10,000 km in the MINI GP3 – The Track Car as a Daily Driver
Welcome to my World of the good, the bad and the constant pain in my lower back, along with the red mark on my forehead.
By Marc Rutten - Photos by MSCK64
This is my story of living with the most powerful MINI Cooper ever made and the first MINI model in stock form to dive under the 8-minute mark on the Nürburgring Nordschleife.
The story starts at the end of last year, when my local Czech dealer offered me the opportunity to acquire a second-hand ex-press car that came onto the market after it had been de-fleeted. The offer was at the right level, the right moment and offered me the option to get into the new GP.
Until that moment, I had never driven the GP in anger, only been a passenger in one at the end of 2019 at Thermal race track in Palm Springs, South of Los Angeles. At this MINI press event, a development driver took me around the little race track for a few laps allowing me to see what the car was capable of. Even though the car ran its Hankook TS street-legal semi-slick tires, which weren’t available from factory, you already could feel where the car shined and where it failed.
This became even more clear during the spring and summer last year, when the first GP3s landed in the hands of their respected buyers. The first news covered the soft compound Hankook street tires and brakes giving up on track, and the sheer amount of tram-lining and torque steer were added to the stories shared by drivers. Complementing this to the immense hardness of the stock suspension and I felt I was in for a sore treat.
After having driven one car myself, I understood the initial comments and wondered if I had made a good decision. The love for the MINI brand didn’t hold me back and with the deal on the table, a simple “No, thank you” wasn’t an option. The GP3 arrived and on the first drive with my Sales Manager in Prague showed immediately where the Brits - or shall we say Germans – missed the boat opening up a long list of remarks, positives and negative points which have been widely discussed in press reports and among the community of GP3 owners.
Where the bad impacts the good…
Let’s touch on those remarks and first discuss the car’s abilities. Not a single GP3 owner, nor me, will question the capabilities of the car and more importantly the capabilities that are available, but simply untouched in stock form. The four-cylinder turbo engine has a lovely pull and brings you up to proper Autobahn speeds touching 270 km/h on the speedo. The potential is addictive and gives you confidence even in it’s stock form. It was really made to drive at those speeds, and you feel that through the body of the car. Even though it is capable of offering a superb performance output for a hatchback at 306hp and 450Nm, the powerplant is strangled by its tiny intercooler and OPF/GPF filter, which you will only find on European cars and the biggest filter I have ever seen on a smaller car. Some owners have even spoken off heat soak during hot summer track days, which was a worrying thing to hear. A simple OPF-delete and enhanced intercooler will be extremely beneficial too anyone and will open up a potential currently dissipating via hot air.
But the praise doesn’t stop there. The GP3 kit offers a lot of weight saving and additional changes that make this MINI F56 Hatchback immediately suitable for track time generating smiles aplenty. In this stock form there are too many marks which have been left untouched and where the car could have considerably shined through its true nature. The suspension is my biggest point of note after 10,000 kms. The German engineers at MINI took a shortcut when they developed the stock suspension set up. The existing JCW suspension was used as a base, with the travel shortened on the struts plus the springs and stabis stiffened. The outcome of this choice created a car that became a proper handful, nervous and simply uncomfortable. Add to this, the choice of tire and the circle was complete. (More on MINI’s tire choice later.)
Trained drivers who own a GP3 distinguished immediately the potential of the chassis and what its low weight character does not touch on in stock form. The installation of a set of lowering springs showed me immediately how you could bring back some of that required comfort into the car. Although for me it didn’t stop there and a custom developed kit from the Dutch company AST suspension was fitted really bringing back that combination of adjustability, enhanced track ability and comfort required to daily drive the GP3. A mix of abilities that could have been created by MINI themselves, but which was left out unfortunately.
The choice to go down the route of altering the suspension kit was one of being able to use the car more as a daily and for longer distances, but also removing the nervous nature of the car and improve the handling drastically. Now with the adjustable AST kit in place, the car is more relaxed and pleasant on country roads, no long tram-lining, and offers a wider usability while even improving its ability on track. A point I have to note is the sore lower back that the suspension kit gave me after about two months of ownership. Luckily my lower back is now more happy, but this was new to me. I have never experienced this with a car before.
Adjustable AST suspension kit in place
With both the engine and suspension out of the way, it is time to touch on the third nail on the coffin; the stock tires. With three different Hankook tire kits on offer for the car, I can be quite short. The stock Hankook tire is too soft and under-performs in too many situations, especially on track. The winter tire set was initially a complete unknown, but came eventually in a really weird size and requires a new tiny and ugly looking rim. It is also offered by MINI dealers at a simply ridiculous price tag. The track tire is unnecessarily noisy for daily use and isn’t the first choice in a world where you can opt for proper Toyo, Yokohama, Michelin or Pirelli track tires.
You might ask yourself the question; why doesn’t the GP3 have those tires? Due to its limited nature the bigger tire manufacturers weren’t interested in offering a specific tire for the GP and weren’t able to make the deal work for MINI. Add this to the weird size MINI choice - 225/35R18 - as its stock tire size and you aren’t left with a lot of choice in today’s performance tire market. Only Michelin’s Pilot Sport 3 is available in that size, surprisingly.
The 18-inch rims often characterized as the wheels with the “penis-shape” design have also shown owners both ends of the equation. At the positive end, the wheels are extremely light weighing less than 9kgs, but on the negative end they tend to have the issue of the paint cracking under heavy track use. Heat from the brakes gets into the wheels and the paint cracks. Not something I have experienced, but definitely something which has popped up numerous times now.
Improvements help
With more than 10,000 kms done behind the steering wheel of the new GP3, it has become clear to me how well the improvements have brought out that untouched nature of the MINI. That is not only because of my own experiences so far, but more importantly the input throughout the user base and community which has offered a large combined insight into the GP. Therefore if you look to improve the car, look at these three key aspects; the suspension, the tires and the engine.
Of course, numerous people would initially say that more power is needed, a decent exhaust note is sorely missed and the gearbox should have been a manual. But none of these come close to what I explained above and which become noticeably visible when you really experience the GP3 over a longer time. Although these are must-haves you could look at other enhancements such as a brake upgrade with better pads, braided lines, an enhanced disc and improved brake oil, or bucket seats and a cage. Those often come into play when you want to really expand your horizon on track and are for the GP3 a matter of “stage 2” in the range of improvements.
What else?
What else is there to mention that could be of interest for you as a potential (future) owner of a GP3? There are few points to note that are immediately noticed when you live longer with the car. First up is the absence of MINI’s interior light kit. The GP3 doesn’t have any lights in the footwells, no glove compartment light, no rear compartment light. During the winter period, the absence of light sources in the cabin created an interesting experience in which I had to use my phone’s flashlight to find things across the cabin. Annoying!
Also the absence of any baggage nets in the trunk offered for an interesting challenge. In the end, I ordered two aftermarket ones, which I attached into the rear compartment not allowing any things in the trunk to fly around under braking, cornering or accelerating.
An interesting point is the space in the trunk. Without having rear seats and a rear parcel shelf you lose a considerable amount of weight, but also gain a lot of space which you can use for a set of track tires, which just fit in the rear. This allows you to bring a second set of tires to a track day or run your street tires to/from the track and your track tires on the circuit.
I left the most discussed subject as the last one of my story; those wheel arches. Widely discussed when people touch on the GP3, these oddly looking things are for many the ultimate no-go in connection to the new GP. Not only their impact on the design has been heavily criticized, but also the absence of any benefit when it comes to aerodynamics and the sheer amount of stones the rear arches pick up. The stones get stuck inside the arches, damage the body’s paint work (even though there is plastic protection) and the inner arch. There is simply no benefit of having these and I have looked into replacing them. For now there is no solution available yet, but I hope something will arrive to deal with them in the future.
Wheel arches are picking up stones which are extremely hard to remove
Personal touches
On a personal note, I have altered a few things simply because I prefer them as a nice touch to the car. First of all, I installed a shorter antenna on the roof, a required upgrade to any new MINI. The outside window belt line was de-chromed and made black. For now those are the exterior “upgrades” to my personal GP3.
On the inside, the car received a passenger display showing all kind of technical data which is missing inside the stock dashboard set up. It also offers a performance page allowing you to do acceleration runs. Unfortunately, the display shows the non-calibrated speed from the CAN-bus, which means you are about 8% off the real speed due to the use of 18-inch wheels. This makes the speed information and acceleration tests incorrect and impossible to use.
Autosonus passenger display
Another upgrade inside the interior was a VAVA dual cam dash cam which proved helpful when a truck decided to throw a massive stone into the front windscreen of my GP. Windscreen replacements are common on MINIs due to the high rake of the front glass surface. The glass will replaced over the coming weeks, and the dash cam was helpful to look back at what happened.
The final upgrade was a re-upholstered steering wheel. Done by CM customs, the stock wheel now offers a thinner wheel, a mix of leather and Alcantara, and also a few carbon parts from CarbonMINI enhancing the look of the driver’s zone.
New steering wheel by CM Customs and CarbonMINI
Future holds more
The future holds a few more steps, especially on the outside. A new redesign of the exterior is on its way accompanied by a new RI-A wheel set coming from BBS Japan. The wheels are lighter, a touch wider at 8,5J and offer me the option to fit Michelin Cup 2 tires in the size 235/40R18. A proper track tire with a lighter wheel should offer a lot of track fun in the months to come. Other upgrades under consideration are a brake upgrade to enhance the brake power and perhaps an improved exhaust note.
With all those changes under my belt, I don’t see any reason to let the GP3 leave my garage. For me the 3rd gen MINI GP is a keeper. It won’t go anywhere, and will act as a fun machine capable of being pushed on track, mountain roads and the Nürburgring Nordschleife. When I am finished with its “redesign”, I have created the ultimate mix of what I want to see in a MINI GP. For me the GP range was always General Performance and not Grand Prix.
Looking back…
Looking back at the previous months and the experience so far, I feel that the GP3 in its stock form has left too much of its abilities aside and has a lot to desire. Personally I can’t count the amount of times I facepalmed asking myself “why did you do this MINI?”. My forehead still hurts from it.
The car is truly capable, but too many weak spots make it in stock form mediocre, nervous, uncomfortable and undervalued. In comparison to it’s competition, it is a losing mix that only seems to win in a straight line, which is odd for a MINI. In the end, the spots I mentioned here can easily be fixed if you as a (future) owner want to go that far.
All I can say now after 10,000 kms behind the wheel of the GP3 is that MINI did a job that made them enough money to make the business case feasible for us to have another – and possibly last – petrol-powered GP. In a world where we are being flooded by future EV plans, weirdly looking (re-)designs and second facelifts to lengthen the lifetime of the MINI F-series, I think we can only be grateful that were able to buy one and say “Thank you, MINI”.
Onwards to more kilometers in the GP3
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