Ferrari racers set to dethrone Porsche?
For what has seemed like forever, Porsche's 911 has dominated the Le Mans-spec GT2 class, with hordes of the iconic rear-engined sports car steamrolling the feeble opposition. The unquestioned dominance of its GT3 RSR racecars has contributed in large part to the mystique that surrounds the Porsche brand, and certainly hasn't hurt sales of its 911 production cars.
But times are changing, and this year could see the end of Porsche's racing dominance, with strong competition from Panoz and Ferrari shaking the confidence of the Porsche contingent in Le Mans competition.
Ferrari's blisteringly fast F430GT, in particular, must be keeping Porsche engineers awake at night. Showing class-leading pace in its debut Le Mans-class race at Sebring in March, the Prancing Horse marked its maiden win this weekend in the first round of the European Le Mans Series in Istanbul.
Ferrari has long based its brand image on its racing heritage, and a return to success in sports car racing would be a huge boost to the Italian marque, especially since its Formula 1 team is struggling. On the other side of the coin, Porsche is at the absolute pinnacle of development for the basic 911, and the company may find it difficult to compete with more modern designs like the F430GT once the bugs are ironed out.
[Sources: Le Mans Series via Italiaspeed]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
EPIQTodd 2:00PM (4/11/2006)
Apples to Oranges here - we're looking at the 'latest and greatest' Ferrari, namely the race car based on the 430, no longer the 360, yet the GT3 cups running at present are still the previous version, a la 996. The 997 GT3 is the most current GT racer from Porsche, and once running in the circuits alongside the modern Ferrari will preserve the title and legend - of that I am quite confident.
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can't win? go down a class... 2:37PM (4/11/2006)
The F430 has similar horsepower, weight and performance to a Corvette. Yet, the Corvette runs in GT1, and the F430 is down there in GT2.
These results are wholly unremarkable.
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Manolo 3:17PM (4/11/2006)
The 997 GT3 is ALREADY racing against the Ferraris et al....
Porsche's hope is in the Cayman...
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EPIQTodd 5:00PM (4/11/2006)
Manolo - the race mentioned above, as well as most of the Le Mans series are still running 996 GT3 RSR's - check the results.
I agree to some extent about the Cayman, as I am a proponent of the mid-engine layout.
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davet 6:15PM (4/11/2006)
Well, #1 is right about being apples to oranges. Ferrari has not had a factory sports or GT car since, what, 1974? They're focused on F1, and even when they were languishing midpack in the late 80s they never lost their focus. The 430GT remains a privateer effort, much like the Prodrive 550s that did so well against the factory Corvettes a couple of years ago. Porsche's backing isn't what it used to be either, although they're much more focused on sports/GT than Ferrari, and not at all on F1.
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go down a class... 7:38PM (4/11/2006)
Ahh, the Prodrive 550's. Did you know one ran in the LMES series last year? 3 years after leaving ALMS and with no further development. Those cars were very well developed, they still can compete on a limited basis years later.
Prodrive did a great job against the Corvettes in Le Mans. But Ferrari called their efforts a disgrace and drove them out of ALMS, replacing them with a factory-backed 575M effort. An effort which performed awfully and was stopped after one year.
Prodrive is back with DB7Rs and is competing well against the Corvettes again.
When you talk about Ferrari's success in sports car racing, you pretty much have to talk about 3rd party results, as Ferrari doesn't have their crap together.
The 333SP was the last race-specific Ferrari, although they have made some race-prep models (360 Challenge Stradale) since.
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Tim 3:05AM (4/12/2006)
Porsche is spending way too much time building and selling 5000+lb gas-guzzling TRUCKS instead of cutting edge R&D on next-gen autos for the street and track. They don't even have a paddle-shifter or DSG-type of transmission developed yet. Geez, even Audi is way ahead in technology and they're using a DIESEL engine in their race cars!
Cayman track car? It's pretty much just a hardtop Boxster, which is a car the factory has never raced with nor will they ever. They won't ever let it be as good as it good be, because it would compete too directly with the 911.
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amp 10:06AM (4/12/2006)
Tim, don't be so quick to bite the hand that feeds. While I agree that the Cayenne isn't a propper Porsche, it has brought them wind-fall profits. Those profits help fund their racing, as well as the development of new models. Who knows if the Cayman would be here if there wasn't the cash from the Cayenne to pay the bills.
I wouldn't be too quick to count Porsche out, the F430 is a strong contender, but it was bested by both Porsche, and more surprisingly, the Panoz at Sebring. The GT2 class is shaping up to be a closer battle than the GT1's. Although I'm not counting Aston Martin out of the GT1 races by a long shot.
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Q-Tip 5:29PM (4/12/2006)
"The F430 has similar horsepower, weight and performance to a Corvette. Yet, the Corvette runs in GT1, and the F430 is down there in GT2.
These results are wholly unremarkable."
You are comparing the road going versions of the cars not the racing cars. The F430 racer is closer in spec to its roadgoing brethren than the C6R though.
The road going F430 is a high strung relatively small capacity engine running near the peak of its potential, the race version receives relatively mild modifications, mostly new timing at the expense of low RPM driveability and elimination of unnecessary engine accessories. The 60% larger capacity engine in the 'vette when developed to similar tune to the F430's V8 will naturally have greater output, so it races in the class for cars with similar power outputs. However most drivers would find the C6R's powerplant almost unliveable in real world situations.
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go down a class... 1:10PM (4/13/2006)
"The road going F430 is a high strung relatively small capacity engine running near the peak of its potential, the race version receives relatively mild modifications, mostly new timing at the expense of low RPM driveability and elimination of unnecessary engine accessories. The 60% larger capacity engine in the 'vette when developed to similar tune to the F430's V8 will naturally have greater output, so it races in the class for cars with similar power outputs. However most drivers would find the C6R's powerplant almost unliveable in real world situations."
Displacement is not good measure for comparing performance. A pushrod V8 will never be "at the same tune" as an overhead cam engine, even in race tune. So it is foolish to compare the two based upon displacement.
As to the racing Ferraris being relatively unmodified, that's bull, I know better, I go to the ALMS (and other) races all the time. You would not confuse the cars there with street cars, even the Ferraris.
I would agree that Corvette spends more development money than the Ferrari backers, by a lot. That naturally means the Corvette gets a lot more improvements. However, Chevy rolled many of those improvements (notably not including moving the engine back for better CG) into the C6 Z06, so it's unclear if the C6R is really displaying a massive engine tune differential compared to the Ferraris. The restrictor on the C6R is narrow enough that making wholesale changes to the LS7 (beyond raising compression) isn't the most effective way to spend money. For these reasons, there is no reason to think the C6R engine tune is a lot more harsh than the F430's. If you had used the C5R as an example, with its 1.3L overbore and other such changes, I would have agreed more.
Finally, note that despite the displacement differences, there actually isn't all that much size difference between the two motors. Pushrod motors are much more compact. In fact, some might say given the prevalence of intake restrictors in sports car racing nowadays, a pushrod engine is the wise choice, since it provides more power in low revs, where the restrictor is not effective at taking it away.
Pratt & Miller and Corvette Racing developed the Corvette a lot with the C5R program, but like Porsche, they rolled a lot of these changes into the car they actually sell. This is in the spirit of sports car racing and not some kind of unfair advantage. Ferrari should perhaps look into something like this, instead of crapping on Prodrive for making Ferrari's cars look good out there.
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Raj 7:45PM (4/21/2006)
Thanks Porsche for channeling all that profit in VW/Audi (Now that they are 20% owners of VW) This has definitely boosted diesel development at VW as we can see from this years Paris Dakar and Le mans victories
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