I always manage to enjoy myself more at Donington than the last time. Perhaps I am getting to know the track better, perhaps I am getting to know the people better. It may even be because every time I go to Donington, I’m usually in a new car! I don’t know, fact is, this was my best Donington day yet.

I started the day apprehensively at first. I didn’t want to turn the virgin GT-R into a tragedy so I made a very strong point of taking it easy throughout the course of the morning. It was about then that I realised the oversteery nature of the car. Not that it was a handful, merely it presented itself to me with 2 options. Either I went in with my ‘racing line’ mind, where every corner counted and clipping the apex’s was integral to good lap times. Alternatively, I became ‘hooligan’, with power oversteer a right foot prod away. I subscribed to the latter school of thought, treating every tight corner like a scene straight from Bullit.

The car has amazing track behaviour, with the underbody aerodynamic carbon fibre tray splitter doing well to make sure the car remains absolutely stuck to the ground by commanding airflow to the right places. Coupled with both the active and 4 wheel steering enabled me to maintain precision control at all times. There were occasions where I went in gently into fast corners where I could feel the rear steering into the bend in unison with the front. Confidence inspiring stuff. I was a little goofed at having forgotten to play with the adjustable spoiler to see if it made any difference. I’m sure it would have reduced the oversteer a little, but perhaps at the cost of understeer, which brings me to the front. I have never driven a car before that refuses to acknowledge understeer totally on the track. The Evo 6.5 and 7 is fabulous on the road with understeer off the menu, but put them on a track and the insane speeds they encourage make understeer an unavoidable problem. Not in the GT-R. Perhaps the size of the tyres, but it was utterly amazing. Point and click at it’s best.

Luckily, I had the foresight to change my tyres to something a little cheaper than the soft S02’s (£350 each!) and changed them to the superb Continentals which I sourced extremely cheaply at £330 a set. The tyres were hard compound so were superbly suited for the dry track conditions. Also, coupled to the oversteery nature of the GT-R, they offered fantastic longevity over what the S02’s would of given. There was a little scrubbing and bubbling towards the end, but they were fine for at least another 2 track days.

I tried to be gentle with the brakes. Although the car comes equipped with standard Brembo’s all around, they wouldn’t of survived harsh abuse on a track. Still, they performed fantastic and by the end of the day, where I thought I would have warped the discs (this isn’t a light car) they were just as good as new. Mitsubishi should take a leaf out of the Nissan book. Very pleased.

All in all, a superb day incorporating a fantastic array of motorheads, cars and that great smell of octane, brakes and burning rubber. I look forward to the next day out.

Look out for video’s soon, I have lots of footage which I am currently capturing.