You may know Daniel Abt as a member of the Abt family behind generations of tuned Audis. You may also know him as a Formula E driver formerly of that family’s Audi-backed team. You may even know him as the guy who got fired from that team for cheating in a sim race one time before returning with a different team later that season. In addition to all of this, Daniel Abt is now the kind of YouTube presence that takes exceptional cars to an airfield, drag races them, and records all of their times for future comparisons.
In his second drag racing video in this series, the comparison is between a Lamborghini Aventador SVJ and a Porsche 911 GT2 RS. Both represent the ultimate evolution of an entire generation of range-topping cars from one of Volkswagen’s most prestigious and important performance brands. Both put over 700 horsepower to the ground. Both even had a Nurburgring record to their name at one point. And, yet, they share almost nothing else.
The 911 GT2 RS is, of course, rear-engined. While it is based on the all-wheel drive Turbo S, it sacrifices that for rear-wheel drive in a laser-focused attempt at lightness. It all comes out to create the fastest 911 ever made, a fitting capstone for the since-departed 991 generation of the car. The SVJ, meanwhile, is a radical take on the Aventador that pairs Lamborghini’s now-standard all-wheel drive with a wild 770 horsepower in a track-focused package that abandons the company’s long-standing focus on road presence in favor of on-track excellence.
On paper, they are a better match for one another on a track than in a drag race. The Lamborghini, after all, boasts two more drive wheels and 70 more horsepower. In practice, as Abt and another driver found, the Porsche more than holds its own.
After one failed start, the Lamborghini jumped to an early lead on cold tires. The Porsche caught up at the end, however, to make a surprisingly close race. Abt, driving the Porsche, felt the Porsche could have been more competitive with heated tires, so he heated them and tried again. This time, the two cars had similar starts before the GT2 RS and its advanced PDK transmission hit second gear, at which point Abt and the Porsche pulled away, never looking back.
Both cars put down an elapsed 1/4 mile time in the mid-ten seconds on an untreated surface. For comparison, Abt’s previous drag races on the same surface placed the current Panamera 4S E-Hybrid in the mid-11 seconds. The Porsche may have won the day, but neither 700-plus hp track monster could ever be considered anything less than mind-bendingly quick.
Via Motor1.
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