Mario James, Gleaner Writer

Autodromo do Estoril, Portugal. More correctly, the Aut-dromo fernanda Pires da Silva. A racetrack steeped in history. It is dawn, and if you listen to your heartbeat, the echoes of the crowd screaming in adulation after Ayrton Senna's first F1 win can still be heard.

Take off your iPod, put your ear to the ground, open the imagination and hear the tyres talk about that famous duel between Villenuveue and Michael Schumacher as Jacques rounds Ferrari's most famous 'red devil' on the final fast right hander going into the start finish straight.

Estoril is a circuit filled with history, not histrionics. A track that hasn't seen a F1 wheel turned in anger since Villeneuve won there in 1996. The course still has the patina it developed from the eighties, with the surrounding countryside still commanding a great view of the circuit, much like how the trees surrounding the cricketing ovals of our sister Caribbean countries gave a birds eye view to the man in the street (albeit from a further distance).

Five new R35 GT-Rs

Sunday Drive is here. And so are five brand new R35 Nissan GT-Rs. Indeed!

Much has been said about the latest Skyline. The list of quality journalists that have genuflected on this four wheel jewel is both long and dignified. The most impressive credential, though, is that it is to date the fastest production car 'round the Nordschleife, arguably the most challenging circuit in the world. Faster than the C6 Z06 Corvette (7:42, and it broke my heart to say this), the Bugatti Veyron (7:40) and wonder of wonders, the V10 powered , 600+ horse Porsche Carrera GT (a copy of which was by Lewis Hamilton's father, Anthony last Wednesday) which drove through the Black Forest in a time of 7:32. GT-R, with the indomitable Toshio Suzuki in the saddle, clocked 7:29.03!

To tell the truth, I don't know how scientific this test was, as the same driver didn't drive all the above-mentioned cars, and the cars were tested under different conditions, and many variables were not equalised from car to car. But ELEVEN seconds off the time posted by what was once considered the fastest production car in the world, and done with two more seats, six hundred and twenty less horse power, has got to mean that Nissan is doing something right, right?

Four-wheel drive

Nissan test driver, Belgian Stephan Klepcans, sheds some light; "The comparisons between the Veyron and our car round the 'Ring' aren't really fair. The Bugatti isn't much heavier (4160 lb to the GT-R's 3,836lb) and has far superior power to weight (987 vs 480 hp. Do the math). But our Nissan is four-wheel drive, has perfect weight distribution and longer suspension travel, which suits circuits like the Nordeschleife. I've heard that the Veyron's short travel suspension couldn't cope with Nurburgring's irregular road surface, which made the car a bear to drive around the track and negated their power advantage." Better performance through design, I guess.

It is raining; yet journalists from every corner of the globe rush to the leader board to put their names down first, and claim immortality trying to drive the legendary 'Kodzirrah' first. We head off in the other direction, to one of the tutor cars, trying to get a handle of what the track is like in the wet. We are allowed one lap as a passenger, switch, and then drive one lap, and bring the car in. 'There is only 380 hp available to us in this car', says the instructor. 'But the track is slick, and it will feel like much more. It should be very exciting, maybe too much so," he says, with a most nonchalant air. We strap in and head out of pit lane, towards turn one.

Big mistake

On to the track, he gives the Infiniti G45 Coupe half throttle and the car vaults to 80 km/h in the blink of an eye. Lined up for the marker cones that demarcate the route through the apex of turn two, he floors it ... big mistake. Even with traction and yaw control on, the rear end sashays out as if it were a Jamaican woman dancing Kumina. Power is nothing without control, and control is non existent in these conditions. Cones were being punted everywhere, and my 'tutor' seemed almost as surprised as I. Right.

So we end up pussyfooting around the track, and then it is my turn ... and almost immediately I make the same mistake that he did. Three hundred and eighty hp looks so innocent on paper. But on a track that is almost as slick as ice, 380 hp is a drifter's dream, if one has the control. But with the powers that be mandating that the traction and yaw control stay on, the car could not develop enough momentum to maintain power slides through the corners. We had no fun, and I could not really test the cone-defined racing lines around the track. Boo Hoo.

Fortunately, towards 11 a.m., the Portuguese sun peeked out from under a blanket and gave the track a quick bake. Godzilla was mine at 11:45 am, with three laps to my credit (one of these was to be a practice lap under the watchful tutelage of yet another chaperone, one who actually had open wheel racing experience. We were to have one lap with the electronic aids on, and one unadulterated flying freebie.

Few spins

Says he, on the taxi lap: "This car has close to 500 hp. Even with four-wheel drive, the prevailing conditions dictate we err on the side of caution. We've had a few spins here today, but I've lived, and I need to go home. But we should have a bit more fun as the track is drying out." And he takes it to the edge of traction and shows me where the limits are for half of the track, with traction control. Then he turns everything off, and pegs the g-meter on braking and in several corners (1.2 g). Entering Parabolica Ayrton Senna, he breaks the tail loose and drifts round that sweeping right hander sideways, the GT-R displaying perfect balance as he kept the tail in place by applying opposite lock gingerly, gently right around the corner. Brilliant!

Having being thoroughly cowed by the driving display just witnessed, Automotives was more than a little tentative out of the starting blocks. While I have been known to coax a tail or two out of line, maintaining the car's drift composure consistently around long corners under track conditions is something I have trouble with. Usually, I develop problems with car attitude mid corner and end up spinning out or not spinning enough, so the lap with the aids engaged was used to safely explore the limits of handling and to see if the car could be finessed round the hairpins on the second lap. Our even more vocal passenger outlined where he thought the braking ought to be done at pace. And then it was hands off.

GT-R's cockpit is the stuff of legend, so much has been already written about it. Strapping it on is like descending into a cockpit of a F-22. Not that it is complex, mind you, but the view out is superb and the optimum driving position easily found, and the seats are highly bolstered. What makes it unique, though is the six gauges displayed via a TFT matrix LCD screen located smack dab in the middle of the dash, where one would expect the navigation screen would be (it also doubles as that and more).

Flying lap

There is a g-meter, or accelerometer, a gauge that tells the driver when he's nailed the throttle and one that tells him how much of the brake he's using at any particular point in time! There is also the more run-of-the-mill monitors such as oil temp and pressure and coolant monitors.

We're on the flying lap, now, and I see where the design actually comes together ... GT-R's is a front engined, four-wheel drive supercar with the weight of a six speed DSG type tranny over the rear wheels.

Selectable by paddle shifters located behind the steering wheel, it is the key to the handling of this Asian missile. In comparison, mid-engine cars like the Toyota MR2 or the Honda NSX are slow to turn in (relatively) because their mass is located too centrally, too close to the centre of gravity.

So the polar moment of these cars is quite low. But GT-R's mass centres are located fore and aft of the car, so once the turn is initiated, the car reacts very quickly as the potential energy built up in the rear is released and helps the car around. In practice it works, and works well. Even with a hundred more bhp on tap than when Automotives first went round, the slides were most controllable.

Phenomenal

It was the most awe-inspiring, confidence-building platform I've ever had the pleasure to drive. My mom could drift this thing. I'm serious! The car's attitude could be adjusted via throttle as if it were a rear engined car, yet retained none of the twitchiness that that platform possesses because its engine is in the front. And engine grunt is phenomenal. 0-100 km/h comes up in 3.5 seconds, after drifting out of Senna and nailing the apex, we were through four gears and breeching 130 mph in a little over eight seconds. Its not that tuneful, but the push felt in the small of the back more than made up for it. My white knuckle experience was over much too soon. Only memories are left, now.

GT-R represents judicious, clean sheet engineering. What sticks in the mind, though, is not so much the grunt that the engine develops, but how it works in concert with the chassis to achieve the balance that it does. Test driver Klepcans said it best; "We tried to fashion a platform that has the fun factor of the Porsche 911 turbo without the uncontrollable flipside." Mission accomplished!