Zafiro
Supreme Roadmaster
When did you first lap the Nordschleife and how did the whole Super Test thing come about?
"My first laps here on a motorbike were in 1977. I started as a motorbike racer here on the Nordschleife as a participant in the eight-hour endurance world championship and then I started to be a journalist for the German motorcycle magazine Motorrad. I stayed there five years and then changed 1986 to the car magazine Autobild in Hamburg.
"In 1990 I started at Sport Auto in Stuttgart and our racetrack first was Hockenheim; we did not use it for lap times we just used it for measuring acceleration and braking and so on. After one year we started with the lap times at Hockenheim - it was too dangerous to do the vmax runs on the Autobahn with these fast cars and then I started the Super Test in 1997."
What was the first car you tested?
"It was an M3 SMG [E36] - I compared it with the 911 Turbo and the most recent in the last issue we have had the Porsche 918 Spyder. [It's scored 100 out of 100 points with a lap time of 7min 13sec - Ed.] This was the 200th super test so every month I have to produce this format between middle of March until the end of October. The M4 I have just tested, I did it just the way I do it in every case. I have just one 100 per cent lap and that's the difference to all the others; I have just one lap to learn the car behind then the timed one. This is the difference.
"The same with the Porsche 918 - I drove in the industry pool but you can't measure the time. They get angry because there are several cars on the track, you can't push there so I can go 80 per cent perhaps but the difference between 80 per cent and 100 per cent is 300 per cent! The rule is it's me the driver, it's this track, the surface must be dry, 2 degrees Celsius and above and you can go."
As a journalist how do you feel about manufacturers claiming their own lap times for marketing purposes?
"It's interesting because I started with this lap time here in 1997 and they all do it now. Wolfgang Durheimer [former head of development at Porsche, now at Bentley] told me 'Your times are more interesting than what my test drivers or race drivers are doing because it says something about the driveability.' And this is key, the driveability of the car. I sit in the car at T13 and the two curves - the first left and the first right into Hatzenbach - I know the car and I either trust the car or I don't."
Read the complete interview here: http://www.pistonheads.com/news/default.asp?storyId=30067
"My first laps here on a motorbike were in 1977. I started as a motorbike racer here on the Nordschleife as a participant in the eight-hour endurance world championship and then I started to be a journalist for the German motorcycle magazine Motorrad. I stayed there five years and then changed 1986 to the car magazine Autobild in Hamburg.
"In 1990 I started at Sport Auto in Stuttgart and our racetrack first was Hockenheim; we did not use it for lap times we just used it for measuring acceleration and braking and so on. After one year we started with the lap times at Hockenheim - it was too dangerous to do the vmax runs on the Autobahn with these fast cars and then I started the Super Test in 1997."
What was the first car you tested?
"It was an M3 SMG [E36] - I compared it with the 911 Turbo and the most recent in the last issue we have had the Porsche 918 Spyder. [It's scored 100 out of 100 points with a lap time of 7min 13sec - Ed.] This was the 200th super test so every month I have to produce this format between middle of March until the end of October. The M4 I have just tested, I did it just the way I do it in every case. I have just one 100 per cent lap and that's the difference to all the others; I have just one lap to learn the car behind then the timed one. This is the difference.
"The same with the Porsche 918 - I drove in the industry pool but you can't measure the time. They get angry because there are several cars on the track, you can't push there so I can go 80 per cent perhaps but the difference between 80 per cent and 100 per cent is 300 per cent! The rule is it's me the driver, it's this track, the surface must be dry, 2 degrees Celsius and above and you can go."
As a journalist how do you feel about manufacturers claiming their own lap times for marketing purposes?
"It's interesting because I started with this lap time here in 1997 and they all do it now. Wolfgang Durheimer [former head of development at Porsche, now at Bentley] told me 'Your times are more interesting than what my test drivers or race drivers are doing because it says something about the driveability.' And this is key, the driveability of the car. I sit in the car at T13 and the two curves - the first left and the first right into Hatzenbach - I know the car and I either trust the car or I don't."
Read the complete interview here: http://www.pistonheads.com/news/default.asp?storyId=30067
