Porsche 911 GT3 Cup racer unleashed

Porsche has pulled the drapes off the 992-series Porsche 911 GT3 Cup race car that will do battle in the 2021 Porsche Supercup and Porsche Carrera Cup in Germany, France, Asia and North America.

As well as featuring a wider body borrowed from the Porsche 911 Turbo, the big news for next year's racing is the GT3 Cup gets fractionally more power, with its naturally-aspirated 4.0-litre flat-six pumping out around 375kW – 13kW more than before.

That might not sound like much but the higher power figure is based on new synthetic fuels that produce significantly less CO2 than before.

With more power, Porsche promises one per cent quicker lap times, although that's as much to do with the 992-series racer's new aerodynamics and 28mm-wider body that helps incorporate 12-inch front rims and even wider 13-inch wheels at the rear.

The seventh-gen Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car is also said to generate more downforce, thanks to its new rear spoiler that's combined with a larger rear wing and front apron.

Speaking of that huge rear wing, it now has 11-stage adjustment with a 'swan neck' to ensure under-wing airflow is not affected.

Keeping weight down to 1260kg, 70 per cent of the new Porsche GT is made of aluminium, but weight has still increased 35kg over the previous race car because of new safety equipment that includes extra support within the safety cell, a new escape hatch in the roof and a switch to polycarbonate glazing that is now scratch-resistant.

The doors, engine lid and rear wing are all made of carbon-fibre.

New changes designed to help drivers for 2021 include a two-height driving seat position and an adjustable steering column that has been created to help budding racers of all shapes and sizes fit.

There's also a new multifunction steering wheel that has been borrowed from the top-flight Porsche 911 GT3 R racer.

Accompanying the F1-style tiller is a large 10.3-inch digital instrument cluster that is combined with 10 large buttons to the right of the dash that offer shortcuts for the lighting, ventilation, tyre settings or brake balance.

A similar system was introduced on the Porsche 919 Hybrid racer that competed at Le Mans.

Porsche launched its first 964-based 911 Cup car in 1990, and since then it has produced 4251 racers, making it one of the world's best-selling race cars of all time.

Pricing is expected to begin from around €225,000 ($A360,000) when deliveries begin in February 2021.