Nissan vs Porsche: Round Two

After its controversial war of words with Porsche over just how fast the GT-R has lapped the famous 20km Nurburgring Nordschleife, Nissan is headed back for another attack on the stop watches.

Nissan confirmed plans to take the MY09 specification car to the Germany circuit at this week's Australian launch of the twin-turbo supercar.

Official test driver Toshio Suzuki was responsible for the original Nurburgring testing during the development of the car, and he will once again handle the driving this time around. The tests will take place in April because it is considered the ideal weather conditions for testing.

The company is hoping the updated car should be capable to shave up to five seconds off the 7min29sec time Suzuki set in April last year thanks to increased power, changes to the ABS and front suspension arms as well as spring and damper rate adjustments.

Suzuki's 7:29 lap created a stir with Porsche because it significantly bettered the German firm's best time with its 911 Turbo, despite it being both lighter and more powerful than the GT-R. Porsche went so far as to buy its own GT-R from Japan and fly it to the Nurburgring for back-to-back testing with the 911 Turbo and GT2.

Former World Rally champion (and longtime Porsche test driver) Walter Rohrl drove all three cars and couldn't better 7:54 in the GT-R, but managed 7:38 in the Turbo and 7:34 in the GT2.

Nissan responded by offering to teach Porsche how to drive the GT-R to its full potential (more here).

We (along with Porsche, we're sure) await Nissan and Suzuki's efforts with great interest...