As a general rule of thumb, when everything starts going wrong for you behind the wheel, the last thing you ever want to do is drill either the brake or the throttle. You want to shave off speed gently while maintaining directional control of the vehicle, then you want to bring the car to a controlled stop so you can get out and make sure that you didn’t fill your shorts. What really happens is that once the car has left your control, your brain yelps out an expletive or two and proceeds to dump a ton of chemicals into your bloodstream in the same split-second you have to make a decision. Usually, this doesn’t work out well, but for the driver of this Porsche Cayman GT4, they couldn’t have done a better job.
We’re back at the Nurburgring Nordschliefe, at Brunchen curve. The penalties for striking any of the ‘Ring’s Armco barriers carry stiff monetary penalties (replacement of barrier, cost of truck, cost of employees to manage traffic, etc.) so anything you can do that doesn’t endanger other racers AND saves your hide from smacking the wall is in your best interest. In this case, at what is quite possibly the last possible moment, the driver dumps the clutch and drifts the Cayman away from the barrier after washing out into the gravel. The driver was safe and the car was fine…except for whatever fell off after running over the curb. The photographers who got an impromptu gravel shower, however…
