It's one of the wildest cars Mercedes
makes. But forget about ever being able to drive it on the road. All
brutalist aero and thundering V-8, maximum attack wrought in lightweight
aluminum and carbon fiber, the 2020 Mercedes-AMG GT3 is your
factory-built ticket to racetrack glory.
GT3 has become one of the
world's most popular racing categories for drivers and fans alike, and
it's not hard to see why. Rather than anonymous high-tech spaceships
shaped in a wind tunnel, GT3 racers look like the road-going supercars
we enthusiasts lust after—Porsches, Ferraris, Corvettes, Aston Martins, Nissan
GT-Rs, et al.—and they race on some of the world's most iconic tracks,
including Le Mans, Daytona, Spa, Bathurst, and even the epic Nürburgring
Nordschleife. And because it's a category based on road cars, GT3
enjoys a high degree of support from automakers anxious to tout their
performance credentials and polish their brand halos.
Some
automakers have their GT3 racers created by third-party race engineering
shops. But the 2020 Mercedes-AMG GT3, the race version of the
Mercedes-AMG GT coupe, has been engineered and developed entirely
in-house at Mercedes-AMG headquarters in Affalterbach, Germany.
GT3
racing relies on a formula devised by the world motorsport sanctioning
body, the FIA, to ensure cars of different shapes, sizes, and weights,
powered by a variety of engines from turbocharged flat-sixes to
naturally aspirated V-10s, can race closely. Called balance of
performance, it uses a combination of weight adjustments, intake airflow
restrictions, and, on forced induction powerplants, boost pressure
limits to keep all the cars within a similar performance window.
With a homologated base weight of 2,833 pounds, the Mercedes-AMG GT3 is at the heavier end of the category—the Lamborghini Huracan GT3 is homologated at 2,712 pounds, and the Porsche
991 GT3 R at 2,723 pounds—but it counterpunches with a mighty engine, a
race version of AMG's iconic 6.2-liter naturally aspirated V-8. In
baseline tune, the engine develops about 550 hp, says Thomas Jäger, one
of two Mercedes-AMG factory drivers on hand for our test session on the
2.1-mile short course at EuroSpeedway Laustiz, south of Berlin. It
drives the rear wheels through a six-speed sequential-shift transmission
built by AMG using Hewland components.
The extensively modified
chassis includes a complex rollcage that helps tie the entire aluminum
space frame structure of the car together as well as to protect the
driver in the event of a crash, and full multilink race suspension (only
the top front suspension links are shared with the production GT coupe)
with fully adjustable shocks and anti-roll bars. Brakes are steel,
15.4-inch rotors up front and 14.0 inches at the rear, and the car rolls
on forged 18-inch center-lock wheels. It's cool but dry today, so we're
running Michelin slicks, 325/680 on the front rims and 325/705 on the
rears.
The 2020 Mercedes-AMG GT3 is an upgrade of a car that first competed
in 2016. Changes include a new front splitter and a bigger, more
dramatic-looking grille that not only offers more protection to the
front radiators but also previews a coming face-lift for the road-going
Mercedes-AMG GT lineup. There's also a new rear fascia, a new rear wing,
and a stronger subframe for the engine. Dozens of other detail upgrades
include new Bosch engine management and antilock brake control systems,
quick-adjust front splitter and rear wing, and an ingenious engine
drop-start system that automatically fires up the V-8 once it detects
the air-jack hose has been removed so the car is ready to roll out of
pit lane the moment the tires hit the concrete.
The changes are not just in the pursuit of performance. A lot of time
and effort has gone into improving durability and reducing the cost of
operation. Huh? That sounds like the stuff of engineering road cars, not
glory-hunting, on-the-limit track warriors. But, as Jäger points out,
GT3 is a customer racing category. "The customer is the brand
ambassador," Jäger says, "and therefore our focus is on supporting the
customer."
The sprint spec version of the Mercedes-AMG GT3 costs
about $441,000 plus tax, and the endurance spec model, which gets things
like extra headlights, a drink system, quick oil fill system, and other
hardware needed for long distance races, about $470,000 plus tax. Order
one, and you'll be invited to a Mercedes-AMG racing tech center in
Affalterbach, North Carolina, or Australia for a full tech briefing on
the car. Mercedes-AMG will also send one of its race engineers to your
first test session to help you learn how to set up the car, giving
baseline, track-specific recommendations for things like tire pressures,
ride height, wing and splitter settings, and spring and damper rates.
Track specific? "We've been racing this car for four years, all over the
world," Jäger laughs. "We have setup recommendations for more than 100
tracks."
Mercedes-AMG also sends trucks with parts and engineers
to major races so the teams running their cars don't have to buy and
transport lots of costly spares they may never need. Not that the
Mercedes should need a ton of parts, unless you crash it. According to
the manual—yes, it comes with one—the 6.2-liter V-8 will only need a
rebuild every 15,500 racing miles, and the transmission every 6,200
miles. A new feature on the 2020 GT3 is a system that uses RFID
technology to track the life of various components such as suspension
parts. Forget a grizzled race mechanic with a lifetime of experience;
the car tells you when a part needs replacing. Moreover, should you need
to replace a component because of crash damage, the system will
automatically note the change so you're not spending money later
replacing a part that still has useful life in it.
"The Mercedes
may not have always been the fastest car, but it was the best engineered
and would never break," Stirling Moss once told me. Moss, of course,
drove for the Mercedes-Benz F1 team in 1954 and 1955, and his victory in
the 1955 Mille Miglia at the wheel of the Mercedes SLR roadster remains
one of the greatest achievements in racing. That old-school Mercedes
DNA, bulletproof engineering honed by decades of experience, is evident
the moment you open the door of the GT3 and wriggle over the rollcage
and in behind the button-festooned butterfly steering wheel.
The
lightly padded carbon-fiber racing seat is fixed, but a lever adjacent
to the carbon-fiber center console controls a spring-loaded pedal box.
Put your foot on the brake pedal, pull the lever, and push the pedals
away from you. When they're at the right distance, let go of the lever,
and they're locked into place. Simple and effective. The steering wheel
tilts and telescopes, and the switchgear on the center console is
clearly laid out, and the switches themselves large and fluorescently
highlighted so they can be easily found and operated, even at night,
with racing gloves on.
"The engineers originally wanted to put all the switches down on the
floor to lower the center of gravity like they do in our DTM cars,"
Jäger explains, "but we said this car will be driven by a lot of pay
drivers, not professionals, so we have to make it simple to use." The
same logic was behind the pedal box, the weight and complexity of which
the engineers also questioned. "If you have short and tall drivers in
the team, it makes pit stops a lot easier," Jäger says.
After my stint in the edgy Huracan GT3 Evo a couple weeks earlier, and a session in the junior-league Mercedes-AMG GT4 racer
that included a neck-snapping spin on the second corner when warm
slicks and a cold track failed to make a connection, I feel a little
apprehensive as the Mercedes-AMG GT3 rumbles down the pit lane. I have
the traction control on 1, the most aggressive setting, and the ABS
intervention on 3. But by the end of the first lap, I'm already
channeling my inner Senna and reaching to dial back the nannies. It's
thunderously loud, the cabin awash with an unfiltered metallic feedback
loop of engine noise and transmission whine, and ninja-quick in its
responses, exactly what you'd expect of a front-line factory race car.
But it doesn't feel like it's going to bite your head off.
With at
least 120 hp more under hood than the GT4, the GT3 is effortlessly
faster. Everywhere. But it's not just power. Hand-of-god downforce—the
GT3 has three times as much at 125 mph than its junior-league
sibling—keeps it supremely planted through the fast, third-gear
left-hander off the front straight and as I straight-line the right kink
just beyond. The 48/52 front-to-rear weight distribution (the GT4's is
50/50) helps the front end bite as I brake hard for the sharp left
immediately after the kink, hooking the tire over the curb to help on
the change of direction.
I grab second and feed in the power. Both
the traction control and ABS interventions are much more subtle than in
the GT4, and the suspension rides the curbs with much more composure.
The feedback through the steering is rich and detailed. And the big V-8,
its NASCAR party-mode soundtrack spitting from a pair of side pipes, is
simply magical, delivering ballistic thrust with nuanced throttle
response.
I had expected to be intimidated by the Mercedes-AMG
GT3. Instead, I'm utterly exhilarated by it. This is a sublimely
confidence-inspiring racing car, its performance envelope a broad runway
you feel empowered to explore rather than, as in the Lamborghini
Huracan GT3 Evo, a razor's edge you struggle to find. By the end of my
second five-lap stint, I'm already beginning to think about where I can
find more time—where I can be more aggressive with the throttle and
brakes, and where I should be more patient—and that I should dial back
the traction control even more to get the rotation I want in the tighter
turns.
At the end of my session, as I cruise the Mercedes-AMG GT3
down the pit lane and back to the garage, I've already decided that,
should I win the lottery and get the opportunity to live the dream, this
predictable, bulletproof Mercedes would be my GT3 race car of choice.
Mercedes-AMG team driver Maro Engel, who helped develop the car, is
pleased to hear this. "The feedback from our gentleman drivers is they
can get closer to the pros in our GT3 than in other cars."
And
that, right there, is the genius of this car. It's tough to build a race
car that works for gentleman drivers yet still has the pace, precision,
and poise a pro driver craves. But that's exactly what the 2020
Mercedes-AMG GT3 delivers.
