Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet lap time at Nürburgring Nordschleife

The difference is modern tires versus vintage 2007. Tires have advanced in technology since the mid 2000s. Also manufacturers are putting extreme performance semi-slick tires on their performance models. Fifteen to twenty years ago manufacturers were looking at real life driving conditions for the typical customer when selecting original equipment tires. Nowadays they choose the fastest tire available, just so they can set headlines with lap times. Cars from the mid-2000s and earlier were tested on mediocre O.E. tires. Now they are tested on the best available tires. This makes slow cars like the Type R look faster on track than much faster older cars that were tested back in the day when new.

And my mundane sports sedan will beat V12 lamborghinis at a whole range of performance metrics. technology has come a long way.

But let me be fair. The cabriolet is nowhere as fast as the coupe. Walter Rohrl is a great driver in his prime, but he doesn't drive cars to the limit for magazines, and nowhere near the limit compared to a factory driver with a factory team over multiple laps over multiple days.

The regular turbo coupe set a 7:38, some 15s faster.
https://fastestlaps.com/tests/3eb7b6nlnrr2

You had to look up an old convertible variant to say "uhm actually this one is slow" 🤓

Also iirc the track got faster, surface got better. Hardly fair lol