How to Get the Most Out of Your Car - With Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes-Benz announced the introduction of four new models to its Mercedes-AMG stable, marking an exciting start to AMG's 50th anniversary celebrations this year.

Oneshift had the opportunity to have a go at the AMG 43 series cars around the Sepang International Circuit, to see what makes the AMG range so special. The GTS also made a guest appearence at the circuit, and we had a go at it!

Our AMG Driving Experience Chief Instructor, GT Racing driver Peter Hackett, gave us the lowdown on how to get the best of our ‘Mercs’ on the track, and this is what we got to learn.

Get a sense of what you’re driving first, if you have never driven the car you are about to get into. But more importantly, sit right, sit tight. You have definitely seen those on our roads with their seats pulled far… far back and with their wrist resting on the top of the wheel (or are you one of those…). Notice how these drivers veer to the left and to the right of the lane. The way to sit is to ensure that you can depress the pedals all the way down, without feeling a stretch. Getting this right is crucial, firstly to ensure that you can get the most out of the brakes and throttle, and it rewards with the fact that you do not shift around unnecessarily to floor the brakes when you need to. Adjusting the wheel so that your arms are bent, would provide proper leverage, keeping the wheel that little bit closer also brings about more sensitivity to steering feedback.

The second most important thing ever… Stopping power of a car can be maximised if you do know how to do this right. Most of us have learnt that in order to brake right from our driving instructors, one has got to brake harder, then ease off the pressure in-order to stop smoothly. Nothing really wrong there, but on the circuit, things are a little different, as our instructor Peter Hackett explained. The key to getting the most out of the brakes is to firstly understand the concept of weight transfer in the car.

The amount of tyre on the road does directly correspond to where the load is at on the car at any one moment. Hence the correct technique is to introduce light braking to let more weight transfer to the front wheels (which is where most of the braking ability of a car is, look at any car on the road, and you’d notice that the discs in front are actually larger), which also increases the footprint of the front tyres. Once you are able to feel the transfer of weight to the front, ease in harder on the brakes to take advantage of the added road contact.

For those of you who know of F1 legend Nigel Mansell from the early 80s to the early 90s, would know that the man took his turns, using up as much of track as possible. The idea really is to keep the car going as straight as possible; reducing the amount of time wasted shedding off too much speed when hitting the bends.

Take your line from closer to the outer kerb, brake while you are approaching the bend, turn in towards the inner kerb. At the sharpest point of the turn, as what is known as the apex, feed in the power (but do not over power the car) and steer out again towards the outer kerb. In the event of two consecutive opposing corners, commonly known as a chicane, you would exit the first bend, to line your vehicle up at the next, in order to take the correct line. In doing this, we head to our next point…

Some say that in racing on an oval track you could have the inner wheel smaller than the outer wheel, in order for your car to take the turn, while technically keeping the wheel straight. That is generally what happens in America. Then again, going in circles is kind-of boring isn’t it?

In reality, we get to flick a car over a series of corners, which are at different camber rates, and different extremities. But in order to get this going, you must know what is coming up next. In essence, you will need to map out where you would want your car to be on the track ahead of time.

So when you jostle for a better position, keep in-mind that in doing so, might set you up for the wrong turning line, and you’d be forced to brake much harder, in-turn losing precious seconds, and have the car you may have been trying to pass, pull way past you.

Mercedes-AMG C 43 4MATIC Coupé. It features a scintillating engineering package that provides optimum basis for high agility and exhilarating lateral dynamics, including a 270 kW (367 hp) 3.0-litre V6 twin-turbo engine, new 9G-TRONIC automatic transmission that provides agile gearshifts, AMG Performance 4MATIC all-wheel drive, as well as model-specific chassis technology.

The new Mercedes-AMG E 43 4MATIC is the first performance variant for the latest Mercedes-Benz E-Class launched last July. Built with a 3.0-litre V6 biturbo engine on board, the E 43 4MATIC represents the most powerful variant of the executive saloon, offering impressive driving dynamics coupled with cutting-edge efficiency.

Rounding up the new inclusions to the portfolio are the Mercedes-AMG GLC 43 4MATIC and Mercedes-AMG GLC 43 4MATIC Coupé. These dynamic, mid-size SUV additions come fitted with the power and performance expected of AMG, promising a gratifying driving experience each time.

Photo Credits: Mercedes-Benz