Boy, oh boy!

The participants, mainly made up of motoring journalists, were put up at the Putrajaya Shangri-La hotel, which is located 15 minutes away from the Sepang Circuit. It was a bright Monday morning when we were all ushered up onto a coach, right after a hearty breakfast at the hotel.

Once we arrived, we were brought to a briefing room for some theory lesson. On the agenda? On-track safety, proper driving positions and technical driving.

After being handed over a helmet each, we were off to the track. But before being let even near the car, everyone was divided into four separate groups first, with each car having two drivers.

A host of Audis were prepared for us - six Audi RS6 Avants (six left-hand drive ones were flown in from Germany for this event), two Audi TTS, two Audi R8s (which only the instructors get to drive), an Audi S8, Audi S5, Audi RS4 Cabriolet and Audi S3.

The first part of the track session saw all the participants driving in different sections of the track, learning the finer details like cornering lines and braking points – and at the same time, getting to sample the different Audi performance models.

Then came the second part of the track session that everyone has been waiting for – the chance to drive any of the Audi cars we fancy around the full track...BUT with instructors acting as safety cars ahead of us. Bummer.

At the end of the day, everyone came back to the pit building grinning from ear to ear. Sure, we were all restrained (by having instructors constantly watching over us), but the bottom line is, everyone got the opportunity to sample some of Germany’s finely-tuned cars, putting it to the limits. On a more personal note, I had the most enjoyable moments driving the TTS and S3 hatch, which I find both fast and agile but at the same time, at home even out on the tracks.

After all, it’s not everyday you get to drive hard and fast out on the track in an Audi…

Credits: Story by Azfar Hashim, pictures courtesy of Audi Singapore in Sepang, Malaysia