Oulton Park Racemaster & M3 Master MSV experience

Myself and Adrian (business partner) advise another smaller digital agency each month. As a reward they very kindly bought us a Race Master experience at Oulton Park from MSV. It consists of an outing in an M3 and then an outing in a single seater. I was massively excited. I hadn’t driven an M3 before so that was cool but the single seater – I was drooling with anticipation.

Now, I don’t think most of the people on this experience were one season into a racing career (albeit very novice in our own eyes!). As a result in our little M3 lapping experience myself and Adrian got to the front of the field and the normally not used paddles of the M3 were being utilised by me (I found the auto shifting on track akin to driving a bowl of spaghetti in terms of accuracy). The M3 was a very nice machine – cosseted, forgiving, fast and generally everything you would want for this kind of introduction. The brakes were also phenomenal, and I don’t think I used the full range of them either.

After a short break and a briefing, we were ready for the single seater. We got to sit in one beforehand which was a boon to get used to the driving position, pedals, and the tiny gear stick with it’s 4 ratios in an H pattern. We were told we’d only use 2nd and 3rd really as we went around the circuit which did make things a little easier to think about. We all lined up in the order to speed from the M3 test (myself and Adrian leading) and then headed out.

Fantastic, visceral, committed. These are the three words I would use to describe what happened next. There’s so much difference between the two cars (the M3 and this) its hard to describe. The sheer sound and feel of the single seater was immense. The whine from the Duratec was superb, the gearbox completely honest and mechanical to the point of delight and the grip was truly excellent. I don’t believe myself or Adrian ever got to the limit of the car at any corner, steadily building up and feeling that there is more and more grip, better braking and more committed acceleration each lap.

The experience is well recommended to anyone with a thirst for cars, racing, or simply want to experience a single seater.