[Brake dust]

Originally Posted by canaglia

torque is the amount of force that the engine generates and transmits to the driving wheels at a certain rpm interval. More torque is produced, higher power is achieved at lower rpm, less torque is produced the more higher the engine needs to rev to get more power. In a way or another the engine will reach however the top power, but having more torque becomes a considerable advantage in traffic situation because more torque lets the car to have a better acceleration from corners exit making it able to overpass sooner and easily slower cars. Having less torque, the car will lack of corners exit acceleration and will take more time to catch and pass slower cars. It's a situational physical advantage that bop will never be able to balance (unless to impose insanely long gear ratios). Due EoT, NA powered R13 and turbo/hybrid TS050 were able to run with similiar best absolute timelaps at le mans, but during the race when traffic started toyota used to say bye bye to rebellions.
GTE/GT3 are very heavy cars and the effect of more torque is however compensated by a really high mass (a=f/m) not to consider that when porsche gte was a RR layout car had the best acceleration possible since the engine was mounted on top or rear axle making less torque get lost between shafts and the torque curve was basically a flat line for most of the rpm range (that is basically the reason why 991 gt3r is still a traction killing machine under heavy rain). There isn't much to say about, only a big >5L NA engine may have the same high torque release and fuel efficiency of a mid-sized turbo engine, a smaller NA engine will have less torque and worse consumes no matter what.

This is from Sportscar 365 regardining the mid engine 911 RSR:

“We finally opted for a normally aspirated engine exactly one year ago,” Walliser said. “The final go was a meeting between Dr. Blume [Porsche CEO] and myself in Bahrain.

“For the 911 concept, considering our actual engine lineup, a normally aspirated engine gives us more freedom in the car concept, e.g. weight distribution.”

However, Walliser doesn’t see it as a disadvantage, thanks to variable boost levels for turbocharged engines implemented by the FIA, ACO and IMSA that now provides a near-identical power curve for both normally aspirated and turbocharged engines.

“The rules are written in a way that gives turbos and normally aspirated engines the same power and torque behavior,” he said.

Will LMP BOP be able address this issue the way GTE seem too? Beleive it or not, the street version 997 GT3 is faster from 60 to 120 than the 911 Turbo. Might be mainly by weight differences.