millband

Anyone see The Stig testing 911 Carrera 2 vs. Carrera 4 on Top Gear? 1 min 12 sec for the Carrera 2, and 1min 11.5 for the Carrera 4 on the Millenium Stadium Stage of Rally GB.

Got me thinking, so looking on wrc.com for the same stage, I found -

- Mark Higgins beats The Stig by 7.7 sec in a Focus WRC (over 10% quicker)
- Petter Solberg beats The Stig by 6.5 sec in his WRC Impreza
- Dave Higgins beats The Stig by 2.2 sec in a Group N Mitsi Evo
- Various Grp N Scoobies also kick its *** (it's only a short stage). Obviously Imprezas *really are* good in The Twisties (tm), lol.
- Even Guy Wilks in a 1600 2wd Swift beats the Carrera 4 by nearly 2 sec

I wasn't there, but it looked like a tarmac stage with the rally cars still on gravel settings with high ground clearance and soft springs. I know they're proper race cars with proper race drivers but I was still impressed by how much faster they were than a full-house 911. They'd be even quicker in tarmac spec.

Or is it because The Stig is just a crap driver? I know he can't drive scoobs on the Top Gear track without inducing massive understeer for instance...

I'd like to see where a modern WRC would be on the Top Gear track compared to the current crop of supercars. Any ideas? Should Pagani be worried? I wonder if Petter has any free time before Monte Carlo...

I also wonder how fast Guy Wilks would lap the Suzuki Liana? Surely Suzuki have invested enough Liana shells in the program now to get him a slot? Could he beat Mansell - he's certainly got more experience racing 2wd kit.

Steve

Daft Lad

Must have just missed seeing this test live, got to the stadium about an hour before the first WRC cars were live on stage....must be earlier in future

davyboy

Surely you'd rather see an road going Sti take on the same course as the 911?

sgcooby

It was pretty obvious a rally car would cuff a standrd 911 even on a short track. It would be easy to call the stig crap but im prety sure that with top gears budget they would have tried out a few drivers before they picked the stig so im sure hes pretty handy in a car. Its easy to criticise from your sofa. Even the basic rally cars are stripped out, light weight specials and even the basic NA 1.6 cars kick out over 200bhp so they would easily beat a road car. Im actually surprised the stig got it as close as he did.

davyboy

Not to mention the 550NM of torque!

ru'

I thought that the rally cars actually weighed a fair bit with all the safety gear, as I recall the WRC scoob isn't far off the weight of the standard road model (please correct me if I'm wrong here...).

davyboy

WRC car is 1250kg

911 is 1450kg

GC8

In comparison Id have been interested to see what time an original (964) 911 Carrera 4 would turn-in. Turn-in is an apt turn of phrase for the over-weight foul handling piece of ****e btw because it was something they were extremely reluctant to do!


Simon

rb5 286

iTrader: (2)

interesting topic this one

only one true way to tell would be to have the stig take all the above mentioned cars around the track. even then you still gotta take into consideration that the stig's knowledge of the track would grow after every lap

millband

Fascinated me as I'd like to see how the current rally cars compare with the best road cars. Top Gear have already had a standard STI (WR1?) round their track and it didn't do very well at all (there was a heated discussion on here about The Stig's ability with 4wd machinery as the bits shot for TV really emphasised understeer - suggesting he was deliberately going into the corners too fast for a clean lap)

The rally cars on this stage were not optimised for tarmac, and the WRC cars are limited by restrictors to about 350bhp - about 25bhp more than the Carrera. They are tuned for serious torque though. I would expect them to be faster myself, but how much faster?

I think a really cool feature might be to compare the following on the Top Gear track, each with a driver experienced in their car as their are so many setup options it'd be beyond The Stig to do a sensible comparison.

- Impreza WRC
- Aston DB9 GT racer
- BTCC Astra or Honda
- One of this years F1 cars
- What else?

They're all optimised for different things, but it'd be really interesting to see how they compare on a level playing field...

Steve

sgcooby

Id like to see what the stig could do in the suzuki liana. ( Reasonably priced car ) Would be interesting to see how he compares with the F1 drivers so far. Apart from pishy Damon Hill.

Gary C

It used to be Perry Mcarthy as the Stig, used to drive F1 cars (but the team folded before the race and the chairman was arrested).

So he is pretty handy, if not the worlds best.

Gastro

And your forgetting that the gearing of the rally cars was well suited for a tight circuit like that. Stick the cars on the Nurburgring and you'd see the same difference in favour of the Porker..........

filfy

Like daft lad i missed this aswell ( in yates having a pint ) or two So when our lass watched top gear the inevitable happend Turned to me and gave me grief told you we should of gone in, insted of going to that bleeding pub Lesson lernt going on my own next year

madman_dan

The stig has already been in the liana. IIRC he was about 2s quicker than clarkson himself. But not as quick as some of the people currently at the top of the list.

paulg1979

iTrader: (1)

You must have to take peoples weight into consideration in the reasonably priced car. I thought simon cowell did well considering he must go 15 stone. That car must really struggle with more weight!!

sgcooby

Are you sure??? I would be surprised if he only went 2 sec quicker than clarkson. Did you see him driving the astra diesel in the competition against the old supercars?? He had the thing off the ground. Mad. And fast.

The Trooper 1815

iTrader: (31)

Hope they do the same thing next year in the Stadium, top fun and great for the kids. Particulary enjoyed the Fiesta ST's. It's being moved to December too!

Nick Read

Well we were at the final gravel stage of the day (Dixies) in my trusty wagon, watching the WRC cars run the stage then the production class. We hightailed it down to Cardiff in very loose convoy with the production cars and the only difference was that they would have arrived at the stadium 5 minutes before us. We parked right outside the stadium on the kerb, ran in and sat down about ten minutes late for the start of the indoor stage. The WRC cars were already doing the rounds and I reckon the production cars were out and hammering round the stage within the next twenty minutes.

So either that's some pretty quick adjustments or they stayed on normal high-riding gravel settings. Especially considering the flying entrance they had to make to get into the stadium. The rally cars are not THAT light - for a start they have certain minimum weight restrictions which I can't remember off hand but they certainly are more than a tonne. So I'd say that's pretty good for a 2wd Swift to get round quicker than a Porsche. ALthough from what I know of 911's they're not exactly at home on a very tight figure of eight like that.