Fancy bolting around the Hungaroring at break-neck speed with a V10 engine strapped to your shoulder blades? For €5,500, Renault will let you do just that
I’M ALMOST through the first lap and I’m still swearing, cussing, laughing and screaming inside my full face helmet. Then I hit the brakes, the laughter stops as the air is punched from my lungs and the car tries to snap my neck. This is madness, pure violence on wheels and the purest sensation of speed you’ll ever come across. I’m driving a real Renault Formula 1 car on the Hungarian Grand Prix circuit and you can too.
Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull and Renault spend up to $700 million (€524 million) a year to go racing and the lion’s share goes on a car that would easily cost $1 million. So how did I, a relative monkey, get my hands on this 2004 car with a 700bhp V10 strapped to my shoulder blades?
Renault’s Feel It course, which started in 2005, is open to everyone over 22 years old with a full licence. That’s how. And though it costs €5,500 ($7,600), every fleeting second makes it more than worth it for the 240 people that drive the car every year.
The cars are prepped by ex-Formula 1 team mechanics, telemetry experts are on hand and a physio violently pushes and pulls my head to ensure I can handle the impact of up to 5.5 g-force under heavy braking and, if I get it right, 4.5 g-force in the corners. The Bugatti Veyron Super Sport manages 1.4 g-force in the bends. We’re in fighter jet territory here.
First, though, comes the classroom tuition and 40 laps in a 200bhp Formula Renault which makes any road car feel like an unwieldy bus. I’ve driven single seaters before and feel fast and smooth – as well as confident that the laptop-wielding engineers’ praise will flow free. I am so wrong.
I need to brake twice as hard, then bleed off the pedal when the downforce drops off. I’m using too much kerb and I’m five seconds off Renault Formula 1 driver Vitaly Petrov. My ego is smashed, but at least I’m good enough to drive the Formula 1 car.
Soon I’m squeezing into the cockpit of the Formula 1 car that is based on the R24 that Fernando Alonso drove with much more skill, staring at two huge, grooved Bridgestone tyres and the €30,000 front wing.
Then comes another shock as the engine fires up without my help and ‘settles’ to a 4,500rpm idle that sounds like a high revving chainsaw plugged into an amplifier.
It’s fitted with a V10 3-litre that comes with 700bhp mated to a seven-speed paddleshift gearbox, but it’s limited to 12,000rpm to save the team from expensive blow-ups. There’s a foot clutch too and a ‘sort of’ traction control system that helps keep the car on the road.
It is more than enough for 605kg of car and gives the Renault a power-to-weight ratio of 1,150bhp/tonne. As a point of comparison, the Veyron Super Sport delivers 638bhp/tonne.
Thankfully there is no disastrous stall, the car trickles away from the line and then, suddenly, I am dragged out of the pitlane by some unseen force and sucked past 100km/h in three seconds. The next minute is a total blur. The power, steering, everything are completely overwhelming and I forget about racing lines, braking points, even breathing. This is shock and awe in automotive form.
On anything approaching a straight the wind rips at my helmet. Then there’s the downforce, where the faster you go through a corner, the harder the car sticks. A Formula 1 car could stick to the ceiling of a tunnel and literally drive upside down. But knowing I need 65km/h more than feels safe is a difficult concept to grasp in the eye of the storm.
Then there are the brakes. There’s hardly any feel, the pedal is more or less a wooden block, but it stops so hard it draws tears from my eyes. And I’m still not on the pedal hard or late enough.
I am already through the tight first hairpin, the third gear sphincter-tightening blind left that can take fourth, but gets third, and down the hill. There’s no speedo – just the rev counter and shift lights – but I just know it’s hellish fast.
The sad fact is you only get two laps of the 4.3km Hungaroring in the Formula 1 car. That’s four minutes of the wildest fun you’ll have in your life. Renault admits it’s partially to safeguard the car. Given 10 laps, some would find false confidence and plant the car in the wall. And while even two laps takes a physical toll, 10 would apparently rip our puny necks to shreds.
So I have two minutes left and as I round the final corner, a mental flick switches. So I try to take the car by the balls, plant the throttle, attack the main straight and drink in the noise as that buzzsaw of an engine climbs to 12,000rpm and threatens to burst an eardrum.
Then I stamp on the brakes, blip down three gears and go for it. The car even moves at the rear on the slowest bends and I feel like a hero, for a fleeting second at least.
Before I know it I’m being shepherded into the pit lane and the game is over. There is just one further ego crushing moment as we head out for a passenger ride in the three seater and find out just how feeble our best efforts were. I’m humbled, knowing that I used 60 per cent of the car’s skills, possibly less. But I don’t care. It was the greatest drive that money can buy and the chance to be a Formula 1 driver, if just for a few minutes.
And that is a truly priceless thing.
Factfile
Engine3-litre V10
Power700bhp at 12,000rpm
Torque339Nm at 9,000rpm
0-100km/h3 seconds
Speed295km/h
