Silverstone "Lamborghini Thrill" with vid
Discussion
I'm probably the millionth person to post one of these on PH, but I really enjoyed it and did this write up for my local IAM group so I thought I'd share it here as well. Any PH Lamborghini owners are welcome to explain what that beeping noise might have been!
The Car
Mid engined 5 litre V10
500bhp
Six Speed Manual
Four Wheel Drive
Pirelli PZero tyres
The Day
The "Lamborghini Thrill" is normally three laps of Silverstone's south(?) course (approximately 2/3rds of the GP circuit) but I supplemented mine on the day by paying 50% of the normal rate for a cancelled slot, doubling the number of laps. There was a short briefing, and it became obvious that the vast majority of guests had never driven on track. The three of us that admitted to previous experience were described as "ringers". The instructor focussed on the basics of braking in a straight line, smooth cornering on balanced throttle then progressive acceleration. One thing I knew I'd struggle with was the racing steering. They state that you keep your hands on the wheel at the "quarter to three" position at all times. I always used to do this before my IAM training, and my instructor spent weeks battering out of me. Now I had to untrain myself in six short laps.
I had spent several hours (which wasn't as long as I'd have liked) either on the playstation or watching other videos on youtube so that I'd have the best chance of knowing the circuit. I didn't want to be dawdling along looking for the next corner when I'd rather be enjoying the car and all it had to offer. I honestly wasn't interested in setting a fast time or overtaking everything in sight, I just wanted to feel what this personal icon is really like to drive. I do find when I'm karting that if I'm really focussed on nailing quick lap times that the session disappears in a blur and I have little memory of exactly what happened. I Did Not want that to happen today.
The Drive
The instructor is in the car when you walk up to it. They and another member of staff help you get set up comfortably in the car. This proved impossible in my case despite everything in the car being adjustable. My family have distinctly non-standard proportions. Short arms and legs, long spine and neck. Adding in a helmet meant I couldn't sit up straight and reach the wheel at the same time. I had to do the drive with the helmet rubbing on the roof and my neck tilted off to one side.
The pedals were the next issue, offset a long way to the left and very close together. Classic Lamborghini (so I'm told). I'm not sure they needed to make it this way (i.e. due to right-hand drive conversion for the UK market) or if they just wanted to be faithful to the brand.
Few points to note before we get rolling. The handbrake is disabled, in case of panic-grabs when things go wrong. There is a plate which blocks off 1st and 2nd gears when you're moving, to prevent embarrassing 5th-gear-at-120mph-looking-for-4th-got-2nd-and *bang* moments, which is comforting when you consider the unfamiliar gearbox.
There is no time to adjust to the car once you're in, the camera is turned on and you're rolling. I was surprised by the amount of noise from the car's differentials. In the tight turns leaving the pits they really rumble. It was good to hear, I wouldn't want the heavy engineering under the stunning body to be totally hidden away. I did notice that the gearbox had suffered a very hard life, as you'd expect. Shifts into anything other than 5th were accompanied by a painful crunch as the tired synchromesh failed to do its job.
The car is actually quite small, but feels very wide. You move around an armco and onto a 150yard slip road down onto the circuit. The track was clear so we ran slowly through the first two tight corners. By this stage I had already given the car a bit of throttle in second gear to get up to speed. I had only put about two to three inches of throttle on, but it surged forwards hard. The instructor announced that the next corner was a fast bend, so I accelerated a little more, but it wasn't until I got round the bend and could see just how wide the track really was that I had the confidence to fully let the car off the leash.
The run up through third gear with the car on "maximum attack" was just plain magical. The wave of noise and power was everything I'd thought a car like this should deliver, and the pace just did not seem to fall away through the gear. I have been in more manic vehicles, but two of them had wings and the third was a genuine race car.
I had expected to "fall into it" at this point and start to relax, but the constant stream of instructions required a lot of attention, and the track was far harder to learn than I had expected. To my amazement, having managed 13 unguided laps around the Nurburg Ring, I was lost in a matter of minutes. I think this was down to sheer information and adrenaline overload. There are plenty of landmarks and each corner is sufficiently distinct from the others, but asking my brain to learn a new track, a new car, and listen to (then implement) the instructions in real time was a bit much.
The cones which marked the track out were a bit of a problem for me. I'm naturally quite a procedure/rule driven person and with my brain in overload I defaulted to following them slavishly, even when the racing line in that car was clearly elsewhere. There was one time when I missed my braking point miserably, as I wasn't sure which cones marked it. That didn't help with the adrenaline overload, but we managed to keep up a decent pace anyway.
I had expected to at least try and rev-match a few downshifts, particularly from the 125mph straight into the long sweeping corner past the pits, but there was just too much happening, I did consider it once, but with the pedal layout so unfamiliar I could only imagine disaster lay down that road. It would have been nigh on impossible anyway. The engine seemed to have zero intertia, no matter how hard I tried to temper my upshifts I couldn't get it right. The engine was always back at near idle speed by the time I was ready to pull up the clutch in the next gear. You won't hear me complaining about that - it's part of what makes the throttle response so sharp and I wouldn't change it for the world.
The fact it takes more than six laps to learn this car is a good thing, it would have felt shallow otherwise. I may never drive a Diablo (my favorite Lamborghini) but thanks to Audi throwing their weight behind this car I have at least been able to get an idea of what it would be like. They say 'never meet your heroes as they'll always disappoint'. The Gallardo may have saved me ruining the Diablo by actually driving it. The Baby Lambo is just sensational, everything I'd dreamed it could be, but it was also sufficiently "friendly" to let me have a massive amount of fun without worrying if I was going to kill it or myself.
My Video
I've copied the Youtube link below so you can see what the experience was like on board. I have to say, no matter how good the speakers or how high you set the volume, it will not do the engine noise justice. It's also safe to say that the video gives you no real idea how fast this car is. You can see the speedo reading rise, but that just cannot start to describe what it was like. The Lamborghini accelerates faster through 5th gear at 100mph than my MX5 can in first gear from standing. Everything about the experience was absolutely fabulous.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8MFsDQZCB0
I've actually compared my video to a couple of the others on YouTube. It seems to me that, in particular on the main straight, that I was leaving the corner faster than the other two I looked at but reaching a lower top speed. That implies that the beeping noise may be engine related and the car was holding back. I know that the rev limit came in 1,500rpm below the actual red line on the dash. I thought that was an artificial limit imposed by Silverstone, but I'm now wondering if the ECU was protecting the engine. The thought that the car might actually be even more powerful is humbling!
Overall, it was a fantastic experience. If you like driving or exotic cars you must try this.
The Car
Mid engined 5 litre V10
500bhp
Six Speed Manual
Four Wheel Drive
Pirelli PZero tyres
The Day
The "Lamborghini Thrill" is normally three laps of Silverstone's south(?) course (approximately 2/3rds of the GP circuit) but I supplemented mine on the day by paying 50% of the normal rate for a cancelled slot, doubling the number of laps. There was a short briefing, and it became obvious that the vast majority of guests had never driven on track. The three of us that admitted to previous experience were described as "ringers". The instructor focussed on the basics of braking in a straight line, smooth cornering on balanced throttle then progressive acceleration. One thing I knew I'd struggle with was the racing steering. They state that you keep your hands on the wheel at the "quarter to three" position at all times. I always used to do this before my IAM training, and my instructor spent weeks battering out of me. Now I had to untrain myself in six short laps.
I had spent several hours (which wasn't as long as I'd have liked) either on the playstation or watching other videos on youtube so that I'd have the best chance of knowing the circuit. I didn't want to be dawdling along looking for the next corner when I'd rather be enjoying the car and all it had to offer. I honestly wasn't interested in setting a fast time or overtaking everything in sight, I just wanted to feel what this personal icon is really like to drive. I do find when I'm karting that if I'm really focussed on nailing quick lap times that the session disappears in a blur and I have little memory of exactly what happened. I Did Not want that to happen today.
The Drive
The instructor is in the car when you walk up to it. They and another member of staff help you get set up comfortably in the car. This proved impossible in my case despite everything in the car being adjustable. My family have distinctly non-standard proportions. Short arms and legs, long spine and neck. Adding in a helmet meant I couldn't sit up straight and reach the wheel at the same time. I had to do the drive with the helmet rubbing on the roof and my neck tilted off to one side.
The pedals were the next issue, offset a long way to the left and very close together. Classic Lamborghini (so I'm told). I'm not sure they needed to make it this way (i.e. due to right-hand drive conversion for the UK market) or if they just wanted to be faithful to the brand.
Few points to note before we get rolling. The handbrake is disabled, in case of panic-grabs when things go wrong. There is a plate which blocks off 1st and 2nd gears when you're moving, to prevent embarrassing 5th-gear-at-120mph-looking-for-4th-got-2nd-and *bang* moments, which is comforting when you consider the unfamiliar gearbox.
There is no time to adjust to the car once you're in, the camera is turned on and you're rolling. I was surprised by the amount of noise from the car's differentials. In the tight turns leaving the pits they really rumble. It was good to hear, I wouldn't want the heavy engineering under the stunning body to be totally hidden away. I did notice that the gearbox had suffered a very hard life, as you'd expect. Shifts into anything other than 5th were accompanied by a painful crunch as the tired synchromesh failed to do its job.
The car is actually quite small, but feels very wide. You move around an armco and onto a 150yard slip road down onto the circuit. The track was clear so we ran slowly through the first two tight corners. By this stage I had already given the car a bit of throttle in second gear to get up to speed. I had only put about two to three inches of throttle on, but it surged forwards hard. The instructor announced that the next corner was a fast bend, so I accelerated a little more, but it wasn't until I got round the bend and could see just how wide the track really was that I had the confidence to fully let the car off the leash.
The run up through third gear with the car on "maximum attack" was just plain magical. The wave of noise and power was everything I'd thought a car like this should deliver, and the pace just did not seem to fall away through the gear. I have been in more manic vehicles, but two of them had wings and the third was a genuine race car.
I had expected to "fall into it" at this point and start to relax, but the constant stream of instructions required a lot of attention, and the track was far harder to learn than I had expected. To my amazement, having managed 13 unguided laps around the Nurburg Ring, I was lost in a matter of minutes. I think this was down to sheer information and adrenaline overload. There are plenty of landmarks and each corner is sufficiently distinct from the others, but asking my brain to learn a new track, a new car, and listen to (then implement) the instructions in real time was a bit much.
The cones which marked the track out were a bit of a problem for me. I'm naturally quite a procedure/rule driven person and with my brain in overload I defaulted to following them slavishly, even when the racing line in that car was clearly elsewhere. There was one time when I missed my braking point miserably, as I wasn't sure which cones marked it. That didn't help with the adrenaline overload, but we managed to keep up a decent pace anyway.
I had expected to at least try and rev-match a few downshifts, particularly from the 125mph straight into the long sweeping corner past the pits, but there was just too much happening, I did consider it once, but with the pedal layout so unfamiliar I could only imagine disaster lay down that road. It would have been nigh on impossible anyway. The engine seemed to have zero intertia, no matter how hard I tried to temper my upshifts I couldn't get it right. The engine was always back at near idle speed by the time I was ready to pull up the clutch in the next gear. You won't hear me complaining about that - it's part of what makes the throttle response so sharp and I wouldn't change it for the world.
The fact it takes more than six laps to learn this car is a good thing, it would have felt shallow otherwise. I may never drive a Diablo (my favorite Lamborghini) but thanks to Audi throwing their weight behind this car I have at least been able to get an idea of what it would be like. They say 'never meet your heroes as they'll always disappoint'. The Gallardo may have saved me ruining the Diablo by actually driving it. The Baby Lambo is just sensational, everything I'd dreamed it could be, but it was also sufficiently "friendly" to let me have a massive amount of fun without worrying if I was going to kill it or myself.
My Video
I've copied the Youtube link below so you can see what the experience was like on board. I have to say, no matter how good the speakers or how high you set the volume, it will not do the engine noise justice. It's also safe to say that the video gives you no real idea how fast this car is. You can see the speedo reading rise, but that just cannot start to describe what it was like. The Lamborghini accelerates faster through 5th gear at 100mph than my MX5 can in first gear from standing. Everything about the experience was absolutely fabulous.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8MFsDQZCB0
I've actually compared my video to a couple of the others on YouTube. It seems to me that, in particular on the main straight, that I was leaving the corner faster than the other two I looked at but reaching a lower top speed. That implies that the beeping noise may be engine related and the car was holding back. I know that the rev limit came in 1,500rpm below the actual red line on the dash. I thought that was an artificial limit imposed by Silverstone, but I'm now wondering if the ECU was protecting the engine. The thought that the car might actually be even more powerful is humbling!
Overall, it was a fantastic experience. If you like driving or exotic cars you must try this.
That looks like a lot of fun. I watched the whole vid. Looks much better than an Aston day I did a while back. The instructor I had was miserable and didnt give me any useful advice as all. He also told me to just 'leave it in third all the way round'. The instructor you had seemed really good. I should add, the day I did was not at Silverstone.
That guy would have completely pissed me off. He wouldn't STFU ! Even annoyed me watching the vid. Telling you when to brake, when to get off the brake, when to accellerate, when to change up / down. Steering for you. Even when you were parking up he had his hand on the bloody wheel.
Fartgalen said:
That guy would have completely pissed me off. He wouldn't STFU ! Even annoyed me watching the vid. Telling you when to brake, when to get off the brake, when to accellerate, when to change up / down. Steering for you. Even when you were parking up he had his hand on the bloody wheel.
The chap i was with when i did a Ferrari Thrill at silverstone was like that. He also negated to tell me about the cones creating a chicane just before the pit straight meaning i was completely out of position. It was great fun, but the instructor was not at all confidence inspiring and made me feel nervous. The guy even told me i had accelerated too hard and had caused the wheels to spin. Firstly the TC was on its highest setting and secondly i think i would have felt it if i had spun the wheels in 420bhp RWD ferrari!On the other hand when i did a lamboughini day at Thruxton (this was a longer experience including and RX8, SLK and formula renault) the guys were very helpful, let you get on with it (within reason) and encouraged you to drive faster
Fartgalen said:
Steering for you. Even when you were parking up he had his hand on the bloody wheel.
I was surprised when I noticed that in the video, because I hardly felt it at all on track. There was only one time I felt him push the wheel, I think the rest of the time he was putting his hand there "just in case". I guess I'd be the same if I was being paid to ride around in supercars all day, and all I had to do to keep my job was avoid adrenaline soaked lads changing the shape of the vehicle. The parking one was a bit much though!
The car was dual control, the green cones marked the apex (red were either braking or turn in) and yes I was flat out on the power. Having paid a good amount to be there I wasn't about to be reserved with it. I wanted to know what it had to offer. On the video you'll hear him tell me to be progressive rather than stamping on it.
Tom - I must admit, and it pains me to do so, it was your fault. All of it.
When you're mended we really must go karting some time..
Tom - I must admit, and it pains me to do so, it was your fault. All of it.
When you're mended we really must go karting some time..
Bloody rev and gear limit would drive me mad. You're missing all the good stuff. If you want to do something similiar again i would have a look at palmer sport days, there they dont repeat the same non sensical stuff every lap and they encourage you to thrash the cars. If you think that lambo was fast wait until you have a go in a formula jaguar!
Edited by mikearwas on Tuesday 3rd May 02:54
Cheers Speedtwelve.
I see I've attracted my first YouTube comment. Forgot to turn those off. Thankfully the first one wasn't too bad by their (appalling) standards.
As for other instructors, I'd have enjoyed this guy. Hadn't even got off the slip lane before he's demanding power. Must have had a lunch appointment...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Yd6QCI-niw&fea...
I'm not sure on total cost as the original voucher was a Christmas / engagement present. I paid £60 for the cancelled slot, £20 for a photo and £35 for my video. Also went for the £10 indemnity, just in case
I see I've attracted my first YouTube comment. Forgot to turn those off. Thankfully the first one wasn't too bad by their (appalling) standards.
As for other instructors, I'd have enjoyed this guy. Hadn't even got off the slip lane before he's demanding power. Must have had a lunch appointment...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Yd6QCI-niw&fea...
I'm not sure on total cost as the original voucher was a Christmas / engagement present. I paid £60 for the cancelled slot, £20 for a photo and £35 for my video. Also went for the £10 indemnity, just in case
Edited by _Al_ on Tuesday 3rd May 06:02
Edited by _Al_ on Tuesday 3rd May 06:04
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