I had some time to kill today, and I decided it would be appropriate to test the latest and meanest in German trackday-spec GT around the Northern Loop. And so, Affalterbach's finest, the Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series, squares off against the current-gen Porsche 911 GT3.
Of course, this isn't necessarily a fair comparison. While the two cars share a similar ethos, the AMG takes it much further, with an outrageous aerodynamics package, and an extra 200 ponies under the hood to offset the 200 kilos extra mass. A better contest would see the Black Series pitted against the newer GT3 RS - but I digress. What's important is that both cars are rear-wheel drive and should have comparable levels of performance, but are otherwise very different in terms of engine placement (one being a long-nosed, front/mid-rear GT car, the other being... Well, a 911) and propulsion (with a twin turbo V8 in the Merc, a naturally-aspirated flat-6 in the Porsche).
The Merc handles much better than I would've expected based on how similar cars behaved in previous Forza titles - exhibiting a noticeable, but manageable tendency towards understeer and monstrous acceleration thanks to its 800Nm of torque. Interestingly, the massive wing also seems to make the car "tail heavy" in flight, something that can be noticed at the Flugplatz.
My final laptime was a
7:09.524, about 25 seconds slower than the 6:43 the car set in real life.
If the AMG is a mighty hammer that must be swung around with a certain deliberation, the rear-engined 911 is nimble and precise like the proverbial scalpel... At least, until there's a bump. When that happens, the weight rapidly shifts to the rear and off the front wheels, resulting in sudden understeer which has made corners like the Hohe Acht quite tricky to tackle cleanly. Still, it was quite a fun ride.
As for laptimes, the GT3 - which sits a whole 60pp lower than the Black Series - is also 15 seconds slower, with a
7:26.062. In real life, it was clocked at 6:55, a full 30 seconds faster.
But wait, we're doing track-focused GTs with ludicrous aero parts and plenty of development spent around the 'ring. Ain't I forgetting something?
RAAAAAAAAAAAAAA WHAT THE **** IS A KILOMETER! The Corvette Z06 crashes this German grudge match with its 5.5 litre 'murican V8, mounted midships. As one would expect, the mid-engined 'vette is incredibly eager to tackle corners, and it shows in fact signs of snap oversteer (which resulted in a scary moment when I let off the throttle at the Schwedenkreuz). Alas, it is badly let down by its gear ratios, which are more suited for highway driving than hotlapping: through a whole lap I only ever managed to put it in fifth on the Döttinger Hohe, and the top-most three gears sat unused altogether.
Still, the Z06 manages a very respectable
7:20.911 - which puts it, again, 25-to-30 seconds away from the most credible estimates of its real-life potential.
Now, I noted the gap between my laptimes and the real-world records for the respective models (or, in the case of the Corvette, the most educated guesses) for a reason.
I'll admit that I'm not the fastest Forza driver by a long shot, especially when it comes to cars that run on grooved tires. But I can wheel racecars around the Green Hell pretty fast, and I gave all three cars involved in the test all they got, so, why the 30-second gap? The conditions I've picked for my experiment (mid-afternoon with thunderclouds and 50% track rubbering) were obviously not ideal, and probably didn't help. But I suspect the main discrepancy with real life is that the "Sport" tires in the game are simply not up to par with the Michelin Pilot Sport Cup rubber that's near ubiquitous on trackday specials (and is, in fact, standard equipment for all three cars tested).
I'll have to run another test with race tires, perhaps on a Wet compound to get grooves. Alas, tire compounds are still level-locked, so this experiment will have to wait until the next Game Update...
). I am running 2 laps in each car to get a better feel for what a "normalised" time would be (for me at least).
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