Jethro Bovingdon is a renowned British automotive journalist and motorsport driver, known for his work as an editor and presenter in automotive media. He gained fame as a key figure on Top Gear's YouTube channel, showcasing his driving skills and car reviews. Bovingdon has a deep understanding of car dynamics, and his driving expertise has led to notable performances in motorsport events, including time attack. His honest reviews, technical knowledge, and passion for performance cars have made him a respected figure in the automotive and motorsport communities.
Welcome to our PCOTY track notes. These are the stream-of-consciousness scrawlings from our resident hot shoe, editor-at-large Jethro Bovingdon, following his hot-lap sessions in each contender:
OK, so the 911 Carrera T is not a GT3. Darling of, well, the entire world and omnipresent on social media platforms to such an extent that it’s like all other cars cease to exist. What do you mean you don’t have a GT3 Touring with a manual gearbox in some shade of green or another? Are you a savage? Or stupid? Or homeless? Just take a look at your life choices, loser. Anyway, no, it’s not a GT3. But like all 911s, the T comes alive on track and is deeply immersive, incredibly durable, and has such depth of ability. It’s superb.
The most interesting comparison is with the Mustang, which just pipped the lap time of the T—almost entirely due to its massive and chewing gum-soft Trofeo RS tires as compared to the T’s plain old P Zeros. I really enjoyed the bruising, brute-force approach of the Mustang, but the Porsche’s fluidity and inherent agility and sharpness is a different and perhaps more enduring flavor. The control weights, the sweet linearity of the engine, the simply fabulous brakes, and the way you can use the weight in the rear firstly to point the nose into corners and then to squeeze the tread blocks into the track surface on exit is a kind of metaphysical poetry. Incredible.
Weaknesses? Well, the 7-speed manual ‘box is good but not great, the steering is beautifully weighted but doesn’t ebb and flow like 911s past and the engine, sweet as it is, feels a step or two behind the capabilities of the chassis. It’s just not that fast. Yet while there isn’t the energy and absolute focus of a GT3, the Carrera T is a fantastically complete sportscar and feels like it could do 100 laps of this track within a few tenths of its best time.
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About PCOTY hot laps:
Our lap times are simple. They are meant to inform us about how these cars perform on track, not to chase an elusive or ‘ultimate’ time that would require multiple sessions in each car. The laps were set after just a few sighting laps and no prior experience on the circuit. Unless a car didn’t get a fair shake, we did one out lap, three hot laps, and a cool-down. Whilst all the cars could go quicker, the times are representative. The delta between the cars would be consistent even with many more laps and sets of tires to burn through.