Nice.....
Good to see its creating a good stir thanks to Pauls reports.
I'm interested in how the handling has been improved. The reason for not having long straights is probably down to the brake fade that Paul has described - Journo's tend to hammer the cars, and if you were seeing brake fade from your spirited driving without very high speed straights Paul, then it would obviously have been worse with them included - so they were probably excluded precisely for that reason. The
JCW brakes would be a weak point for prolonged track exposure with people that dont actually own the cars being driven - I think thats a known given with the
JCW brake package, as they were designed for spirited road use from the outset as I understand it, not prolonged track use. Would be fine for a owner/driver at a track day though - even standard brakes can be made to work on the track given the right driving technique and plenty of cool down laps etc.
Interested to see where all this extra cornering ability is coming from. The car wasn't running non-runflats was it...? (BMW have been known to chop them for performance driving days etc).... As it would appear to be a fairly low speed circuit in this configuration, I'd be surprised if it was anything to do with the aerodynamic changes - the rear wing would certainly not be affecting low speed cornering to any great deal, can the underbody additions be that effective..? And if so, is it possibly to retro fit to non GP cars I wonder...? Or is it the revised rear suspension components that giving the car a better feel...? Almost surprised the car hasn't got a proper rear diffuser like the new Clio - they have thrown away the rear spoiler on the clio now because the undertray and diffuser work so well together.
Paul, did you get the chance to run a 'standard'
JCW (but with
JCW suspension and brake mods) against the GP? Would be very interested to see back to back tests....
Noise levels from the car on a track isn't relevant to road conditions - theres usually better surfaces, your thinking too hard about the track to pay attention, your not trying to listen to the radio/telephone, your not in the 'droning' rev range, the engines singing its heart out etc... noise levels in 5th/6th gear on a British motorway at 75mph is what we need to really know - is it going to be bearable? I think it will. Some after market exhausts perform very badly at certain speeds, the
JCW one does not. I'm guessing that even with losing the sound deadening, its going to be fine. Although you may want to trade up to some really punchy speakers up front (weight issue would be kind of irrelevant against audio performance - you do have to live with the car after all)
I know its not being marketed as a track day tool, but it would seem that this might be a very good starting point for someone - a very competent car that could easily be modified for better/harder track use. It wouldn't need extra power at most circuits - better stopping ability yes, more power, no. So you could swap out the
JCW brake package for use as a track car, and swap them back when the time comes to sell on the car. Just a thought....
I'd like to get a feel for the weight of the alloys - is this a know yet? The car would certainly perform much better with smaller/lighter wheels and descent tyres - and if its already this good,then again these could be another area where the car can be improved. My own car wears heavy 18" wheels, swapping them on track days for lightweight 17" makes a marked difference. Any stats on wheel weight yet...?
If this car is genuinely an improvement on track driving, I'd expect a much larger range of improvement on the road - if so, theres going to be a lot of very happy owners shortly with big cheesy grins. I genuinely hope they have got a well improved package here, as even non GP owners could gain from these improvements.
One last thought on the brake fade - I think a little unseen modification work to those false front brake 'ducts' might well transform this. The John Cooper challenge brake ducts will hopefully fit, this could be a superb modification, if nothing else is done by owners.... I guess what we really really need is a
JCW Carbon/Ceramic disk option...
Roll on the professional test drive reports....
ps - been to the Carribean for 2 weeks, if you've been missing me...
Jun 22nd, 2006, 04:54 PM
Coming through the pitlane each time - that's what they do in F1 during the warm-up. I suppose so the number of laps are measured or otherwise don't count as racing laps somehow. 
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