From the October 2023 issue of Car and Driver.
Four dials and five buttons on the Porsche 911 GT3 RS’s steering wheel control drive modes, PASM damper compression and rebound, stability and traction controls, differential lock, and the drag-reduction system (DRS). Old hat for the video-game generation, right? Wrong. There are 6561 possible combinations for the dampers alone, but Porsche GT boss Andreas Preuninger says there are no bad settings. It all just comes down to driver preference.
Activating DRS changes the angle of attack of the trailing edge of the rear wing and elements in the front fenders to reduce drag. With DRS active, the GT3 RS makes 674 pounds of downforce at 183 mph. That nearly triples to 1896 pounds at 177 mph when it’s not active. That’s more downforce than a 911 Carrera Cup car.
Push the center button on the upper-left dial to adjust suspension compression and rebound parameters. The left-side dials now control compression, and the right-side controls rebound (top is front, bottom rear) in nine steps from –4 to +4.
Push the center button on this dial to adjust differential lock. Only the left-side dials are used to adjust lock while off throttle (top) and while under power (bottom), each in nine steps from –4 to +4.
Push the center button on this dial to select the drive mode: Normal, Sport, or Track. Further customization of various vehicle parameters, such as the display mode and whether the active aero is on, is available in submenus. Select Track to unlock all the steering wheel’s functionality.
Push the center button on this dial to adjust traction- and stability-control settings. The lower-right dial now toggles stability control between off, dynamic, and on. The upper-right dial adjusts traction control in eight steps from off to +7. Dynamic traction control (+1 to +3) is only available in dynamic stability control, and deactivating traction control (off) is only available in the stability-control-off setting.
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When factory driver Jörg Bergmeister set the 6:49.3 lap at the famed Nordschleife, the only settings he adjusted off zero were the front and rear rebound, to +2 and +3, respectively.
Executive Editor
K.C. Colwell is Car and Driver’s executive editor, who covers new cars and technology with a keen eye for automotive nonsense and with what he considers to be great car sense, which is a humblebrag. On his first day at C/D in 2004, he was given the keys to a Porsche 911 by someone who didn’t even know if he had a driver’s license. He also is one of the drivers who set fast laps at C/D‘s annual Lightning Lap track test.
