.

With the GT3 RS, driving at similar speeds felt like I was cruising on the expressway well within the speed limits — a total non-affair.

Later on, in my taxi ride with the instructor behind the wheel, the car was conquering the sweepers at speeds above 150km/h! In fact, the instructor managed to complete a lap (sans main straight), including some tyre-smoking shenanigans, in just under two minutes.

I've been told that the car is probably capable of a 2.16 lap, which is comparable to touring cars, and much faster than the average performance cars.

Driving the 992 GT3 RS sure was a dream come true for me, while many have said that one should never meet their heroes, I've met mine and came away absolutely awestruck.

Porsche isn't messing around when it said that the car has been imbued with countless motorsport-derived technology — my experience at Sepang Circuit has confirmed that for me.

The only downside of the car is that in the process of all that race car treatment, storage space has been all but eliminated — going on a road trip? Your baggage will have to fit within the roll-cage area or the passenger seat.

What we like

• It's the purest, track-ready 911!
• Functional race-derived aerodynamic components
• Sonorous soundtrack from the 4.0-litre naturally aspirated flat-six
• Incredible handling performance
• Soul-stirring drive

What we dislike

• Almost no storage space at all
• The limits of its capabilities are far too high to utilise or explore outside of a race track

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This article was first published in sgCarMart.