The Drive Report: Porsche Experience 2024

Driving the most thoroughbred cars from Porsche's stables in quick succession on India's only FIA Grade 1 certified race track sounds like something most car enthusiasts plan months in advance.

Driving the most thoroughbred cars from Porsche’s stables in quick succession on India’s only FIA Grade 1 certified race track sounds like the kind of day most driving enthusiasts have marked on their calendars months in advance.

If you happen to own a Porsche or are right on top of the list of prospective buyers, it’s a couple of days that Porsche likes to throw in to whet your appetite. Or, more accurately, have you inadvertently sign up for lifelong membership to the cult of Stuttgart’s finest.

The Porsche Experience 2024, open till February 22, is a chance to not only experience the brand’s best and brightest (literally, given the plumage on the likes of the GT3 RS and the GT4 RS), you also get access to Porsche’s certified crew of instructors who teach you how best to push the limits of the vehicle and how to get the quickest lap times out of it.

The cars

The roster is enticing enough to make the most seasoned track veteran buckle at the knees. The latest Porsche 911 Turbo S, the Cayman GT4 RS, a standard 911 Carrera 4S and, of course, the pièce de résistance – a canary yellow Porsche GT3 RS.

There are also Porsche’s latest electric sedans around, should you wish to take them for a spin, but you’d be forgiven for giving them a miss with a GT3 RS in the pit garage.

Porsche

Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast

It’s a standard diktat to be followed in most driving scenarios, which, for most amateurs – myself included – goes right out of the window when faced with the adrenaline-induced fever dream that is a track day at the Buddh International Circuit. But it was a lesson that was to be learnt early in the day before heading out on the main track, behind the wheels of faster Porsches.

With a slalom course set up near the vast parking lot of the circuit and a blue Porsche Cayman GT4 RS (packing the same naturally aspirated 4.0-litre flat-six as a current-gen 911), the first order of business was to understand the nuances of counter steer.

It’s as counterintuitive as it sounds, but it allows you to effectively handle oversteer without soiling your trousers. Porsches, particularly the rear-engine 911, are no stranger to the panic-inducing effects of oversteer, so it was a fairly sensible starting point to this day-long track school.

With a sufficiently wet portion of tarmac and a few cones set up for sharp steering, it came down to blipping the throttle effectively enough to send the tail of the GT4 RS out. The Cayman, for the uninitiated, is a mid-engine car, so it’s a tad easier to manage even with traction control turned off.

But then again, the surface was pretty wet, so maybe not. A sharp right followed by a sharp throttle input (blip of the throttle) gave the car the kick it needed to go into a tailspin. A couple more attempts at getting the tail out and it was time to frantically steer in the opposite direction while keeping the throttle pedal firmly stuck to the floor. When in doubt, power out.

If your counter steering input is too slow, the car won’t turn in the opposite direction fast enough and you will spin out because you’re still giving it all the gas you can. Don’t accelerate hard enough and you will be unable to effectively pivot the car and drift in the opposite direction.

The manoeuvre requires well-calibrated inputs on both ends to be successfully carried out.

Pro tip: Be generous with the throttle when transferring the weight – something that we call “the Scandinavian flick” in the business, given that it was invented on the ice-covered roads of Finland.

With that manoeuvre executed with moderate success (footage conveniently missing), it was time to head to the slalom course, which included two hairpin turns. Naturally, the first couple of practice rounds were spent understanding that throttle doesn’t exist in binaries of on or off.

It must be modulated to be carried out fast. The faster you go, the faster you must brake at hairpins, and the slower you exit it. What looks fast on an autocross or slalom course is often the slowest way around, with precious seconds lost to the gratifying drama of tyre smoke and high-pitched slides.

Seeing my frantic and staccato steering inputs, like the ones from a 60s movie car chase sequence, the instructor took me through the whole sequence one more time, helping shave off several seconds from my final lap time. Having been a GT level professional racer, he confided to often singing while racing as it helped calm him down. And calmer is always faster.

The main course

Not the lavish spread that Porsche will undoubtedly put out for the applicants of the Experience, but the succession of hot laps in the three undisputed stars of the show: The Cayman GT4 RS, the lighter and far more aerodynamically enhanced GT3 RS, and the brutally powerful Porsche 911 Turbo S.

Right. The next nine laps, split evenly between the three cars, are something of a blur.

The GT4 RS is in a league of its own. With the most dramatic sounding exhaust of the three cars, it’s flat-six roars away, churning out 493 bhp, feeling nimble and poised. The only car capable of holding its own against the 911 GT3 RS, it is perhaps impeded only by the lack of the ferocious downforce generated by the GT3 RS.

The Turbo S feels a lot more plush, countering the effects of the added weight and creature comforts by providing more power. It’s not as hardened a track car as the other two but on the back straight of the BIC, its 641 bhp allows it to gain speed with frightening urgency.

It’s only around the corners that the GT3 RS’s physics-altering adhesion triumphs. The 911 Turbo S also had the nicest interiors, courtesy Porsche’s Manufaktur Customisation programme, which is now available in India.

Which means all those memes and viral videos of people spending hours, nay, days on the Porsche configuration can actually bear fruit in India, as you can pick from about 700 customisation options ranging from body paint, interior trim, accessories and so much more. I won’t deny that the Papa Smurf shade of blue interiors did have an effect – both calming and cooling – while going hammer and tongs on the racetrack.

A personal preference is of course, the Alcantara-bathed, carbon fibre tub of the 911 GT3 RS, which is a bona fide race car-turned-street legal. It’s a testament to Porsche’s dogged, half-a-century long pursuit of driving perfection.

Porsche

Pray that the brand finds a way around the emissions deadline with synthetic fuel because both the naturally aspirated, rear-mounted straight-six and that 7-speed PDK gearbox are vestigial remnants of a truly glorious era of motoring.

Participation

The Porsche Experience is ultimately a marketing initiative, with multiple batches being accommodated, wined and dined over two days. It’s not for the posers – it’s designed to give prospective and existing owners a tantalising taste of the best that Porsche has to offer.

Trust a series of laps in the GT3 RS to turn you into a hopeless convert. In case all slots for the year have been booked out, your best hope is to call the nearest Porsche dealership to help sign you up for the next one. The true Porsche Experience has, and always will, take place on a racetrack.