I finally got to track my 2013 Audi S4 at Donington Park. It was a great day, minus the part where my exhaust fell off on track…
We did a full day session, meaning we rocked up at 8AM, got our wristbands, then went out for our three sighting laps. The safety car running the laps sped off pretty quick, meaning me and my friend at the back of the pack ended up in a concertina effect especially down the final straight before the chicane to the pit straight. Either way, the sighting laps gave me a taste of what was to come and I was excited. We pulled into the pits, let the second group go on their sighting laps, then waited for the incredibly experienced Caterham, Renault Clio Cup and Lotus Exige drivers to head out first.
We got out on track and had some stunning laps, doing 100 MPH down the Craner curves does get the heart going in the morning. We did 4-5 laps total, but after lap 3 the brakes were… mushy. They still worked, but needed a lot more effort to get going. So, a few cooldown laps later we pull into the pits and… my brakes are literally smoking. Great. I do a few laps around the car park to cool them down, then we let the cars rest and recover.
A few sessions later, I head out for what I thought would be my last run before lunch. I was very correct. As the brakes heated, the vibration under braking I’d been getting from the slotted rotors was getting worse. I did one fast lap, then did two cooldown laps as the vibration was getting painful. When coming down the final straight, my exhaust suddenly got a whole lot louder, and I could hear metal scraping on the floor. Luckily I was already heading to the pits, so I came off, parked in the garage, jumped out and looked under. The section of pipe that links the headers to the central muffler was on the floor. The clamp had slipped backwards letting the pipe drop. The two clamps meant to hold it on had rusted all the way through. I knew it was a bit rusty, everything under a car in the UK is, but I didn’t know it was that bad.
Luckily I had a bag of Jubilee clamps at home so a quick trip in the support car sorted them out. I used three clamps per pipe, which ended up being plenty fine, sealing well enough to get me back out on track and even pass an MOT. I ordered the proper ones though which I’ve now fitted, just for extra piece of mind.
After lunch we got back out on track. A couple of times our runs were cut short by red flags, I think in total there was 8 or 9 red flags throughout the day. No one injured, just a few people overcooking it or had their brakes give out a little too much. As the day drew to a close, we had one last run where I pushed pretty hard and had a lot of fun. The S4 held up really well. It didn’t understeer unless I really overcooked it, it felt insanely stable and let me launch out of corners well. Even the 530D held up well!
It was a great day, I’m not sure I’ll track the S4 again, but I’m glad I’ve done it. Knowing how capable it is feels great even when I’m pootling along at 30 through town.
