No matter what performance car you may drive, all road cars are eventually compromised because they have to be comfortable for daily use. So, at some point in life, everyone must drive a proper race car to understand the true essence of the motor car. Abhishek goes racing in the new Ameo Cup car to get to grips with the latest and most powerful VW Cup car in India.
The sun had almost set, and only the last few golden rays remained in the sky over the Buddh International Circuit. The silence was, all of a sudden broken, by a raucous bellow from a twin-turbo V8. And out of a corner emerged a bright yellow Mercedes-AMG GT S. That was one of the most fun experiences I’ve had on a racetrack. The AMG GT S is simply unbelievable – a physics defying feat of automotive engineering that allows you to carry triple digit speeds around corners in an all too effortless manner, letting you appreciate this supercar at another level. As far as good days go, driving one of the greatest cars on the planet currently on a world-class race track has got to rank up there with the best of them.
You can only imagine my excitement, then, when the opportunity to take part in the VW Ameo Cup came my way. After all, driving a full-blown race car on the Madras Motorsports Race Track is an offer one simply can’t turn down. While we at autoX are familiar with the BIC circuit, the MMRT is still regarded by a whole bunch of enthusiasts as the most technical racetrack in the county. It has tight corners and sections where you need to go flat out despite visible directional changes. The racing line too is tricky in places, and braking points are never where you think they should be. But before I got to figure any of this for myself, I was strapped into Volkswagen’s new Ameo Cup car and sent out for practice laps before race 2 of the 2017 VW Ameo Cup. Having never driven on the track, I was literally left to guess which direction the track would go in next. There’s only one way to put it – I was all over the bloody track and going quite slow in the process. Over 2.08 seconds slower to be precise!
The results of P2 weren’t markedly different, while I continued to figure out the track and find the right racing line. And, in the process, I was also getting to grips with the new Ameo Cup car. VW’s Ameo Cup car is the spiritual successor of the Vento Cup car. What VW has done, in essence, is take the shell of its Ameo compact sedan, stiffened it with cross-members, shifted the battery and windshield washer reservoir to the back, and also added a huge rear spoiler for better weight distribution – not to mention downforce – and fitted it with the award winning and rather brilliant 1.8-litre EA888 turbo petrol engine. VW has also gone for a six-speed sequential racing gearbox, along with racing specification suspension, brakes and ECU upgrades to make this a proper racer.
Unfortunately, none of this was compensating for my limited knowledge of the track. So, after P2, I managed to convince Rayomand Banajee to take me on a sighting lap. And my God was I in for a shock. Little wonder I was so slow! I had been braking where I wasn’t mean to, and my entry into the tricky bits between corners 4, 5 and 6 were all wrong. With that eye-opening lesson over, it was time for an end to day one of this racing weekend.
The next day I was feeling more confident now that I had a clue about what I ought to be doing. So, qualifying was much better. I had shaved off a clean 4 seconds off my lap time from the day before, and was even managing to close the gap to the car in front. More confident behind the wheel, I was now beginning to understand the car a little more. This sequential box really bangs the next gear into place the moment you pull the paddle – it’s immediate and really helps channel all of the car’s 202bhp flawlessly onto the tarmac. Meanwhile, the LSD works brilliantly to negate torque steer as you power out of corners. The car feels a little too light though, and I wish I could feel the grip a little more to give me the extra confidence needed to carry higher speeds around the corners. On this account, drivers who took part in last year’s Vento Cup were discussing how the Vento actually felt more planted and inspired greater driver confidence. In the Ameo, they felt they needed a little more time to get to grips with the car in order to push to its limits.
But, then again, this is a far more powerful car than the Vento, and lighter too – both aspects mean that it’s about 4 seconds a lap faster around the MMRT than the outgoing Ameo Cup car.
The only real issue that all the drivers were facing was that of the gearbox stalling while downshifting into a corner. In the process, sometimes it would refuse to upshift or downshift altogether. To get it working again, you would have to get on and off the power. I suspect this could be because VW has programmed this gearbox for the novice drivers who take part in this racing series. As a result, it’s been programmed to go into a fail-safe mode and not downshift too many gears in one go to prevent mechanical damage.
Nevertheless, I was getting faster and more used to both the car and the track. I was now more confident behind the wheel, and started really pushing the car while exiting corners. However, by now there was a lot of debris on the track from other racers cutting corners and throwing up the dirt. And then it happened, at C11, I was carrying a little too much speed and the dirt ensured that I found less grip – racing slick tyres have no tread (so that there’s more rubber meeting the road, which is great when the track is clean and dry), and so in a fraction of a second the car lost grip and sent me hurtling towards the tyre wall on the left. Luckily, I managed to avoid going headfirst into the barriers, and only ended up with a minor dent in the fender. Fortunately also there was no mechanical damage, and the car was quickly restored to good health by the brilliant VW mechanics.
Back in the briefing room, Rayo was livid about drivers crashing into each other and kicking up the dirt on the track. But what he was really disappointed in was the lack of seriousness amongst the drivers. The Ameo Cup is a place for novice racing drivers, and while some amount of this behaviour is understood, the drivers really need to be much more dedicated and serious if they want to progress further. Of course, there are good drivers here like the ones at the top of the leader board. But guest racing driver Devin, from South Africa, was considerably faster than everyone else. Then again, he is a seasoned racer who has been racing for over a decade. That said, his skill level was a real eye opener for all the drivers here. He displayed almost robotic levels of consistency lap-after-lap, and he never found the need to cut corners or make any real errors. This was something Rayo asked everyone to pay attention to.
And with that we went back on track the next day for Race 1, where I managed to gain a couple of positions and bettered my time in the process. By now, I had shed a significant eight seconds from my first lap. Race 2 saw a reverse grid format for the top eight racing drivers. As a result, race leader Karminder Pal Singh fell behind a little on track but still finished second. Devin too fell behind initially, but fought his way back to third. As for me, well, I messed up my launch and in a heated battle with a fellow racer I went into a corner much too fast and lost two positions in the blink of an eye. But, all in all, the entire weekend was a great experience.
Driving fast is easy, but driving consistently fast as you’re pushed to your limit – without the luxury of air conditioning – and while battling fellow racers requires a great deal of strength, stamina and dedication. As for the Ameo Cup car, like its predecessor – the Vento Cup car – it shows you how extreme a race car is over a standard road car, and how much faster track cars are. Now, I can only imagine what an absolute animal a 550bhp track bred Mercedes-AMG GT3 racing car would be!
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