I’m cinched tightly into a narrow carbon-fiber tub, looking down the racetrack at the braking markers for a tight right-hand turn. There is a loud, urgent, omnipresent buzz in my ears: the 1.5-liter single-turbo V-6 hybrid, idling at 5,000 rpm. Pirelli slicks tower just beyond my knuckles as I clench the butterfly-style steering wheel.
“Radio check.” A voice crackles through the speakers in my helmet. “I hear you,” I confirm.
“Right, you’re good to go. It’s best to feather the throttle a bit in the first four gears. Otherwise, all you get is wheelspin.”
Deep breath. Tug at the shift paddle. First gear. Off the brake and tentatively squeeze the accelerator. The revs zing. A twitch of the tail. Second, third, fourth, fifth. The steering wheel’s shift lights strobe as I snap off the gears as quickly as I can count them, the powertrain urgent, insistent, demanding more, more, more.
It might be old and out of date, but
