Walter Röhrl is 65 years old but he is not a pensioner yet. The famous German driver began racing when he was 16 years old and won two world rally championships during the most dangerous era of the sport: the 1980s.
One of his most memorable quotes is about the extremely high-powered cars, like the 600HP Audi Quattro S1 that he and his colleagues were driving under minimal safety regulations: “WRC is for boys – Group B was for men”.
Walter Röhrl left rally racing in 1987, with the Acropolis being his last event. Now, he is the senior test driver for Porsche, providing his valuable advice in developing the Stuttgart automaker’s sportscars and driving around the Nordschleife on many occasions, setting some pretty fast lap times.
This time, he is not at the Green Hell, but at the Ascari race circuit in Spain. And he’s not driving a 600+ HP Porsche coupe like the Carrera GT or the 911 GT2 RS, but the all-wheel-drive, 430 HP Panamera GTS sport sedan
Nevertheless, watching Röhrl, who Formula 1 champion Niki Lauda (not the one to give praise easily) has called “a genius on wheels”, on a quick lap behind the wheel of Porsche’s sportiest saloon, is far from boring. You can watch the video four yourself after the jump.
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