Sour grapes or legitimate complaint? That's the question we're left pondering after reading that Porsche believes Nissan must have cheated to record its 7:29:03 lap time of the famed Nürburgring race circuit. Porsche claims that it had been suspicious of the Nissan's lap times, so it acquired a U.S.-spec GT-R for testing back-to-back with its own 911 Turbo and GT2. The result? The mighty Godzilla was toppled by the Teutonic German duo, with the GT-R posting times a good 25-seconds slower than Nissan's claim.

How can Porsche explain the discrepancy? "This wonder car with 7:29 could not have been a regular series production car. For us, it's not clear how this time is possible. What we can imagine with this Nissan is they used other tires," says August Achleitner, the man in charge of the 911 program. There is footage of the GT-R lapping the 'Ring at high speed, but it's taken from inside the car where the tires cannot be seen.

Considering the fact that Nissan saw fit to issue a press release commemorating the car's fast-lap, we doubt this is something that will be taken lightly. There's a big can 'o worms here, and Porsche's in the corner holding the opener.

How can switching tires cause a 25 second time difference?

I gotta say though, every road test I have seen that has compared these two cars puts the GT-R faster than the Porsche, on many circuits, driven by 3rd parties.

For instance, a standing start is considered the norm, but there's nothing more than a gentleman's agreement about such things. Nissan could be using a rolling start while Porsche does not. And then perhaps Porsche tested the GT-R on a particularly crappy day. We've been over this before, Nurburgring times are really only for entertainment value, there's too much give or take in too many factors to compare them directly and make it all stick.

But couldn't the same be said of ANY performance measurement? Air temperature, tarmac temperature, tarmac texture, barometric pressure, and wind all affect a car's 0-60 and quarter mile times, yet those have been used as "standardized" measurements for years. Magazines frequently cite a car's overall speed "through the slalom," but is there anything more than a gentleman's agreement as to what "the slalom" is? Etc.

No objective testing method is perfect. And I think that Nurburgring lap times are better indicators of a car's overall performance than quarter-miles and skidpad ratings. So I wouldn't agree that they're "only for entertainment value."

Magazines often correct their performance numbers for temperature and air pressure.

But more to the point, even if it was the same temperature, the same moisture, the same level of track greasiness on any particular day...unlike, say, drag racing, the method for getting times on the Nurburgring is not standardized. There are different ways to start a lap, different places to choose to begin or end timing (like, for instance, manufacturers have to add some sort of nominal time to compensate for the fact that there's a speed limit on the main straight. What they choose to add is basically their discretion). There is no "Nurburgring Lap Times Standards and Practices Committee" to dictate any of this stuff.

Yeah with that many stickers it's guaranteed to go fast!

Magazines "correct," and yet there are still significant discrepancies from magazine to magazine, from day to day, no? That's why you can't compare performance numbers from C&D with those from Motor Trend, etc. Quarter-mile times are still as much art as science.

Also, do various testers have a standardized system for how you launch an automatic-transmission car? For how much they heat up the tires before running a quarter mile? Etc. You say there's no "Nurburgring Lap Times Standards and Practices Committee," but there's not exactly a "0-60 Standards and Practices Committee" either.

Yeah with that many stickers it's guaranteed to go fast!

Fifth Gear should take 1no. GT-R, 1no. 911, 1no. Tiff Needell & 1no. Nurburgring and that should be the end of it.

Yeah except nobody would watch it.

What would you rather watch, Tiff driving a 911 with pin point accuracy through all the bends and getting a better time, or Clarkson putting a 911 sideways for an 8 minute lap.
911 tyre smoke.....come on, you know what you would watch....

Honestly I'd rather watch Tiff. Don't get me wrong, Clarkson's fun, but I have MUCH much more appreciation for accurate, technical driving than I do for needless showy tire-smoking.

“Quite simply we're not going to get into a war of words with Porsche,” said Nissan's European spokesman Neil Reeve. “The final word from us is that it was done on absolutely standard tyres which are available to customers in the showroom.They're not trick tyres – absolutely standard tyres, normal road tyres.

“The GT-R comes with Bridgestone and Goodyear (Dunlop). One tyre gives slightly better times around the 'Ring.

“We did it on Dunlop. They're available with the car,” he said.

He was at a loss to explain the disparity over the lap time differences.

“I don't know, honestly I can't explain. I don't think it's for us to explain how they didn't match our time,” Mr Reeve said.

“We absolutely maintain (that) Tochio Suzuki - the chief test driver on the GT-R program pounded thousands of laps - he got to know every inch of Nurburgring (circuit) and how the car performs on the Nurburgring and hence set that fabulous lap. More than that, I can't speculate. I can't explain why they couldn't match the time.”

“We maintain that ... nothing special was done to the car.”

He conceded that the controversy might play on the minds of potential GT-R buyers. Fast lap times of the famous 21-kilometre German circuit are increasingy being used by car companies for bragging rights over performance and engineering prowess.

“The people who'd buy a GT-R or 911 Turbo are not the type of people to make a purchase like that lightly. They going to do an incredible amount of research, they're going to read every single road test that's available in every magazine which is on the internet and they're going to draw their own conclusion. Will it put doubt in their mind? They might find it surprising. In our experience in Europe, the GT-R has widely matched, at least, if not beaten, the 911 Turbo on various track tests. They can draw their own conclusions.

“We think its performance speaks for itself,'' he said.

Has Uwe been vindicated? He called the lap times into question in this thread, and was met with some resistance.

I don't think a major manufacturer would make a claim like this if they didn't have some serious data to back it up. That being said, I followed the link autoblog gave to their source, and it was from an interview between an online news site's automotive section and the 911 Product chief...who may have been speaking out of turn.

I wouldn't call it official until Porsche makes a press release.

EDIT. BTW where is Uwe? I just checked his member profile to find the link above, and he hasn't posted for months.

The video Mitlov posted doesn't convince me. From all the comments of the test driver and the guy at the computer I got the impression they really wanted the GT-R to win this. Take then the fact the tester is driving the Porsche sideways through the corners which looks spectacular but is slow. I don't feel convinced he drove it the way it needs (and deserves). BTW, we do learn with every F1 weekend that the track gets better the more rubber is laid on it. And to produce the amounts of tire smoke we saw with the M3 I'd say the track was bone dry already then. Let alone when they drove the GT-R on it.

Anyway, I'll stop here. I have certain facts, you might have other ones. And I don't want to repeat for the umpteenth time "lets wait for Sport Auto".

However, its just a Nissan...

...yeah, it's just a skyline.

There is no such thing as 'ONLY' a Skyline. Skylines are world-beaters.

Why is Sport Auto sooooooo much more trustworthy than anyone else, including CAR Magazine?

As for how the GT-R and the ZR-1 both do the same stretch under those two bridges in 23 seconds, my guess is that the GT-R had a faster entry speed but slower acceleration, whereas the ZR-1 had faster acceleration but a slower entry speed. Here are the two videos if someone more precise than me wants to see if they think that theory fits:

ZR-1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6mEirkQN8o (starts at 7:03 on the Youtube counter)
GT-R: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBZ5i15yVU8 (starts at 7:05 on the Youtube counter)