That would have been funny, next time
While it was fun i found some limitations
P1020908 by
Emmber, on Flickr
Tyres
Used the Michelin tyre guide and set them at 30psi for ambient temp when cold, after the 1st run they were at 35-36psi they felt really good so left them all day. I mainly did 20min runs and the tyres hold on really well for road tyres before starting to show signs of temp overload. Some say to pump them up to protect the sidewalls but i have found this counterproductive and although you protect the tyre from rolling over, you reduce grip and induce understeer, I have used Michelin PS2 in the past and found them to be very good with progressive warning when getting too hot, but these PS4 I feel perform even better and as long as you are clean and only a little aggressive they last, but with the ABS cutting in the tyres were the limiting factor.
PP Brakes - Bedford GT circuit has some big stops and can be hard on brakes, I opted to stay with the standard road pads. I wanted to have a bench mark before looking to change the type of pads i want for the future. if the road pads hold up, i don't need anything more. I was shocked that the pads didn't give a strange pedal feel even when i came into the pits with the pads smoking near the end of the day. Again ambient temp is important but very impressed considering the circuit, I think i will keep the std TRW pads.
Throttle/Sport Diff - This was the best part of the car/day and the only reason I switched from RWD to FWD (ok not the only reason but one of them). You have the confidence to apply power early and this helped on the back straight at Bedford. but it was also frustrating in that it appears the throttle is regulated by steering angle. So on some corners i was unwinding the steering and progressively applying the throttle but it seemed to not be linear to my foot pressure. it appeared to be matched to steering input, so when I reach a level of unwinding with the steering the power came in quite aggressively. All in my head? Watch the videos.. The Diff system works out of medium and high speed corners really well and pulls back in line even though you are applying throttle, but the very slow 2nd gear corners it held back a little...
P1020905 by
Emmber, on Flickr
Stability system - With the Stability on and TC off the car is very clever, many a time in the first few runs I could feel it pulling me into the corner on trailing throttle it simply matched the steering angle and said "ok no problem" it never felt like it was over compensating but you knew it was doing it. This was fine up to 7/10ths I guess. After lunch I had the afternoon with TC and Stability off, it was raining as you can see in the video, but it was only enough to remove confidence not grip. As you can't fully switch stability off it is constantly keeping the car quick and very tidy, but almost too tidy when you are pushing to 9/10ths, sometimes you want to control some oversteer and occasionally i did, but it wasn't edgy if that makes sense. But i would rather be clean and have a car in 1 piece at the end of the day...
Steering feel: The steering is consistent and enjoyable on track it doesn't hunt the dips and cambers of a 964 or a HH like a good old 205 Gti with manual steering, but it is informative. Other car enthusiasts will scoff and assume that many owners are unlikely to even get the car to a track day car park as a spectator let alone on track, and this may be true, but this doesn't reflect on this FWD MQB platform. It also doesn't feel left behind compared to the everyday track car with only 230bhp, at 1370-ish kg with the same brakes calipers as the higher models and the VAQ diff this is great fun
Not so good?
Stability system keeping you on the black stuff, is that really a bad thing?
throttle input to steering angle unless i was imagining it?
