ABDC: Wet, wet, wet…

A solid day of on-road driving in sunny autumnal conditions, saw the assembled Australia’s Best Driver’s car (ABDC) crew beginning to shape opinions on which contenders would best translate to the track.

Local steaks and glasses of Tasmanian red ensured said opinions were well-oiled, and this proved somewhat appropriate -- the skies slickening Baskerville in the wee small hours before opening the track to ABDC business.

As if the 2.01km track wasn’t tricky enough. Water streamed across the gradient-heavy surface, pooling into run-off areas with such depth that you’d need the Spirit of Tasmania to cross. Well, almost…

Suffice it to say, it was one of those days that we were happy to leave the fast laps to the trained professionals. In the blue corner: motoring.com.au’s regular 'elite' tester, V8 Supercar Enduro driver, Luke Youlden. In the red — a local expert. Given we’d lobbed in his backyard (almost), it would have been churlish not to invite Australian GT and TCM regular, racing legend and regular all-round good guy, Greg Crick.

The day’s plan called for a slow escalation of hostilities – we’d put the guys in the hatches first and then ramp up the outputs.

Youlden decided to tackle the sighting laps in something ostensibly benign; Toyota’s 86 GTS. After watching it slither its way down Baskerville’s front straight, benign took on a slightly different meaning… It was clearly hard work – getting serious it recorded a best lap of 1min, 21.08sec

“I’m not sure if it’s more the car or the track, but it’s hairy,” he said.

“There’s a good front-end on it. It leans towards oversteer, which is nice.

“The engine is good. It’s responsive but could do with more power.

“My best time was achieved with ESC [stability control] fully on; with ESC Sport I was around 2sec off. It’d be better with a good set of tyres.”

Crick was out next in the Volkswagen Golf GTI, the Tassie stalwart taking interestingly different lines through several of Baskerville’s nine corners, as he searched for grip.

The result was a time over 7sec faster than Youlden’s in the 86, the GTI hitting the beam after 1min, 13.52sec.

Alas, Crick’s feedback was anything but positive: “It’s horrible!” he lamented.

“The Golf has a lot of straight-line speed and good torque, but the traction control overreacts.

“You can’t get any attitude on the car in these conditions and the brakes are grabby into corners…
“It’s probably very nice on the road. I turned the traction off and lost drive out of corners, but it was nicer with it off. The car feels heavy at the front.”

Also front-wheel drive, turbocharged but lacking any form of limited-slip or electronic differential, the Kia pro_cee’d GT followed the Golf, in Youlden’s hands.

After recording a 1min, 15.70sec lap, he was effusive on the Kia

“Really good... Had a lot of grip in the rain, slight understeer which you’d expect, just a bit of wheelspin out of the tighter stuff but I was quite impressed.

“Traction control… It’s faster with it on here, but with it off it still kicks in -- it never totally turned off. Brakes are good.

“It’d be seconds faster than the 86… That feels like tyres mostly. I would say it needs a ‘diff’ as it does fry that inside tyre a bit, though not as much as I thought it would. I’m happy with everything else.”

Youlden was similarly impressed with the Ford Fiesta ST, the cheapest car on ABDC.

“There’s not a huge amount of grunt to generate wheelspin. It points very well and stops very well -- like it has [racing] wet tyres on it.

“Good turn, good power down.

“A diff can help all front-drive cars, I don’t think manufacturers do it enough, but it wasn’t crying out for one. Traction control felt a little restrictive but that’s good for these conditions. Engine/gearbox combo is pretty good. It worked better in third [gear] using the torque. It’s not a big understeerer.

“The stability control helped make it turn; sometimes they [control systems] just ‘kill it’.”

Given Luke’s praise, it’s perhaps not surprising the Ford’s time of 1min, 14.39sec was quickest of the budget bunch (86, pro_cee’d and Fiesta).

Stepping up in power and traction, Luke’s next attack was in the Audi S1, a car that appeared well-suited to the track and worsening weather. And it showed with a 1min, 12.62sec lap.

“Awesome. The punch of the engine… It turns very well and puts its power down well, and it’s geared better [for] here.

“I’m still short-shifting, but it’s into fourth rather than third.

“Driving position is excellent, braking very good but there’s more standing water now and it’s having an effect. It’s more on the neutral side, and the quattro drive system feels seamless,” Youlden explained.

If the diminutive Audi was set to impress, few doubted that Subaru’s latest STi wouldn’t be a beast at Baskerville.

Crick, who “isn’t too familiar” with the STi/Lancer Evolution cult, showed why he races professionally, adapting his style to the car and situation quickly.

“Traction control off is the way to go. The electronics take too much control off me and the stop watch showed it was faster without [intervention].

“Out of the slow corners it makes time, it has good traction but mid-corner it’s quite ‘understeery’ and there’s a lot kickback through the wheel. There was a technique I used to improve the times; I slowed it down [more] into the corners, then used the power down to drive the thing out, as it doesn’t really have mid-corner speed.”

The STi recorded 1 min, 14.74sec time.

A pre-event lap-time favourite, Renault Sport’s Megane RS 275 Trophy R was hampered from the second it left pit lane, thanks to the fitment of Michelin ‘Cup’ tyres that were short on tread and require significant warming to give their best.

Watching Youlden scrabble out of corners was evidence that the feisty Renault’s demonstrated dry weather grip simply evaporated on its way to a 1min, 16.30sec best

“This is just too much of a dry weather tyre. It’s [the car’s suspension] very stiff obviously, which doesn’t help.

“The diff works well; wherever you point the wheels it will go when you have the throttle on — it could actually drive you off the road very quickly. There’s lots of response from the engine too, so everything’s working against it [in the wet].

“Everything’s very much focused, though I sit a little too upright in it. With traction off it’s a fair bit slower. Sport mode gives it a little bit of time and tries to help, though.”

Contrasting the Renault was AMG’s four-cylinder all-paw rocket. Indeed, the brightly-coloured and bewinged A 45 AMG stunned Crick: “With traction off it improved its lap-time. It’s a beautiful car. As soon as I got in it, I thought, this feels sensational.

“It feels solid. It’s got a fat steering wheel, the seats are beautiful, and then you go onto the performance. Beautiful engine, gear change, brakes.

“The stability control overworked a little for me. The feel is so good. You have feedback… I was surprised at how good that car was.”

The evidence was in the lap time: 1min, 7.06sec. Impressive given the conditions.

Marching to a different beat was the HSV GTS, with Youlden at the wheel; and his feedback further reiterated HSV has saved the best for last…

“It’s fast and felt very sure-footed in the rain -- I was quite surprised. The GTS put its power down reasonably well. I was using taller gears to help it and it was very smooth, but the biggest thing is its handling. It was good, and it stopped very well.

“The auto wasn’t an issue and gave downshifts when requested. Power-down is strong despite 430kW. It turns in very well given its size.”

Amazingly, given the conditions, the GTS was only bested by the A 45. The HSV’s 1min, 9.05sec lap time raised eyebrows.

Indeed, the big supercharged Holden was a tough act for the other local muscle car to follow, and the sound of furious wheelspin drowned the supercharger as Crick exited the pits and accelerated the Falcon XR8 up the hill at Baskerville

“It was a competent car, but unfortunately it started raining harder as I went out,” the Tasmanian commented.

“[It’s] essential to have TC [traction control] on with this, as it was just about impossible to drive [without it]. I had all that oversteer… It has so much torque and so little traction that just ‘breathing’ on the throttle brings it on.

“The balance is good, but you get a fair bit of understeer when pushing too hard into a corner. The [manual] gearbox is fine, but it’s a long way across the gates. The engine is strong though you can’t use it here.”

The lack of traction saw the final Falcon record a disappointing 1min, 17.11sec time.

Youlden experienced similar grip loss in the V8-powered Lexus RC F, which was the biggest visual handful of all as it slugged around to a 1min, 16.50sec best. There were more oohs and ahs from the control tower during Luke’s Lexus laps than at any other stage of the day -- including an off track excursion for the HSV.

The same emotions were felt from within the cockpit. Youlden – usually an unflappable character – was happy to return the RC F to the pits.

“This is diabolical, there’s no grip anywhere. It’s very, very edgy.

“[In the] Braking zone, it’s the first car [mimics steering inputs] that’s gone all quiet on me. It feels like the tyres are hard. Stability control cuts in abruptly and makes it worse.

“The engine’s great, it feels strong. Turn-in oversteer, no traction stability or braking stability… There’s nothing good to say about it besides the seats and the engine here.”

BMW’s M4 wasn’t happy on the bumpy Tasmanian backroads in the dry on day one. A wet, bumpy Baskerville did anything but further endear the twin-turbo Beemer to our racers.

“I didn’t like this one bit. It permanently had the electrics working, poor traction, little grip, weird power delivery and a funny-sounding engine,” was Crick’s feedback. For the record, the M4 achieved a decent 1min, 13.71sec time.

Jaguar’s F-TYPE R Coupe could burst eardrums from 100 metres, but it was another ABDC entrant that couldn’t deploy its full arsenal at Baskerville… As much due to its over-reactive control systems as the rain itself…

Youlden: “Very nervous and edgy, very tricky to put a lap together. Stability control cuts in a lot, even in ‘manual’ mode. If it doesn’t like third gear, it changes down to second. It should have the torque to pull the higher gear.

“Braking stability is good, but to me it feels like there’s a slick tyre on it! Engine is strong, it feels really good and there’s oversteer but it snaps so fast, so you have to be really quick to catch it.

“It sounds fantastic and looks good.”

A 1min, 12.60sec time was decent for the big cat in the circumstances.

Crick meanwhile lamented the extra gush of rain that dropped as he left pitlane in the fancied Porsche Cayman GTS

“A magic car, but I couldn’t get an indicative lap time as it was in the worst conditions. I don’t know what tyres were on it [Pirelli P-Zeros] but it didn’t have a lot of grip. Even under braking, I thought it would have been better.

“Beautiful engine and gearbox, but it’s hard to make a judgement.

“But the feel of the car and the feedback from the steering, it’s just sublime.”

Such was the tyre/condition mismatch, Cricky could only manage 1min, 17.12sec.

With all-wheel drive, advanced control systems and tonnes of grunt, the Nissan GT-R was the pick for outright lap time… In the dry… The reality? We’ll let Youlden explain.

After first parking the car to wait for standing water to dissipate, Youlden eventually girded his loins and chanced it.

“It just feels like tyre lets it down on this surface. Obviously it’s quick in a straight line and the engine’s fantastic, but you just can’t put it to the ground -- even with all-wheel drive. There’s [significant] turn-in oversteer that holds it back.

“On the brakes it feels like it sits on top of the road -- because of the tyre. I had it in soft suspension, I left that alone, but I couldn’t fully turn traction off, though it probably wouldn’t have gained an advantage. It’s hard work.”

In a lap full of histrionics (check out the in-car video!!!) , the big Nissan stopped the watch in 1min, 12.41sec.

Reassembling the vehicles – thankfully all in one piece – at the end of the day, the conversations around what had impressed and what hadn’t recommenced. But beyond the obvious weather joker, what did the track exercise teach us?

Primarily it reminded us that tyres are a key focal point. The fancied runners with dry-biased rubber -- Porsche Cayman GTS, Nissan GT-R and Renault Sport Megane RS 275 Trophy R – all delivered disappointing lap times. Only the Porsche really gaining any praise -- for “telling the driver intimately that it has no grip”, according to Crick.

In contrast, the Continental-shod Mercedes-Benz AMG A 45 and HSV GTS came to the fore. And while many expected the Merc’s wet-weather performance, few tipped the big Aussie’s speed.

Picking up on Crick’s point, lap time, isn’t the ultimate marker, Instead, it’s how a car feeds back on-limit information that endears it to its driver.

Finally, Baskerville also served as a reminder that in the real world, weather happens. A driver’s car should be able to provide that feedback mix across all conditions for maximum enjoyment.