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Blancpain - Drive Time

WORLDTEMPUS - 18 June 2012
How do you get a very tall man into a Lamborghini? While this isn't the first question on everyone's lips as the Blancpain Endurance Series rolls into Silverstone, it begins to trouble me the moment I lay eyes on the matte black Lamborghini Gallardo LP570-4 Superleggera I've been lent for the weekend.
I'm the north side of two meters in height; it has the profile of a coffin.
I ask the delivery driver if he can cut a hole in the roof for me, but with an unsettling lack of irony, he replies that if I so much as scratch the ¡ê180,000 supercar, the guy who says "pretty car" in "The Italian Job" will be dispatched with a brief to "have a little word."
So, with my knees constantly interfering with the indicators and my neck contorted into a u-bend, I point the car cautiously in the direction of Silverstone. On the roads, people point and stare. This could be because they think they've seen Jaws driving the Batmobile, but I'm not sure.
Ignoring them, I head northwest out of London. Tentative prods of the accelerator merely encourage greater ambition, and before long the sound of the Superleggera's V10 is roaring in my ears. The British countryside is a thing to behold, but seen from the wheel of a car that packs 570 ps under the bonnet and rises only slightly higher from the ground than a sidewalk, it's just a green blur. Like spilt gazpacho.

Track time
Flappy gear paddles engaged, it becomes surprisingly easy to drive. And eager. Trying to resist putting your foot down is hopeless and the soundtrack is spectacular. At 4,000 rpm, the engine note erupts. It sounds like a tiger on the back seat has just woken up hungry from a bad dream.
Grinning from ear to ear and still flush with adrenalin, I arrive at Silverstone for the second leg of the Blancpain Endurance Series in which Blancpain boss Marc A. Hayek and his co-driver, Dutch motor racing pro Peter Kox, are competing. The series is now in its second season and is part of a growing motorsports marketing strategy for the brand that started with the Blancpain Super Trofeo single-make race series in 2009 (which, incidentally, is the fastest single-make race series in the world).
Hayek and Kox qualify seventh on the grid on the Saturday and on race day steer their Lamborghini Gallardo LP600+ to fourth overall and first in the PRO-AM category. It's always nice when the guy you came to watch wins.

Back on track and in driving rain, I'm invited to take part in an owners' parade lap alongside a line-up of Lamborghini Aventadors and Gallardos. This is the sort of thing I used to dream about as a small boy (and as a not-so-small man), and as we wait to be waved forward, I'm reminded of what "good nervous" feels like.
On Silverstone's 3.6-mile track, the Superleggera comes alive. With four-wheel drive and a total weight of just 1,340kg, it feels planted to the surface, even when I miss an apex and throw it late into corners over the slippery red and white rumble strips. It's a parade lap and the limit is 90 mph, but looking at the speed when you're flying down the straight is just a lack of concentration. Let's just say it takes a mere 3.4 seconds to hit 62 mph and has a top speed of 202 mph. Seven, eight, maybe nine laps later we're called in. I reach into my pocket and pull out the bucket list and put a big tick next to, "Drive a Lamborghini around Silverstone." A good day.
A dash on the wrist
At the wheel of the LP570-4 Superleggera, it becomes clear where Blancpain got the inspiration for the latest L'evolution, a flyback split-seconds chronograph launched to honor the link between the two brands. The Superleggera is the "super light" version of the car and is riddled with the same carbon-fiber weave that appears on the watch's dial and bezel. The numerals on the watch dial and car dash share a font, and the strap is coated in velvety alcantara, just as the car's steering wheel and a number of surfaces within it. Even the watch's split-seconds pusher is molded into the same shape as the Lamborghini's fuel cap.

The watch, which is available in either white or red gold at ¡ê35,810, is no shrinking violet, but Blancpain has stayed true to the more conservative side of its DNA by not slapping a Lamborghini logo on the dial, as many other brands would have done given the chance. The design cues inspired by the car are there, but only if you're looking for them - a nice touch.
A fine watch, a fine weekend - and what a car.