Extreme machine

Thirteen years ago I travelled to Germany to see the brand new Porsche 911 GT3 RS. This was the 997.2 model with the enlarged 3.8-litre engine, and when I heard about the car’s widened front and rear tracks, titanium exhaust system, shortened gear ratios, active engine mounts and – get this – the small but noticeable steps in the rear wing that meant the device produced more consistent load across its length, I thought: there it is. No road-legal 911 derivative will ever be more extreme than that.

I thought the same thing in 2011 when the limited edition GT3 RS 4.0 was announced and again four years later when we first saw the 991-generation RS. When that was replaced in 2018 by the 991.2 model, I was more convinced than ever that it would be the pinnacle of 911s for all eternity.

This new one makes every one of them look like a child’s plaything. Often my mind has boggled at how Porsche has been able to make one RS after another faster and more radical, but this time it’s clear as day: any punches Andreas Preuninger and his team may have pulled in the past have been thrown long and hard here. This is Porsche Motorsport placing both hands behind its towering stack of chips and shoving them across the felt, going all in.