Fresh from his Saturday effort which netted him a 17 minute 40.75 second record, three-time British Rally Championship winner Mark Higgins has raised the bar again – yesterday saw him post a 17 minute 35.139 second lap time with an average speed of 205.97 km/h around the 60.37 km road course on the Isle of Man.
“I’m delighted to beat the record again. It’s a fantastic achievement. However, I didn’t feel I was driving as well as I did on Saturday. We had a bit of a fuel pressure issue just before the start of the lap but the boys got it sorted. Due to the higher ambient temperature the car was starting to move around a bit towards the end of the lap,” Higgins told Autocar after the his record run on Saturday.
“I was worried after I finished the lap because I got caught in a lot of traffic coming back into Douglas and the car’s temperatures started to get really hot. Getting stuck in traffic after you’ve finished a TT lap isn’t usually a problem!” he added.
The WRX STI deployed for this year’s runs at the Isle of Man is much further removed from a showroom standard unit compared to Higgins’ previous vehicles. Where the 2014 car was closer to standard, the car that Higgins is driving this year is a joint effort between Subaru and Prodrive.
A larger turbo and revised engine management pushes power to 600 hp/542 Nm, with the 2.0 litre turbocharged boxer four revving to 8,500 rpm and on to an estimated 290 km/h top speed. With a kerb weight said to be less than 1,200 kg, Prodrive claims this WRX STI has a power-to-weight ratio comparable to that of a GT3-class racing car.
For the 60.37 km circuit, where the car spends 75% of its time at full throttle, Higgins’ WRX STI is configured with a WRC-spec gearbox, albeit with gears fourth and above changed for longer ratios and for durability. Thanks to Prodrive’s experience in GT-class racing with Aston Martin, the modified Subaru also gains a drag reduction system (DRS) to give the car better balance of performance between long straights and high-speed bends.
To handle the rigours of the road course, the time attack WRX STI runs suspension settings close to that of a tarmac rally car, though still with more ground clearance than a dedicated track racer.
GALLERY: Subaru WRX STI in Malaysia
that sound..subaruuuu
tengku djan and karamjit can drive better than him.
How come my XV is so underpowered…
looks like New Proton Persona at the back..
600HP from a 2 litre engine ?
it gets one drive and after that it’s due for full overhaul
How on earth did Prodrive & Subaru know how much ground clearance to give the car? Cos even after some air jumps, it lands without damaging the front bumpers.
Can I swap it for my Classic? Shame that the sound kept coming and going and the corner sequence semed horribly muddled up.