I had never been to Silverstone before and I was imediately impressed by the scale of things there - it's a big setup they've got!!
We found our way round to the experience centre and I discovered we would be using the smaller internal test track for the experience along with about 10 others. The group brief was conducted upstairs so they took me round to my car and did the brief there.
The hand controls were different to what I had used before as they are designed to be removed quickly when required. They were two rods connected to the pedals, so you push the bar to brake, and push a button with your thumb to accelerate. Unfortunately as they were not fixed to the steering column they had a tendency to float about a bit but I was impressed they had hand controls at all to be honest.
I was then susprised to find I would not be using the small test track, instead I had Silverstone south (which takes in parts of the old F1 circuit) to myself. He said it was because steering with one hand on the tight test circuit was very difficult, I think he was worried I would crash into or slow everyone else down but I was not bothered as I got to use a much faster part of the track.
The tuition was excellant And I had a slow familiarisation lap to find the lines followed by 4 progressively faster laps. The gearbox was set in auto for the first couple and then as I got faster he switched it to tiptronic to give engine breaking. Because of the hand control setup I was not able to change gear so he did the paddles for me while I drove. I had a couple of slighty hairy moments, one when my foot got stuck on the throttle mid corner, and another when the hand controls got stuck on my leg
- now i now why they gave me a track to myself!The car as you would expect was superb. The sound was amazing, acceleration blistering and the handling spot on. I feel I could have lapped faster in my Nissan, but only because I am used to it and the hand controls are better suited. Given another 10 laps in the 360 I'm sure it would have been a different story.
I have an incar vid with all the data logging stuff on it and I will upload it later.
Overall impressions were excellent, both of the experience itself and the running of the event. I would thoroughly reccomend it but you will come off track wanting more.
Now off to check 360s on ebay...
.. and as to 360's .. they do them second hand in Game for
