If you had the opportunity to drive a Porsche 911 GT3 R race car at the Portimao Circuit in Portugal, you’d be crazy to turn it down. So, when Richard Hammond was presented with such an opportunity, he didn’t have to think twice. But things didn’t go quite as he expected.
The Grand Tour host was asked by Falken Tyres to fly to Portugal as part of his duties with Drive Tribe. Hammond doesn’t have a great deal of experience on racetracks like Portimao and this was to be his first chance to drive a racer like the GT3 R.
Falken was at the circuit testing a new tire in preparation for an assault on the Nurburgring 24 Hours. With his racing suit on, Hammond was excited to jump onboard. Unfortunately for him, his opportunity to actually drive the car never came.
As the team and its professional racing driver hit the track, Hammond was left to stand around the pit garage twiddling his thumbs and hoping to get the chance to put his driving skills to the test.
Fortunately for Hammond, the video below is just Part 1 of his experience with Falken Tyres. For his sake, we hope in the second part he does actually get to experience the 911 R. As a diehard 911 fan, we suspect he’ll be absolutely blown away by Porsche’s new racer.
The 911 GT3 R was launched in May 2018. It is (loosely) based on the road-going 911 GT3 RS, whose naturally aspirated 4.0-liter flat-six, which is one of the parts that’ve been carried over, has been tuned to deliver 542 hp.