Essentially its their home circuit. If you walk to the side of the Nurburging Nordschleife circuit on a public driving day, 60% of the cars will be BMW’s, while the remaining 40% would be Porsche’s. Every version, every variant. They would run lap, after lap, after lap without breaking a sweat. Meanwhile R35’s would come in to cool their brakes and tyres. This is something your’s truly witnessed first hand.
Every Porsche’s developed there. And pretty much a Porsche has been consistently winning there in the modern day races. Which is why alot of the time, the lap records belong to Porsches. And that tradition continues. Porsche just broke the production car lap record of the Nordschleife yet again. This time with the 991 GT2 RS equipped with Manthey Performance kit, lapping the 20.8km circuit in 6 minutes 43.3 seconds, with an average speed of 185.87kph.
What is Manthey?
Manthey Racing, founded by racing driver Olaf Manthey, who himself raced on the ‘Ring and the DTM, mostly looked after Porsche’s works cars for various GT races. Their green liveried Porsche’s usually take top podium spots in the Spa 24 hours and the VLN 24 hour races. Now though, they have merged with Porsche and are developing Manthey Racing packages for Porsche’s GT line cars.
What comes with the Manthey Performance Kit?
The 991.2 GT2 RS is already a metal car with 700ps and 750Nm coming in at 2200rpm. And all that power is sent to the rear wheels only via a 7 speed PDK box. And it only weights 1470kg, or about the weight of a Honda Civic 1.5 TC.
Manthey’s kit tinkers with the already mad aero this car has, its colossal brakes, and chassis to hit the lap time. There are new front flaps for the front spoiler, underbody carbon tray, a massive new wing and diffuser. Together they up the downforce from 49kg to 70kg in the front axle at 200kph. And in the rear at the same speed the downforce increases from 90kg to 200kg. A massive increase which will help gain traction on the high speed sections between where Lauda crashed and before the Karussell, the famous banked corner on the ‘Ring.
The coilovers used in this car are specially made by Manthey for Porsche. They can be adjusted 3 ways at the front and 4 ways at the back. Manthey Racing also provides uprated pads to mash onto those 410mm Carbon Ceramic discs in the front and 390mm discs at the back, with steel braided hoses. And finally, the Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 R tyres sit on those gorgeous looking magnesium wheels from Manthey racing. They reduce 11.4kg of unsprung weight and they come in 5 different colors.
Still the King of the 'Ring
This kit is a hardcore enthusiasts wet dream. Seriously, head over to Manthey Racing’s product page and check out the kit in detail there. What it helped Porsche do is once again reign supreme as the King of the Nurburgring Nordschleife.
The Nordschleife can be mastered to go around easily enough, especially for someone used to the challenging roads we have here. But racing on it is a very different ball game. A good driver would set a 10 – 11 minute lap time here.
In order go hover between the 8-9 minute bracket you really have to be committed and know what you’re doing. Anything under 8 minutes and you’re a driving god. And the car is a true performance machine. This car just did 6.43.3 minutes on road tyres. This is madness.
