Japan’s Best Motoring series may have been cancelled, but not before putting together a superstar supercar comparison featuring the Lexus LFA, Nissan GT-R, Porsche GT2 RS, Corvette ZR1 & Ferrari F430 GT3 on the Fuji Speedway.
First off, each car took a solo lap of the track to determine the starting position for the main showdown:
Here’s how the solo laps turned out:
- 1:51.802 – Porsche GT2 RS
- 1:52.937 – Nissan GT-R
- 1:53.946 – Corvette ZR1
- 1:54.436 – Ferrari F430
- 1:55.342 – Lexus LF-A
This set the stage for the VS. battle, with the LFA sitting in pole position due to coming in 5th (it’s in reverse order):
The final results:
After a disappointing solo lap, the LFA redeems itself with a solid 3rd place finish — especially when you consider the rest of the cars in the race.
Still, much of the nuance in these videos was lost on me due to the language barrier, so I was enthused to find some very insightful comments by Club Lexus member Motohide, who was able to paraphrase much of the discussion — here’s a choice quote:
It was accepted before, a car like this to be rude, sinful, chaotic, irrational, perky, or dysfunctional in some ways to be at this speed and capacity. Toyota has re-defined it for this segment, and is a car that has none of the compromises and one need not fear, sweat, or endure. One can jump in, and situate comfortably, and have the car speed at stratospheric performance levels, but in expected, managable, and predicatable state of hospitality and “omotenashi”. In that sense, it is unlike any other car in the world.
You can read more of Motohide’s translation here, here & here — I highly recommend his posts to get the most out of these videos.
No discussion thread for this article yet.