nberry:
Carlos, Porsches' are suppose to be about performance. The Ring is in their backyard and Porsche uses it extensively in developing their cars. If a presumably premiere sport car cannot crack the eight minute mark at the Ring, it has issues. One cannot consider it an authentic sport car. It is a wannabe.
Performance in the Porsche world is a broader word than the HP figure, and HP is the only thing separating the Cayman R from a sub-8 min laptime. Performance wise It does everything better than a 997TT for example, except acceleration. So if acceleration is what defines a sportcar for you, then your definition differs a lot from mine.
Let me give an example that will make it all too obvious:
- the Panamera Turbo dipped under the 8min in Rohrl's hands, does that automatically make it a sportcar and the Cayman R is a wannabe?
- yet the Cayman R bested both your ex-F430's and your current 997TTCab SportAuto's lap time in Hockenheim (a track that places less emphasis on HP and more on handling that the Nurburgring), so the F430 or the 997TTCab are wannabe's?
Next time you pull up to a Cayman R in your TTCab and you call it a wannabe, just make sure the road ahead is completely straight and all you are doing is stoplight to stoplight racing
I for one preffer the 911's driving dinamics and other features than the Cayman's, but I have all the respect in the world for such a superb sportcar that it is, and the Cayman R is its best version yet. I think if you ever drive a Cayman you will be pleasantly surprised.
I'm all for using NRing lap times to help judge a sportcar's attributes, in fact we have had many discussions because you have always considered NRing lap times irrelevant in your anti-Porsche phase, but they are only usefull when judged after taking into account the many variables that come into play when lapping the NRing, such a tires, HP, driver, lenght of lap, optional equipment fitted, enviromental conditions of the day, etc. Otherwise a NRing lap number by itself is a useless piece of information and cannot be used to classify anything no more than a top speed figure.
--