This gave us an initial feel of the car. As I strapped my self in, I straight away noticed the lack of things in the car compared to a road-going Scirocco I’ve driven a while back. Only the three major equipments were familiar to me including the stock dashboard, steering wheel and the DSG gear lever. The rest were all stripped out. An instructor revealed that up to 200 kilograms of weight have been shaved, although the car was fitted with a roll cage and a fire extinguisher system.
I went on to perform the practice and straight away noticed the precision in handling, of course much sharper than version which has adaptive dampers. This feature was removed from the race car, giving way to good old racing suspension. Everything felt rigid and planted. The car was basically letting me be the boss as it turned whenever I wanted it too. I also noticed that the race car had a heavier front end weight bias, which is expected considering most vital parts such as the engine and gearbox are placed up front and most of the items at the rear such as the seats were removed.
Soon after the first session we moved on to the second one where we had a taste of the race-prepped Scirocco’s acceleration performance. Unlike the R Cup car that is being raced in Europe, this one is based on the 2.0 TSI model. Which means it has a 200hp 2.0 liter TSI and it is linked to a standard DSG twin-clutch transmission, exactly the same one sold right here in Malaysia. When I had a go in the standard Scirocco and even the Golf GTI, I remembered that the exhaust made a distinctive ‘pop’ sound during gear changes. This was also the case with the race car, but much more intensified thanks to the sport exhaust. As always, the ‘flappy’ pedal shifters were a joy to use and compared to the standard Scirocco I felt better performance. The car was more eager to go. This wasn’t much of a surprise, considering I had a lighter car at my disposal.
Although the exercise in this session was quite simple, it was worth every single second of it as the instructor of the session was Ronnie Quintarelli, who with his partner Tsugio Matsuda went on to win the GT500 class at Sepang with their blue Calsonic Impul GT-R less than 24 hours before the session! Not bad at all! And I thought I was feeling tired just after a couple of hours under the Sun!
Next up was driving lines. We tried out turns 1 and 2 of the circuit to better understand the fundamentals of a racing line, in preparation for the full track driving later in the evening. The car felt like it was part of the track around those bends as it felt effortless changing directions with almost zero roll. Moments later we moved on to the fourth and final practice of the day. We basically had to accelerate the hot hatch and jam the brakes while swerving away, in an attempt to avoid something on the track. The race car uses a front braking system taken off the Audi R8 and the brakes caught up very quickly and stopping from about 80km/h was almost instantaneous. Mental mechanics play an important role as well. When a race car driver sees an unlikely obstruction on the track, he or she has to react quickly. There is no time for brain freeze here.
After a quick tea break, the went on to the main order of the day, you’ve guest it, the full track driving, yeah ! We left the pits in a group of six and I was right behind the pace car, driven by one of the Scirocco Cup China drivers. I left the pits with a sense the calm but as soon as I approached Turn 1 adrenaline kicked it. I felt anxious but very excited at the same time.
We were given only two laps around the whole circuit and my first lap was incident-free. The car felt very good on track. Under steer was extremely minimal and I only felt it when I was pushing a little too hard. A quick release of the accelerator pedal fixed it. The car turned in nicely and very predictably. However the car tended to twitch under hard braking while approaching a corner. This could well be due to a lighter rear end which becomes tail happy when all the weight transfers to the front under hard braking.
Power delivery was very commendable as well and the noisy but lovely exhaust note gives the driving a better sensation too. The car was bumpy though, but it should feel so on the track. I hit every single apex and followed the right line and on the straights, I felt that the car was going through a hail storm. Debris was being kicked out the pace car in front and I was preparing for a cracked windscreen! Imagine what a race car driver has to go through when he or she is right at the tail of the car in front.
Everything went well on the final lap, until between Turn 12 and 13. This is a chicane section comprising of a left hander and subsequently a right hander leading up to Turn 14 before reaching the back straight. I noticed that I was a little too close to the pace car in front and I decided to lift off the gas pedal to increase the gap. Unfortunately, without noticing I did so mid-way through a corner. I forgot an important lesson. Never lift off the pedal abruptly while driving fast through a chicane
It so happened that I released pressure on the pedal while negotiating the chicane and car suffered from a sudden weight shift and the back end stepped out. This is called lift-off oversteer and it caught me off-guard. As soon as I spun the car, my basic instinct kicked in and I straight away slammed the brakes. I managed to stop the car in time and avoided potential catastrophe. Furthermore the driver who was behind me managed to safely swerve away. What I learned from various training sessions paid off and I am sure the guy behind me was thankful for the same too.
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