Track Day: Grobnik 2021/9

After more than a year, I was back to a track day on Grobnik, this time with a new-to-me 987.2 Boxster S. It was a learning experience all over again. The car is clearly on a different level than the GT86, and it’ll take some time to get used to it to take full advantage of it on the track.

The track day was a success as there were around 40 cars. Most notably, there were two brand new 992 GT3s, a 991.2 GT3RS, two 991 GT3s, a ton of other Porsches, and also two Yaris GRs. Even so, I had more than enough driving and multiple empty laps. Awesome fun.

My Driving

I did almost 150km in the two hours of driving. My best lap of the day was 1:47.9, which is nothing to write home about. It’s about two seconds faster than my best lap in the GT86 on Cup 2 tires. I’m expecting easy 2-3 seconds of improvement with Cup 2 tires and better driving.

That said, that lap was done in the first half an hour. After that, my racing app/phone had constant issues with GPS and did not record times. This is a real shame as I think I improved my lines in the second part of the afternoon. I’ll be ordering an external GPS receiver to get better reliability.

I’m happy with the first day on the track, but it’s clear I have lots of space for improvement.

The Car

I was driving with PSM off, but that does not fully disable the nannies. So I still felt it helping, and I’m assuming it was mostly braking the rear tires in the corners (I can feel the brake pedal vibrating). I’m planning to do a physical cut-off and see how the car drives then. I’m expecting I’ll have to be way more careful, though.

Other than that, the car felt really good. I was the most impressed by brakes since they had zero fade even after the whole afternoon. Currently, the only mod is the plastic brake ducts from a GT3 for better airflow. I still have stainless steel brake lines planned for install and better brake fluid. I’m still on the fence about the GT3 brake cylinder which is supposed to give you a harder brake pedal as I have sort of gotten used to the soft stock pedal.

I was running Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires, and while they are great on the street, they were not the best on the track. The fronts were also in pretty bad shape after the track day. I’ll probably go with Cup 2 on this car as well, once I feel these have been used up.

The fuel consumption for the afternoon on the track was 26.9 l/100km.

Summary

After the track day, it was top-down for part of the drive home and that’s where the Boxster really shines. Shifting through gears and listening to the exhaust note with the sun setting, it’s what spirited driving is all about.

It was the perfect way to spend the Sunday.