Driving Porsche 911 at its home ground
14 Jun 2011 5:30 PM by
Adhish Alawani
in
Single review,
Porsche,
Driving the 911 at its home ground and getting trained to drive it fast is nothing less than a dream. We live it! Coming down the home straight , sticking to the left , speedometer reading close to 130kmph , going deep into the corner all the way till the blue cone marks for entry point , i steer the wheel sharply to right. From here , it is a steep climb uphill; looking at the sky the car was climbing up on full throttle and as I reached the top. Then the track sharply turns towards the left leading to another right hander – this time , going down steeply. Coming down with the tail slightly out of line and sliding , I have to give a hint of countersteer to get it back on line , jump on to the gas , and exit the final right-hander of the entire complex.
It was like a dream come true. Ever since I can remember , I have wanted to drive the Corkscrew. Though this One was a replica of the real one , it gave me a hint of how much thrill the one at Laguna Seca must be offering. And could there be a better car to tackle your dream corner than in the legendary Porsche 911?
Being a part of the Porsche Sport Driving School (PSDS) held at the Leipzig test track of the Stuttgart company , I had got myself the flagship 911 from the manufacturer to undergo sport driving training. The day began with a briefing and basics of seat and steering adjustments. This was followed by theory lessons explaining in detail the forces acting on a car under acceleration , braking and steering. After getting the basics clear , it was time for understanding the concepts of understeer and oversteer - how they occur , how they act , how they help and how they affect a car as it speeds into a 
corner and at the exit. And just to make sure that the drivers drove with full faith , we were also given a brief on how good PSM (Porsche Stability Management consisting of traction control and ABS) is and how it keeps the car under control all the time.
A good hour later , it was time to get into the 911 , strap the seat belt , grip the steering and floor the throttle. To start with , I was handed the keys to the 911 4S – a 3.8-litre , 385PS , four-wheel drive machine that is eager to tackle the corners as quickly as your abilities allow. However , the PSDS is not just focused around sport and race driving. The school starts with basic practicals that would help anyone and everyone in their daily course of driving; the most important being the ‘quick lane-change’ exercise in which we were supposed to come through a marked lane at certain (high) speed only to find out that the lane was blocked midway by an obstacle (a set of cones in this case) , quickly turn left to avoid them and then turn right even quicker to get back into the lane.
The exercise started with entry speed of 80kmph and got progressively tougher as the entry speeds were pumped up to 110kmph. As we got a hang of the quick steering , we were asked to switch off the PSM and do the same thing - just to prove how the electronics had been helping us all through the exercise. Things looked a little tough now as the quick steering pushed the tail out of line and a countersteer became necessary to keep the car on the intended line. After steering came the braking exercise , where we had to enter a marked area at 80kmph first , then at 100kmph and lastly at 
120kmph , then jump on the brakes and stop the car within the marked area. Sounded pretty easy at the start but it turned out to be tougher.
With the basics of steering and braking done , it was time to get into the cars for the real thing – laps around the test track that is a fantastic combination of famous corners from various racetracks around the world. The lessons that were now coming up were more intensive and consisted of a combination of things that one would need to master for getting the best timings around a race track. The instructor’s GT3 was leading while we students followed in our respective cars. To make things simple for the first timers , entry , apex and exit of every corner were marked with blue cones making it easy to find the fastest line through each corner. It took a little time to get used to each corner and believing in what your car was capable of.
As I got the hang of the car , it became crystal clear as to why the 911 is regarded as one of the most legendary sportscars ever built. The 911 is spot on when it comes to handling. With its point and shoot precision in the corners and the neutral steering , it became easier to push the car more and more every time you come around the lap. Confidence levels went on rising as I started understanding the real potential of the car. And that was what formed the backbone of the coaching. The instructors were hell-bent on making you believe in the abilities of the car and once you did , they started motivating you to push the car to faster speeds as was possible.
Later in the day , we were taken to the wet skid pad to master the skill of countersteering while sliding. At slower speeds too , it didn’t turn out to be easy with very low friction in play and a lot of horsepower being transferred to the rear 
wheels. The last part of the training was a timed slalom course. The focus shifted from 911 to the new Boxster Spyder (it’s stripped down by 65kg as against the standard one and weighs 1300kg only) for this training. The reason for using a Boxster Spyder was evident as soon as the car was taken around the cones in slalom. Agility was at its best and the quick , responsive steering , lightweight body made switching the car’s direction easy.
It was finally the end of day as we completed training on various aspects of sport driving that started with the basics of sitting in a car to a little advanced countersteering in a drift. But it wasn’t the end of the school yet as the instructors got ready to give us the taste of Porsche’s Superb racecar – the GT3 RS. A couple of hot laps in this amazingly fast machine with a driver who has been going around this track for the past five years day in and day out , changed my perspective of braking points , throttling out of a corner and even entering the Corkscrew (the instructor actually went up the hill sideways , almost spraining my neck).
With almost 25 laps done on the track that day , I looked back at it and wondered whether I had an equally good time with any other car before or after this experience. I might have done much higher speeds in a straight line in a supercar before; I might have munched more miles at a go in a sportscar before; but playing around with the fantastic 911 at its own playground was an experience in itself.
Content courtesy: 
It was like a dream come true. Ever since I can remember , I have wanted to drive the Corkscrew. Though this One was a replica of the real one , it gave me a hint of how much thrill the one at Laguna Seca must be offering. And could there be a better car to tackle your dream corner than in the legendary Porsche 911?
Being a part of the Porsche Sport Driving School (PSDS) held at the Leipzig test track of the Stuttgart company , I had got myself the flagship 911 from the manufacturer to undergo sport driving training. The day began with a briefing and basics of seat and steering adjustments. This was followed by theory lessons explaining in detail the forces acting on a car under acceleration , braking and steering. After getting the basics clear , it was time for understanding the concepts of understeer and oversteer - how they occur , how they act , how they help and how they affect a car as it speeds into a
corner and at the exit. And just to make sure that the drivers drove with full faith , we were also given a brief on how good PSM (Porsche Stability Management consisting of traction control and ABS) is and how it keeps the car under control all the time.
A good hour later , it was time to get into the 911 , strap the seat belt , grip the steering and floor the throttle. To start with , I was handed the keys to the 911 4S – a 3.8-litre , 385PS , four-wheel drive machine that is eager to tackle the corners as quickly as your abilities allow. However , the PSDS is not just focused around sport and race driving. The school starts with basic practicals that would help anyone and everyone in their daily course of driving; the most important being the ‘quick lane-change’ exercise in which we were supposed to come through a marked lane at certain (high) speed only to find out that the lane was blocked midway by an obstacle (a set of cones in this case) , quickly turn left to avoid them and then turn right even quicker to get back into the lane.
The exercise started with entry speed of 80kmph and got progressively tougher as the entry speeds were pumped up to 110kmph. As we got a hang of the quick steering , we were asked to switch off the PSM and do the same thing - just to prove how the electronics had been helping us all through the exercise. Things looked a little tough now as the quick steering pushed the tail out of line and a countersteer became necessary to keep the car on the intended line. After steering came the braking exercise , where we had to enter a marked area at 80kmph first , then at 100kmph and lastly at
120kmph , then jump on the brakes and stop the car within the marked area. Sounded pretty easy at the start but it turned out to be tougher.
With the basics of steering and braking done , it was time to get into the cars for the real thing – laps around the test track that is a fantastic combination of famous corners from various racetracks around the world. The lessons that were now coming up were more intensive and consisted of a combination of things that one would need to master for getting the best timings around a race track. The instructor’s GT3 was leading while we students followed in our respective cars. To make things simple for the first timers , entry , apex and exit of every corner were marked with blue cones making it easy to find the fastest line through each corner. It took a little time to get used to each corner and believing in what your car was capable of.
As I got the hang of the car , it became crystal clear as to why the 911 is regarded as one of the most legendary sportscars ever built. The 911 is spot on when it comes to handling. With its point and shoot precision in the corners and the neutral steering , it became easier to push the car more and more every time you come around the lap. Confidence levels went on rising as I started understanding the real potential of the car. And that was what formed the backbone of the coaching. The instructors were hell-bent on making you believe in the abilities of the car and once you did , they started motivating you to push the car to faster speeds as was possible.
Later in the day , we were taken to the wet skid pad to master the skill of countersteering while sliding. At slower speeds too , it didn’t turn out to be easy with very low friction in play and a lot of horsepower being transferred to the rear
wheels. The last part of the training was a timed slalom course. The focus shifted from 911 to the new Boxster Spyder (it’s stripped down by 65kg as against the standard one and weighs 1300kg only) for this training. The reason for using a Boxster Spyder was evident as soon as the car was taken around the cones in slalom. Agility was at its best and the quick , responsive steering , lightweight body made switching the car’s direction easy.
It was finally the end of day as we completed training on various aspects of sport driving that started with the basics of sitting in a car to a little advanced countersteering in a drift. But it wasn’t the end of the school yet as the instructors got ready to give us the taste of Porsche’s Superb racecar – the GT3 RS. A couple of hot laps in this amazingly fast machine with a driver who has been going around this track for the past five years day in and day out , changed my perspective of braking points , throttling out of a corner and even entering the Corkscrew (the instructor actually went up the hill sideways , almost spraining my neck).
With almost 25 laps done on the track that day , I looked back at it and wondered whether I had an equally good time with any other car before or after this experience. I might have done much higher speeds in a straight line in a supercar before; I might have munched more miles at a go in a sportscar before; but playing around with the fantastic 911 at its own playground was an experience in itself.
Content courtesy: