We learn the ropes with Porsche’s Carrera Cup-inspired driving school
Driving a Porsche 911 GT3 fast on circuit, says former Bathurst 1000 winner Tomas Mezera, is a little like playing golf.
And coincidentally, Mezera knows his way around a golf course; the man plays off two and is a regular on the senior Australian PGA Tour.
“Like golf, the trick is practice; regular practice and patience,” says Mezera, the chief instructor of Porsche’s driver academy in Australia, before continuing the finite details of trail braking, line selection and the oh-so important aspect of being smooth and progressive at the controls.
We’re at Queensland Raceway as the sunshine state begins breaking out of its milder months, taking part in Porsche’s Level 4 driving academy.
There is a veritable who’s-who of racing on hand as Porsche’s instructors: Mezera, a decorated Czech-born touring car driver who experienced huge success through the 80s and 90s, evergreen Porsche ace and champion Craig Baird, and my instructor for the day, Alex Davison, a one-time Carrera Cup champion, former Porsche factory driver and current Supercars co-driver.
Along with the fronting talent, there are some important back-room types on hand to really distinguish the Porsche Experience from any other.
A one-of-a-kind smiling gentlemen is my engineer for the day, Lee. Or Lethal. He’s a race team engineer familiar with operations such as the decorated Triple Eight squad and several GT outfits, having worked with some of the best drivers going.
On this day, Lethal is working with your humble correspondent at QR, running through the telemetry data from my car, transferred onto his laptop after each session to tell me where I can be faster. We’ll get to that in a moment.
All told, the aim of Porsche’s $4500 Level 4 academy is fairly straightforward. It is the first real step in becoming a race car driver, or alternatively, track day enthusiast.
Using a fleet of fully-prepped 911 GT3s, Mezera and his entourage build on the first three steps of the Porsche academy.
Assumed prior knowledge includes basics like knowing how to configure your seating position and keeping your vision up, along with an understanding of the physics of driving a car fast, the theory being that knowledge of this leads to semi-decent car control and, subsequently, speed.
“We need to realise this is not an audition for who will be in the driver line-up for the next LeMans 24 hours,” Mezera says.
“It’s an experience. We need to sneak up on the speed, and what I would expect from you is that your fastest lap times will be in the last session of the day. Daniel Ricciardo would take exactly the same approach.”
Getting to grips
The group for today’s Level 4 academy is small – six people in total shared across two coaches — making for plenty of quality time with Davison.
By comparison, most rivalling courses share a driver-to-student ratio akin to The Bachelor; everyone’s keen on a date but face-to-face time is limited.
After Mezera’s opening summary, we split into two groups of three. Craig Baird takes his three students for a slow lap of the QR layout aboard a Cayenne SUV, while Alex Davison shows our trio the finer details of our car for the day, the ridiculously capable Porsche 911 GT3.
Then the groups swap activities, before eventually going out for the first of our 40 hot laps.
The donor lap for today (the one used as a benchmark) has been set by none other than carsales.com.au’s own Luke Youlden, a senior Porsche instructor and – might we add, almost like a proud parent – 2017 Bathurst 1000 winner.
Luke isn’t here on this day, so it’s hard to compare outright times with the time he posted a couple of months earlier, but regardless, it’s bloody quick: 57.8 seconds.
“Anything under 1 minute is quick around here. We call it breaking the sound barrier,” says Mezera.
There is ample opportunity to try and match (perhaps in vein) Youlden’s time: two five-lap sessions and three 10-lap sessions.
However, the real purpose of the timing comparison is to show students where they can improve speed, ie: braking too early, not holding enough corner speed, over-driving the car — all overlaid on a graph from Lee’s computer.
Opening hit out
Following some sage advice from Davison to ease into the experience, I allow plenty of breathing room. Over the space of five opening laps, my quickest initial quickest lap time is 61.8 seconds.
“What we measure is your speed and your longitudinal G, and then we reference that against Luke’s benchmark time,” explains Lee, as we paw over the trace data on his laptop after the session.
“My first observation is that you could brake a little later and hold more corner speed on some sections, but I understand you’re still getting up to speed with the car.”
Onwards and upwards, the second and third sessions finish in the same manner as one another, albeit after differing attempts. I edge closer to Tomas’ sound barrier with a couple of 60.2sec laps during both, but inconsistency abounds and I am beginning to grow frustrated.
“That’s completely in line with what we see,” says Lee during the debrief. “Our confidence grows and we start thinking we have to man-handle the car. More often than not, you’ll end up going backwards”.
Heeding Tomas’ advice of “being smooth and allowing the car to do the work, not the driver”, I try clear my head over the decadent lunch spread before heading back out for the fourth session. Progress is made.
With Alex’s eyes keenly watching me from the pit wall, and his guidance on the radio, I begin linking the turns together, and the car’s incredible performance is extracted more effectively.
“Much nicer, a 59.6,” says engineer Lee upon looking over my driving data.
The connection continues to grow with the GT3, which it must be said, is truly impressive in the hands of any driver.
Work intimately with its rear-engined layout correctly and the results are extraordinary; guttural acceleration, uncompromising braking power, huge mechanical grip and an incredible connection through the entire lap.
The troublesome area continues to be turn six at Queensland Raceway. I hold a higher cornering speed (by 7km/h) compared with Luke, however, it means I cannot get my car rotated quickly enough for the exit, which is consistently costing my up to 10km/h along the straight.
“Still, that’s not bad,” says Lee. “You’re corner speed through Turn 1 is great, and through turns 3, 4 and 5, you’re right on Luke’s speed. Just really focus on Turn 6 and we will see more progress.”
Tomas is less complementary in his critique, having watched a couple of my laps from the pit wall. But his coaching is legendary and his words founded.
“You’re miles off where you need to be on the exit of Turn 6. And don’t overdrive the car on Turn 5. Keep your vision up and be patient”.
That winning feeling
I will never win a Bathurst 1000 and I won’t for a second pretend to be a race car driver, so the feeling of emerging from session five with a time of 58.6 seconds was extremely satisfying.
In truth, it’s probably as close as I’ll ever get to sharing in Tomas’ or Luke’s exploits…
Looking over the telemetry, the final 10 laps of the day all came in under Tomas’ magic minute marker, and were headlined by two 58.6sec times and three 58.9sec laps.
“Very impressive,” observes Lee. “In eight years, you’re probably the third person to crack into the 58s. Nice job.”
Bursting my bubble just a little, I later learn that one of them was my boss Marton Pettendy, who reeled off a string of low to mid 58s at the same school last year.
So there’s still work to do, as the telemetry shows. In turn six, I’m still miles off where I should be in terms of directional change, which leads to less speed on the straight.
It seems this nitty-gritty component of the circuit is to time what chipping and putting is to golf: crucial to paring back your score.
Clearly, practice – and patience — makes perfect.
Sam Charlwood attended the Level 4 Porsche academy as a guest of Porsche Cars Australia.
Keyword: How to drive a Porsche 911 GT3, fast