AMG Driving Academy Comes To The Middle East
We Go Back To School With AMG
By Imthishan Giado
Who really relishes the idea of going back to school? I certainly don’t – in fact, I made it a point of priority to get out of both high school and university as fast as humanly possible. Wild horses couldn’t keep me in either place for too long.
So it was with some trepidation that I accepted the invitation from Mercedes Middle East to attend and be part of the first batch of students for their newly opened AMG Driving Academy at Yas Marina. Would there be desks and chairs? Practical exams? Pop quizzes? ‘Hazing’ after class? Frankly, I dreaded the thought.
You can see why establishing the Academy is a canny move for the boys from Stuttgart. Mercedes’ line of thunderous AMG special editions are among the fastest cars money can buy – not to mention the most opulent – but they’ve never been really thought of as cars for the track day crowd. On the other end of the spectrum, Porsche is renowned for providing extensive support in the form of training and information for owners who wish to go racing or learn the black art of track driving. Mercedes sells quite a few AMG cars here – this is the fifth-biggest market for AMG in the world – and as a percentage of total sales volume, more AMG cars and SUVs are sold here than anywhere else in the world, by a colossal margin. Ergo, it’s time that Mercedes began supporting owners with driver training like they do in other markets – and that’s why we found ourselves in Yas on a cold night in January, listening to chief instructor Norman Simon explain the hows and whys of racing sensibly on a track.
There are five levels of track training available – emotion, basic, advanced, pro and a top-level ‘Master’ course. The bottom-most two levels are essentially for complete novices, allowing you to get a feel for what track driving entails. In the Middle East, the Academy begins with the ‘Advanced’ Course. For the not-inconsiderable sum of AED7,750, Mercedes will provide you with a single day’s worth of instruction from their German instructors, all of whom were racers in their previous lives – and in many cases, champions. After ‘Advanced’, the next course available is Pro in which the instructors record your telemetry and work closely with you to shave precious seconds off your lap times, while ‘Masters’ brings you to completion standard – if you dare compete with an SLS AMG GT3 race car!
Thankfully, the course is not heavy on classroom settings. Course instructor briskly walks us through the bones of track work, including understand key concepts like understeer, oversteer, where to focus your vision and how to brake for maximum efficiency.
After that, it’s off to the track proper. We begin with a brief session in a selection of AMGs – C63 coupe, SLK55 and the mighty SLS – to understand how to navigate the track. Despite having nearly 500bhp at our disposal, this first section is done relatively slowly in an attempt by the instructors to teach us the value of discipline, sticking to your chosen line and learning when and where to feed the power. With cars of this power level, getting on the gas early is a rookie mistake that, depending on the status of the traction control, will either have you punching the wheel in frustration waiting for systems to give you back power, or fishtailing wildly out of control. Naturally being a German-run event, there was no suggestion of disabling the stability control. None at all, no siree..
Next, we took our somewhat-sharpened skills to the North circuit of the track for a taste of what these fearsome AMGs are capable of achieving with a little space to breathe in a high-speed convoy drive. Refreshingly, the instructors provided ample instruction but were not overly restrictive, so helmets in place, we were flying down the main street at speeds in excess of 200kph and carving the corners with well, as much precision as we could muster! The instructors are not just here to teach you the layout of the trac – they also keep a close eye on the pupils making sure they are capable of handling the high speeds that must be achieved. The better you are, the more leeway they’ll allow; be nervous and uncoordinated and they will not hesitate in slowing everyone down while you come up to speed.
In this pressure-cooker environment, I sampled both the SLS AMG roadster and the CLS63. The track really illustrated the difference between a purpose-built supercar and an extremely-modified road car: the twin-turbo V8 CLS was very fast, very agile and in the end, very left behind in the dust of the impossibly quick SLS roadster which proved to be in another league altogether. Don’t believe what you read: the SLS is remarkably well composed on track with an absolutely demonic turn-in that belies its torpedo-length, brakes that simply do not quit and an engine note that reduces grown men to quivering bowls of custard. Proviso – this was all done with the systems set to track-friendly Sport Sharp mode and with all stability and traction systems left on. Turn them off and you’ll find the AMG bites very hard indeed.
Once you’ve learnt how to handle yourself on track, there are just two exercises left. The first is the wet skidpan – and as the name suggests, it’s a chance to learn how to maintain car control when grip is virtually non-existent. To complicate things further, as soon as you enter the flooded skidpan, a ‘kickplate’ knocks you randomly (and rather violently) either left or right, forcing you to be quick with your steering and subtle with your throttle inputs if you are prevent an embarrassing spin.
Unfortunately with the CLS63 I started out with, it was spin city, and for reasons I couldn’t quite grasp, I was never able to master the art of drifting with that car. The shorter C63 coupe was easier still but it was the midrange E63 saloon that proved king of drift, cutting rooster tails of water with ease.
Finally there was a chance for a bit of competition, racing identical CLS63s on the Yas drag strip. With 557bhp and 516lb ft available to propel you to 100kph in just 4.4 seconds these are seriously quick saloons. In a sense, you’re not just racing the other driver at the Christmas tree, but trying to balance that insane power with the limited traction afforded to you by street rubber.
Interestingly, the men from AMG had spent the day testing the CLSs on the drag strip and found that best results came when they left the computers do the shifting – manual mode actually made it slower! Chalk one up to those peskily-efficient PCS because try as I might, I couldn’t make the CLS63 go any faster on my own either, although I did manage to scratch out a few wins by night’s end. With identical cars, it’s not really about power – it’s about who manages to win the all-important battle of the reaction times to get your beast off the line.
Get your reaction time right – sub .500 seconds are good – and you’re well on your way to a time in the 14s. Get everything right and you’ll get the time easily into the 13s. From there getting to the 12s and 10s – the Holy Grail of fast-freaks – the job gets harder and harder. You’re looking at slick drag tyres, roll caging and even more power from the engine. In other words…don’t bother.
Verdict
In the last few years, I’ve done an awful lot of events at local tracks like Yas Marina and the Dubai Autodrome. And while people have been eager to get us onto the track to experience their products, in all this time virtually none have taken the time to tell us how to do it right.
The AMG Academy isn’t revolutionary in its approach, but the instructors give you a good foundation in the basics of going quickly and monitor your approach to a standard which I feel happy recommending to just about anybody at any level.
However, this wealth of German experience doesn’t come cheap, and that’s the biggest drawback with the Academy. AED7,750 for a single day of instruction is a hefty sum – you have to really want to improve your track skills. For most people who want to just do the occasionally track day, there are cheaper options like the Dubai Autodrome which offers courses in slower cars like Audi TTs from just Dh825 all the way up to the full Audi R8. And if you’re simply looking to take your own car out onto the track, pay Dh300 every month to join the Evolve Club track days and get four full-on laps of the club circuit.
But if you’ve done those options already and are looking for a way to really take your skills to the next level, the AMG Academy is an excellent way to improve your base skillset – not to mention a whole lot of fun!
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