There's life in the old dog yet: Falken Motorsports 2013 997 GT3 R

While the buzz continues over the latest Type 991 based 911 GT3 (revealed earlier this week in Geneva), Falken Motorsports are still very much focused on the tried-and-tested Type 997 GT3 in this year’s German VLN endurance series.

Fielding a raft of performance upgrades, the team will once again compete with the unchanged driver line up of Sebastian Asch, Peter Dumbreck, Wolf Henzler and Martin Ragginger.

The car has been upgraded with a new aero package that includes wider wings, new splitter and double canards at the front with a larger rear wing to increase downforce. Crucially for a 24 Hour racer, the Falken Motorsports 997 now sports four front headlamps.

Enlarged cooling vents around both the front and rear arches have also been enhanced and the car is now able to run 12” wide rims at the front, 0.5” wider than last year.

Unlike the latest 468bhp 3.8-litre road car, the 911 GT3 R features a 4.0-litre six-cylinder boxer engine producing around 518bhp. Built upon the 997 GT3 RS shell, the GT3 R weighs approximately 1,300 kg compared with around 1,430kg for the latest GT3 road car.

In addition to these upgrades to the car, Falken’s engineers in Japan have developed a range of new tyres for this season’s races, which will be tested at the annual VLN Set-Up day on the 16th March.

With the 911 GT3 Cup due to compete in the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup during 2013, the next Type 991 GT3 racer on the cards is the RSR, which makes its World Endurance Championship (WEC) debut at Silverstone next month.