Jethro Bovingdon is a professional automotive journalist with 34 recorded laps across 32 vehicles on LapMeta—nearly one-to-one ratio characteristic of professional systematic vehicle testing. Born in the UK, Bovingdon began his career at evo magazine in May 2001 as motoring journalist and road tester, becoming one of automotive journalism's most respected voices. He currently serves as Editor-at-large at Road & Track magazine, previously hosted the U.S. edition of Top Gear TV show, and now presents World Endurance Championship coverage on Max streaming service.
His motorsport credentials extend beyond journalism—remarkably achieving three class wins from five starts at the notoriously demanding Nürburgring 24 Hours, demonstrating professional-level driving competency in endurance racing's ultimate test. His work has appeared in BBC Top Gear, Road & Track, evo, The Telegraph, Auto Express, Automobile Magazine, and numerous international publications. Bovingdon earned a degree in English and History from University of London at Queen Mary. His LapMeta data shows distributed testing: 9 laps Coastal CW, 9 laps West, and 8 laps International GP—systematic vehicle comparison across varied configurations. With 34 laps across 32 vehicles and three Nürburgring 24 Hours class victories, Jethro Bovingdon represents the rare automotive journalist whose exceptional driving skill, endurance racing success, and articulate communication combine to deliver authoritative vehicle evaluations trusted internationally across print, digital, and television media.
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.