Picked up my rental car last night, a little hot hatch DS3. The sportiest rental car so far. Well equipped with Navi, very supportive bucket sport seats, nibble and quick. The perfect warm up car on the way to Nurburgring, through the twisty backroads.

All the warm up can never prepare you for the actual Nurburgring. It is renowned as one of the most difficult race course in the world. The difficult comes from the 20 miles of constant elevations changes, the blind twisty following a long high speed straights, the difficulty of learning the course, and a public course that any car can do a lap. All the GT5 on PS3 simulation doesn’t even come close. I was practicing a lap per night before starting this Europe trip. The actual course is much more challenging, with the hills going up and down, it’s like an roller coaster!

Decided to rent a race car instead of using the DS3 rental car.  The race car is probably slower than the rental car on straights.  But the race car comes with more safety features. A full roll cage, Recaro bucket seats, full coil over suspension tuned for this track, slick tires upgrades, and most important of all, upgraded brakes so it won’t overheat after half a lap around the track.

For €300 for 4 laps, it’s well worth it. There are other race car rentals around the Ring that are cheaper, even with better cars.  But this company has the cheapest deductible in case shit happens.

As for the experience, I started the laps going easy. Trying the learn the difficult part of the course. I find that following traffic that has a good pace makes it easier. They can show you the race line, the braking point before the turn, and the entry speed.

Lap 1: constantly checking the mirrors for faster car that are about to fly by. The rule on this track is the same as the highways, slower cars keep right, faster cars keep left to pass.

I founded a couple of sport bikes that had the comfortable pace I was looking for. Not too fast that I can’t keep up on straights, but fast enough that I’m not bored. But relying them to lead the course has its downfall. I thought they knew the track by heart.  When I was mainly focusing on their line, and not really looking for it myself, I almost followed them off the track. The 2 bikers completely miss the turn, going in just too fast, and ending up cutting the track. If I had done the same, the car will be seriously damaged.

Lap 2: still not pushing it. No oversteers or understeer yet. Tires hasn’t made a sound yet. Driving well under its capacity. Starting to feel the car behavior, the reaction from steering to actual direction change. Also started to hear the engine’s symphony, able to hear the shifting points just before the 7200 RPM red line.

Lap 3: starting to push it a bit. Feeling the slight understeer the car exhibits while exiting. Learning the course a little, remembered a few difficult corners. Tires are also starting to really stick to the pavement. Starting to scream a little too. Paced a quick Z4 3.0 that has twice the horsepower. That guy is fast on just performance street tires.

Lap 4: pushing it hard.  The ESP is coming on often, it doesn’t like what’s happening. It just stayed on as off after 1/3 lap.

Wish I could have done more laps