Donnington

Yesterday I had the pleasure of driving round Donnington for the very first time, quite how it took me so long to do a trackday at a venue less than 20 miles from where the Alfa is garaged escapes me.

One of the advantages of being just 20 miles from home was that at lunch, with my 35-year old Alfa’s brakes fading (poor fluid and air in the system) and front wheel bearings wobbling (already bought some heavy duty ones for the run to the ‘ring) I took the old girl home for a well-earned rest and picked up the C43 (pictured with Ian Pleeth’s silver GT Junior step-front, below).

The Merc is a complete contrast to the Alfa, much much quieter but with a more sophisticated V8 rumble, so much quicker on the back straights (100 vs. nearly 125mph) and much, much more sideways. But was it any quicker? Certainly up the hills, the Merc with nearly double the torque of the bertie was sensational, and you actually found you had to brake before the Craner Curves, unless you fancy taking them at 110mph in a car weighing over one and a half tonnes (the Alfa, in contrast is well under 1000kg, and probably bearly more than a modern Elise). Through the slower corners, though, the Alfa was undoubtedly quicker, thanks to its better balance and the inability of the Merc’s slushbox to work out what you’re doing, dumping you down a couple of gears at wholely unappropriate moments causing ridiculous oversteer!

Overall I think the Merc was somewhere in the order of 3 seconds a lap quicker. That doesn’t sound a lot and it isn’t – and I think all of that is probably gained on the straight. In addition, the Merc used £10 of petrol for a 15 minute session (around 8mpg – frankly ridiculous) if you regularly tracked it, replacing those SL600 brakes would cost you a packet (they smoked after 3 hard laps) and the cost of the tyres would be prohibitive.

The Alfa on the hand (a not insubstantial 35 years old) uses about £40 of fuel for 6-7 20 minute sessions, my last set of tyres lasted about 7 or 8 trackdays plus road use, excusing today the brakes normally stand up well to repeated abuse (only just replaced the discs after 3 years) and is just as much fun if not more. Plus people come over and talk to you in the pits with comments such as “just beatiful” and “goes well, what engine?” (quote from a Caterham Superlight driver to both me and Ian who we were both barely slower than – driver error).

I’d say on track, Classic Alfa-Modern Merc 1-0.