The day started with much promise. We were attending the launch of the Lexus GS and had spent the previous afternoon thrashing each of the new models around the Hampton Downs race circuit, followed by a fancy dinner and a night in the luxurious (but slightly odd…) Sarnia Lodge, just out of Cambridge.
At dinner it was announced by four-times Australian rally champion Neal Bates that the million dollar Lexus LFA we had drooled over at the press conference for the GS would be available at the track the next day for the New Zealand press to drive…
Needless to say, it would be easily worth the 6.30 start the next morning…
However, it wasn’t to be, as the Weather Gods conspired against us. One of the stipulations issued by the easy-going Bates (Toyota’s official LFA driver/minder) was that if it was wet, the opportunity to drive the extremely limited (just 500 will be produced) supercar would have to be reviewed.
Needless to say, it was wet and extraordinarily slippery at the Hampton Downs track, so our drive was off the table. Disappointing…
Still at least we would be given the opportunity to have a few hot laps (well… warmish…) in the passenger’s seat with Bates driving, some laps in a Lexus IS F with New Zealand F1 legend (and long-time Toyota associate) Chris Amon in the driver’s seat and the chance for a few laps behind the wheel of the IS F ourselves. Of course, all were gratefully accepted…
The laps in the IS F with Amon were an absolute treat. He may well be approaching 70, but still has the effortless smoothness and precision that first attracted the attention of Enzo Ferrari 45 years ago. He is also a true gentleman and an absolute pleasure to chat with as he casually flicks the V8-powered IS around the winding North Waikato track.
At one point – as we are talking about the IS F’s poise, as it happens – a slippery patch catches him out and the IS F’s rear abruptly swings wide. Amon’s reactions are lightning-fast and just as smooth and precise as his steering inputs are. He quickly gathers it up in a fashion that makes me instantly feel vastly inferior and, with a quiet chuckle, proceeds to belt straight into the following right-hander.
On the in-lap we chat about the current Formula 1 season. It is clear he still loves the sport and his excitement about the current season’s unpredictability is obvious. He thinks it was a mistake for Michael Schumacher to come back and was unimpressed by his driving at the Spanish Grand Prix where he drove into the back of Bruno Senna.
We finish up sitting in the pit lane sharing our mutual pleasure in Williams return to the top of the podium – especially so soon after Sir Frank’s 70th birthday – and his appreciation of Ross Brawn’s genius in winning the championship with the ex-Honda team and then selling out to Mercedes at exactly the right time…
After the laps in the IS F, I am straight into the LFA with Neal Bates. The interior of the LFA is starkly functional and slightly space-age. Tight-fitting bucket seats are snug and surprisingly comfortable, with heavy side bolstering that quickly becomes necessary when Bates throws it into the first corner.
The engine barks aggressively into life as Bates stabs the button on the steering wheel, but quickly settles into a smooth, subdued idle that gives little sense of the drama to come.
“You must be getting sick of this” I jokingly say to Bates as he guides the LFA slowly up pit lane. He grins and simply says “Not a chance…” as we accelerate gently out on to the track. Then all hell breaks loose.
The engine violently shrieks like a thousand angry bastards as Bates pushes the throttle and my head is throw back against the seat. The car instantly tries to snap sideways, but Bates’ superb car control and amazing reflexes catch it easily. This boy is good. You quickly understand how he won four Australian Rally Championships, just as you also quickly understand why he is unwilling to let a bunch of ham-fisted journos loose in his million-dollar baby on a wet and slippery track.
The power of the LFA’s 4.3-litre V10 engine is brutal and extraordinarily intimidating in the wet. Even the lightest of throttle applications has the rear of the car struggling for grip, but even though Bates is clearly holding back, the LFA still rates as possibly the most aggressive and insanely quick road car I have ever been in. And I have been in some quick ones…
The power pours on from simply everywhere, with a hair-raising and utterly intoxicating shriek from the V10 hammering constantly at your senses. The acceleration is of the type that you can feel in your internal organs, as they are gently rearranged by the incredible G-forces the LFA imposes upon you and the carbon-ceramic brakes are as mind-warping as the V10’s acceleration. But despite all this the whole car actually feels slightly on-edge and ever-so unhappy at the (comparatively) slow speeds we are doing.
We are still hitting 220km/h on the pit straight before Bates jumps on the colossal carbon-ceramic stoppers to slow us down for the tricky first corner, but you can feel the cars wants more. It’s just that it’s value and rarity suggest that the cautious approach is the best one in the wet conditions. Especially as the insurance excess on the LFA is $25,000…
But despite all the aggression and fury of the performance, it is still the noise that is the highlight of the LFA. It is a colossal V10 wail that overwhelms your senses and raises the hairs on the back of your neck as your deepest animal instincts respond to its primal howl.
Apparently the block for the 72-degree V10 is cast in the same foundry that made the Toyota Formula 1 engines and it is easy to imagine that the LFA was born out of a drunken bet that Toyota engineers couldn’t jam a F1 engine into a road car, get it to work on the road and put it on sale while keeping straight face. But they did… so never, ever take a bet with a Toyota engineer…
After the hot laps, Bates does an extra lap to cool down the brakes. We discuss the LFA’s raw brutality and he tells me how easy it actually is to drive at sane speeds. While he gently guides it around the cool-down lap it is a pussy cat, with the engine rumbling quietly and the single clutch automated transmission clunking through the gears (a robotised single clutch transmission is never going to be as smooth as a dual clutch set up, no matter how much money is thrown at it…).
“It’s got a wet mode,” says Bates pushing a button on the dash as we head into the tight fourth corner and the car snaps violently sideways, the engine crackling and popping as the wet mode of the stability control attempts to reign it in. “But… you can see why we don’t want to let you drive in the wet…”
Reluctantly, yes I can…
A little later in the day we are given the opportunity to throw the IS F around by ourselves. The track is drying, but still slippery and the IS F is absolutely brilliant in the conditions.
The 5.0-litre V8 is as smooth and yet brutally aggressive as anything out of Germany and has a wonderfully soulful wail as you belt it around the track. For 2010, Lexus added a Torsen limited-slip differential to the IS F mix and this has had a notable effect on the car’s handling, especially in these conditions.
The harder you push the IS F, the better it responds. The long, sweeping last corner at Hampton Downs is particularly telling – brake heavily and then turn in and the IS F responds sharply and predictably. Keep the throttle steady through the first part of the corner and the IS F tracks nicely, progressively increase the pressure on the throttle once you are halfway through the long corner and it will start to try and understeer. You feel the stability control nibbling away at the understeer, keeping the nose from pushing wide and preventing you from having to ease off.
Push the throttle a bit harder and the rear end gracefully and predictably starts to swing around. Here you are faced with a choice: lift off ever so slightly and keep up the speed or keep in it and drift around the rest of the corner, the stability control there to keep an eye on things, but still leaving you to have your fun. In the few laps we get to play, this is a no brainer – we aren’t here to set lap records, so tail-happy fun wins out every time…
The IS F is a startlingly complete sports sedan that is capable of taking the fight right up to the BMW M3 or Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG, and Lexus’ policy of introducing small, but meaningful updates regularly, as opposed to dramatic overhauls and facelifts have made it even more complete than the original version we drove several years ago. In other words, it just keeps getting better…
Although it was undeniably disappointing that we didn’t get to drive the LFA, it was still an amazing experience to be driven in this remarkable supercar by an equally remarkable driver. The laps with Amon were as pleasurable as they always are and getting to belt the IS F around the brilliant Hampton Downs track was the icing on the cake. Lexus certainly know how to make a performance car. And they aren’t afraid to show it.
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