How I Once Drove 20 Laps With A 3 Million Dollar Hypercar And Was Not Impressed

How many of us can say that they were fortunate enough to have access to a 3 million dollar hypercar, empty racetrack and an unlimited supply of gas & tires? Yeah; not even I was that fortunate. The only thing that was missing from this picture was tires, but the ones I did have were brand new, so that was great!

The whole thing started almost a year before I got to the racetrack. My career transitioned into product management and being a product manager in an automotive company, especially, electric hypercar automotive company is a job that comes with some wild perks.

As a product manager responsible for any part of a vehicle in a hypercar segment, you have to research. How better to research than to experience stuff yourself. I guess that engineers working on ordinary vehicles like VW Golf, or Honda Accord are getting cars from that segment and driving them around; but when you are in a segment with Ferrari, McLaren, Bugatti then you have to try those.

That is what happened to me. One day I got to work and as we all do first thing was to fire up that Caffe machine and do some light chatting in the kitchen. Then I got an email. The email didn’t say much but it said everything. The subject was: Come to my desk to get it!
There was also this picture attached. (It was picture similar to this, I had to remove original photo to respect vehicle owner privacy)

That is something I dreamed about. Driving a real hypercar! Who would not want it? Driving it on track is unbelievable to have happened to me.

When we got to the racetrack it was a beautiful day. Sheep shaped clouds here and there on the blue sky, the temperature was just perfect, not too hot not too cold. The racetrack was great, one long straight section, several wide long turns and a complex section with multiple smaller turns. In total around 2.5km long laps.

The setup was this. I in a driver seat, a professional racecar driver in the passenger seat. The experience started with several slow warmup laps. The main goal was to get familiar with the car, racecar driver was giving instructions on how to sit, where to look, how to hold your hands, how to enter a turn, how to exit and when to brake.

It was my first time being on a real racetrack. I had some experience with drag strips, and I drive BMWs my whole life so I was no stranger to casual drifting here and there. I must say I was impressed by how many things someone driving fast around the racetrack has to think about and be aware of. I mean I know that after some time it becomes a muscle memory but I will say that I gained additional respect for people that do that every day.

So after we did several warmup laps, I was confident that I could do a fast lap. My trainer said to do whatever I am confident with and to listen to his instructions. Sure enough, I started pushing the car. The noise was incredible, the downshifts, the kicks, the braking. Everything was just surreal. It felt to me that I was the fastest man alive, I knew the track by now, every turn was familiar to me and I love the feeling of exiting the turn by opening the throttle and gaining speed. As I approached the final turn before the long straight stretch my trainer told me to push hard, and boy I did.

100km/h, 150km/h, 200km/h, 250km/h Now I stopped even glancing at the speedometer cause the world started to morph around me. I did glance once more and saw 283km/h but I didn’t stop pushing until my trainer said: Brake!

Then he said: Brake harder! Brake!

And Boom, fortunately, I didn’t crash the car, I managed to slow down enough and enter the next turn safely. My trainer said that we reached 300km/h I can only trust his words.

My eyes were red and itchy, the G force of the acceleration and then deceleration was something I never felt before, or have I?

This is where this story twists! I will say that this hypercar is an impressive machine and I would take any chance to do that again but. After doing a few fast laps and after initial hype wore off I started noticing things.

Gearshifts started to annoy me, sometimes the car didn’t shift on time, other times it wouldn’t upshift so I was driving in high RPMs just making noise. When you push the throttle pedal 100% in a kick down fashion it first downshifts, then sometime later it starts to rumble behind your back, the car accelerates hard, and then the turbochargers kick in and the car just flies, but the delay started to feel like ages.

I always say there is a car in this world that ruined other cars for me. Several days before this, once in the lifetime track event, I was driving the whole day in a brand new Tesla Model 3 Performance.

This Tesla was brand new, red, full performance package even the carbon glued-on spoiler. That car was just a rollercoaster ride. I never before felt anything like that.

When you push that car it is incredible, the blood from your legs just goes a bit faster to your body than with this hypercar. For a newbie driver like me, I felt much more in control. There is no loud rumbling noise behind you, it feels so direct and instant to every command I gave it trough pedals and steering wheel.

What I want to say is: I know that this particular hypercar is a great car. I know that having that engine and 1500 horsepowers is something everybody wants. I know I am incredibly lucky to have had the ability to sit in it and it’s just crazy that I drove it on the race track. Would I rather drive this hypercar every day or Tesla Model 3 Performance? I would take Tesla any day of the week. The hypercar I would take on the joy ride for the weekends. :P

Model 3 Performance is just something that opened my eyes. I never knew that something like that was even possible. I did drive even faster cars like Tesla S & X P100D and they are quicker than Model 3 Performance, but there is something in the form of Model 3 that just hits me the right way.

What do you think? Am I crazy to say something like that publicly?

Note that I had to remove what brand and model of vehicle I did drive on track but trust me it was one of the most expensive and highest-profile vehicles that money can buy? I will put it this way even Doug Demuro didn’t review that car for a long time after it came out.

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