What can I say about the 992-generation Porsche 911 GT3 RS that hasn’t already been said? It takes everything that was good with the 991.2 version — and there was much good stuff — and pushes it to the extreme. The 2023 GT3 RS’s full active aero system and the on-the-fly, driver-adjustable damper system are without peer. Porsche turned up the wick on the 4.0-liter naturally aspirated flat-six engine, now making 525 horsepower, and the gearing in the 7-speed PDK automatic gearbox has been tuned specifically for maximum acceleration out of corners. It’s all been said before, so what is there to add? Well, oddly enough, the one thing missing from all these plaudits has been this: What is the 2023 Porsche 911 GT3 RS like to drive in full-tilt, maximum attack mode on the track?
When Porsche first invited journalists to drive the 992-generation GT3 RS, the automaker scheduled the launch event at Silverstone Circuit in the British countryside, a track that would allow the RS’s aero capabilities to shine. Unfortunately, the only track time available was in late October, and as it turns out, England gets a fair bit of rain in the fall.
So all of us assembled car writers spent the day tip-toeing around the legendary high-speed F1 circuit, not wanting to make headlines as the first driver to write off a 2023 GT3 RS. That kind of thing tends to stick to one’s reputation.
To make it up to us, Porsche invited journalists to a second event, this time at Thermal Motorsports Country Club in arid Palm Springs, California. A place so dry, a vigorous nose-blowing is enough to trigger local flood warnings. No chance of rain at this event — just a handful of brand-new 2023 GT3 RSes, a select few invitees to drool over them, and Porsche hotshoes Pat Long and Jörg Bergmeister to guide us around the track. It was shaping up to be a full day of thrashing Porsche’s masterpiece.
And thrash we did.
Prior to this Porsche event, my total time spent on-track at Thermal had been limited to a sighting lap a few years ago with the late Jeff Rodriguez, who at the time was track manager and was one of my first instructors at Skip Barber decades prior. I needed a few laps to reacquaint myself with which way the tarmac went. Pat Long, who was leading me around in a non-RS 992 GT3, clearly didn’t agree, rapidly disappearing into the distance and expecting me to match his pace. (Side note: On a good day, I would struggle to match Pat’s pace, so his thinking was a touch… optimistic.)
The great thing about having Pat up ahead in the GT3 was that I could use him as a rabbit, gauging my speed into the corners, shortening my learning curve on both the car and the track. This isn’t to say that Pat was at a disadvantage — the non-RS GT3 is an amazing machine no matter where you’re driving it. But the addition of the RS package, with its fully active aero, gives you a 911 that produces downforce numbers just shy of Porsche’s Le Mans GTE race car. While the regular GT3 makes a fair bit of downforce, the RS is a different animal.
This was evidenced by the fact that I was able to close a several-car-length gap between me and Pat in the North Course carousel, a long, sweeping 270-degree corner that basically doubles back on itself. While the RS has a slight additional advantage in mechanical grip, thanks to its 20-mm-wider tires front and rear, that extra rubber isn’t enough to make up for the vast difference in cornering speed. The RS is simply on another level from the GT3.
Porsche had us running a layout that combined Thermal’s North and Desert circuits. Coming out of the Desert circuit and onto the back half of the North course, you run through a series of high-speed esses that demonstrate the absolutely insane aero advantage the RS has over its otherwise very capable sibling. As you go through the esses, you pick up more and more speed and get light as you crest the only “hill” on the circuit, leading into a dip and through the final S-curve. With steel guardrails that come up quickly on your left, this is a huge speed, huge commitment moment. Get it wrong, and you’ll litter the desert with very expensive bits of Porsche’s finest. But the RS gives zero fucks. Carry anything less than maximum speed through here, and the car almost taunts you, questioning your skill and bravery as it virtually screams at you, telling you it’s capable of so, so much more.
At Thermal, I got to spend some time chatting with Bergmeister, who did a majority of the development work on the RS. He told me that engineers compared the data between the GT3 RS on Michelin Cup 2 tires and a GT3 Cup car on race slicks, and the cornering speed of the RS was faster than the Cup car through several corners.
Again: Street car on street tires, faster than the race car on race tires.
The GT3 RS’s aero advantage extends to braking as well. The top element on the massive rear wing, as well as the front wing elements, all slam shut under heavy braking. This has a double effect. First, the aero elements act as an air brake, creating a huge amount of drag that aids the RS’s massive 16-inch ceramic disc brakes in arresting the RS down from insane speeds in very short distances. In addition to helping slow the car down, those closed elements also help stabilize the car under braking, giving the driver a superhuman level of confidence in the brake zone and allowing those willing to test their bravery to push boundaries that would normally be far, far beyond their comfort level.
This is the magic that is the 992-generation 911 GT3 RS. It isn’t just that it has performance levels to rival Porsche’s vaunted race cars — it’s that you don’t need to be a pro driver to access so much of that performance. Sure, in the right (professional) hands, the GT3 RS will obliterate anything this side of a GTP prototype, straight off the showroom floor. But you don’t need that professional talent to get maximum enjoyment out of the RS. The active aero and adjustable suspension allow the average track-day driver to come closer to the car’s limits than any other supercar I have ever driven. At the end of the day, isn’t that what we all want? Performance cars that make us better drivers. That, my friends, is the 2023 Porsche 911 GT3 RS in a nutshell.
