Alps to the Ring tour - Day 7

 Day 7 - The Ring

Today was just about the Ring - we hoped going early might be less busy, even though it was a weekend. 

First off, we said goodbye to Vic who had to be home for Sunday, so he left for his train.

We got to the Ring around 9am and it was a bit quieter. My son went straight on and did a lap, came back and we both went out with him again - Dear God, he is a fast driver!! Its not just his stupidly fast car,  he is young and brave and somehow,  despite never having been on a track before, he is a really good driver. Perfect lines, tyres squealing on the absolute limit but never feeling out of control.

To put it in context, people will always tell you to watch out for the Ring taxi drivers, pro drivers who take people for rides - they are very quick. 

Jake overtook one!!

Very few people do that. Ok, the Ring taxi was a Genesis which probably had 150bhp less than him but a pro can make anything damn quick (think Sabine in a van).

On my first lap with him,  I was petrified. On my 2nd, I was getting used to it and really enjoying it - he is fast but always felt in control. So impressive for someone with no real experience. He has to check his videos but we think his best lap was 8.20 or so - very, very fast for a lightly modified road car. The only things that overtook him were M2s and one Cayman GT4S (or something) - he went past M4s, an M4 Comp (on the carousel!) and many others.

I also did a single lap, not really expecting too much but although traffic was similar to the previous evening, there were fewer very fast cars  so I had less hassle from behind me and could take the right lines. I did unfortunately have one yellow flag which delayed me but I still improved to a 10.02 - with a clear lap, I'd be well under my 10 minute target, so I was happy.

Unfortunately for my son, his oil cap had cracked, possibly from the pressure caused by the blocked breather and it was leaking a little, so he decided not to do any more laps. So we spent the rest of the day watching the track from various vantage points:

Finally, after a classic Subway for tea, we got some pics under the other famous track:

A really great day - home tomorrow.