The day started incredibly early for me having to get up at 4.30am to drive across to Silverstone to be on time for breakfast. However, getting up this early was not a problem when my day was going to unfold like this.... The first part of the day was 'Driver education'. This was to tell us firstly a bit about the day but also the most interesting part for me - learning about the human performance aspect of motor racing. We had a chance to test ourselves on the 'grip' test and also a 'reaction' test. I was fairly happy with my results but still a fair way off the incredibly quick reactions of a professional racing driver. It was really interesting to learn about the physical requirements of the top drivers, especially Le Mans drivers, who regularly have to deal with 5G in a corner. This isn't too dissimilar to a fighter pilot! They also experience losing up to 3.5 litres of sweat over a 4 hour stint in 24 hr races when in countries such as Malaysia. This is because the cabin temperature can exceed 50 degrees! I found this pretty interesting because usually you just think about the performance of the car and not the driver.
On to the next section - 'Road driving' - in a Macan turbo, Panamera 4S and a Cayenne GTS. This was quite a cool experience for me coming from a Citreon C1 to these cars of 4x the value but also way over 4x the performance! It was just an addictive feeling pressing the loud pedal down a British b road. The thing that just blew me away was how capable and composed the cars were. Exploiting the performance just left me giggling like a little kid as I got propelled down the road. The Macan turbo was definitely my favourite out of these 3 cars.
After the road driving, we had a 3 course lunch which was thoroughly enjoyable. We then swiftly moved on to the 'Track driving' which started in a Carerra S manual. Once again, I was left with a stupid cheesy grin plastered across my face after chucking the car into the bends and pinning the throttle down in the straights. The next car I jumped into was the Carrera 4S. In this, we had a play with 'launch control' which was just ridiculous, firing me down the tarmac and pinning me to the back of my seat achieving 0 to 60 in 3.5 seconds. Coming to a halt was almost as impressive, slamming on the huge carbon ceramic brakes;it was like throwing an anchor into the ground. This part of the day was definitely the most enjoyable for me.
After this, we had a 'Passenger lap' in the Cayman GT4. It was was really impressive to experience the grip of the car but also the balance when the instructor was sliding it about. One thing I had to say to him was " How did you end up with this job????" Once we'd had the passenger laps, it was on to the 'kick plate' .The Porsche Cayman we were in, was sent into a skid which we had to correct on a surface comparable to black ice. This was a right laugh but also taught us some useful skills. We then headed to the 'Ice hill' where again we had next to no grip and we had a play sliding the car about. We managed to get told off driving this section as my friend got a bit over exuberant on the drive back down the hill! This was the last section of the day which concluded one of the most enjoyable days I can remember.
The only sad part was getting back into my Citreon C1 to head home, knowing I'm a fair few years away from being able to own a Porsche. A massive thanks has to go to my friend who made this day possible.... LEGEND!
