As classroom windows go it's one of the better ones. I can see cars braking for Vale, a near 90 degree left hander that requires a hard push on the brakes after the long straight before it. The pit lane entrance is across from it, too, and a McLaren 720 S, 570 GT4 and 650S are lapping out there.
If ever there were a school day where daydreaming looking out the window was justified then this is it. Only, unlike my school teachers, the Pure McLaren instructor has got all of my attention, as he's talking us through the track in sections, and I've just learned if I get the entry wrong outside at Vale I'll be paying for it dearly later.
Today I'm a customer, or, in race instructor speak a 'Billy'. I'm attending a Pure McLaren event, specifically the firm's season opener at Silverstone, taking part in the track driving course. That means some serious seat time in not just a McLaren 570 S, but the classroom beforehand.
Each element of the track is discussed in detail, as are driving techniques. It's the sort of stuff you might think you know, but having someone properly explain it to you is genuinely enlightening. There's weight transfer, trail braking, gear selection, throttle application and the analysis of it all via telemetry. I've never really sat and analysed what I do when driving around a track, and it's genuinely fascinating. More importantly, it should prove a useful way of maximising time and speed in the car tomorrow.
Of all tracks I've ever driven, Silverstone GP is one of the trickiest to learn. The lack of gradient and visual sighting cues scramble my brain, making it a track I've never been hugely comfortable on. Add the potential for massive speed and the sheer scale of the place and it's a pretty daunting prospect.
Usefully, a track walk follows the classroom work, sizing up the kerbs, checking the new surface and, with a smirk from our instructor, seeking out escape routes should they be needed. There are plenty it seems, the details banked in my mind, with the hope I'll not be needing them tomorrow...
With the track exclusively booked the pit lane is awash with McLarens. Everything is represented, from the 570S I'll be driving, 720S, 650S, 12C, 570 GT4, a 650S Le Mans special edition, a 675LT and a P1 GTR that Bruno Senna will be taking out for the occasional run. The mix is of owners' personal cars - that Le Mans having been flown over from Kuwait especially for this event - to McLaren's own cars. The reception pit area where we'll be dissecting our laps between driving sessions has a McLaren Senna and Senna GTR hot off the Geneva show stand. Useful, apparently, if you're one of the customers here wishing to pour over their next purchases in greater detail with not just the people who developed it, but with the fella whose uncle's name is on it.
A serious audience, then, but despite that there's a really warm, friendly, atmosphere, the instructors and drivers all known to each other, most being repeat attendees. For mere financial mortals it's not a cheap track experience, the Performance Academy Track Level 2 course I'm on would set you back £5,195.
That might sound like a lot, but it's six 30 minute track sessions on an exclusively booked track, full video analysis and driver coaching, that track walk and classroom time, a night in a hotel and all your catering. Factor, too, that 'my' 570S burns pretty much an entire tank of fuel each session, and the tyres are fit for the bin at the end of the day, and it starts to look a lot more reasonable.
I'm paired with Eliot Cole, an instructor who's raced in various GT categories so he's handier than I am. By a long shot. He manages the tricky balance of working out what I'm capable of and leaving me to it where I'm competent, with giving occasional pointers and advice to maximise my lap times. The first 30 minute session is all about familiarisation, with the car and the track.
What's immediately apparent is how handy that classroom work and track walk have been. Having a mental map in my head of how the corners are formed, the kerbs, the surfaces, track limits and, of course, those run-offs should I run out of talent, is incredibly useful. The track isn't familiar, but learning it in the car, at speed, isn't quite as daunting as it could be. There're only a handful of cars out in each session, so, save for the odd car we catch or are caught by we've the track to ourselves, allowing some consistent lapping, learning lines and joining different elements together to create a faster whole.
Those 30 minutes are enough to get into a rhythm, to find some lines and for Cole to explore areas where I could improve. He's largely quiet, keeping the conversation to the straights, giving the odd suggestion for a differing line, later braking point, or just a light lift to shift the car's balance to the nose to aid turn-in response. It's over quickly, Cole downloading the V-Box data, grabbing some drinks and then going though the video pointing out areas where I could be quicker.
My first session records a fastest time of 2 minutes 31 seconds, quick says Cole, but there's some time to be had. Over the next five sessions we work on pinching it back, trying a different line out of Brooklands into Luffield, sacrificing an early turn in at the latter for a wider line, pulling a higher gear on the exit to settle the car for the big gulp of speed at Woodcote. Get that right and Copse arrives quicker, nibbling the kerb earlier and having the faith to run wider on the exit to the kerbs firing the 570S out on the run up to Maggots.
Arguably the most difficult section of corners anywhere, Bruno Senna admitted earlier that it's also one of his favourite bits of track. He says in an F1 car he'd be flat into it, up to Aintree, before a hard brake to get the entry-speed down for Becketts. That's the approach Cole suggests we try, straightening the line though Maggots, then heavy on the brakes, wider than you'd imagine in Beckett's before being patient with turn 13, getting it right allowing you to carry big speed across the kerb at Chapel then down the seemingly endless run down to Stowe.
In the 570S I'm hitting 160mph before standing on the brakes. Vale follows, looking different when approaching it at 118mph than it did from the classroom window yesterday, then Club, down the start-finish straight to the scarily quick Abbey, grabbing a higher gear than you'd think on exit to settle the car in the long left hander that is Farm. Village is a bitch, slow and tricky it's easy to get it wrong, it requiring patience and position, a mistake screws up your exit speed which you pay for down the long straight back down to Brooklands.
Two minutes twenty nine in my second session, a few tenths off the next session, then a 2.28. Consistency is good, but chipping away, Cole reckons I've a 2.27 in me, about half a second off one of the instructor's recorded laps. It takes all day, looking at the video after each session, my segment times suggesting it's possible. I'm not sure, but the first lap of the last session is golden, with a 2.27.52. Looking back at the video later I know on other laps I carried more speed into braking zones than on my best lap, that analysis getting under your skin, but it's obvious that it works.
I'm hugely satisfied, feeling like I've been properly pushed, the 570S a brilliant car to learn in, my conviction that it's McLaren's best car underlined after a day on track in it. More than its 720S relation it moves around, feeling more natural and interesting to drive, its balance fantastic. The fact it took six and a half hours of no mercy lapping in its stride also deeply impressive. I learned more about my driving in a day at Pure McLaren than I have in twenty years of track days and car launches. That I now have an idea where Silverstone actually goes is pretty useful, too.
1 / 6
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