9 minute read
Ginetta G56 on track
SO YOU WANT TO GO GT RACING?
Resident racer Sam McKee takes to the circuit in what could be the most accessible GT car yet offered: Ginetta’s G56 GTA
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Photo: Ginetta
It looks like the real deal, this thing. Brooding in the garage under Silverstone’s Wing it sits, looking every inch a serious racing car. Its plain white livery fails to rob it of any of its drama, just as the cavernous garage fails to mask the size, purpose and aggression of the thing. Simply standing looking at it, I already want to own it. The curves, scallops and delicious little ducktail are familiar from their years of plying GT championships the world over – this car might look for all the world like a G55 GT4, but it’s something new. This is Ginetta’s G56 GT Academy car. Building on the relentless success of their one-make championships for the diminutive G40, its ferocious GT5 sibling and the muchvaunted G55 Supercup, Ginetta has spied room to slot another rung into their motorsport ladder. A machine that looks, feels and drives like a GT car but with performance manageable to less experienced racers and – crucially – running costs attainable to the more mortal among us. The recipe is straightforward enough. The car is based around the recently updated G55 platform and uses a detuned version of the same dry-sump Ford Cyclone V6. Still displacing 3.7 litres and still capable of a thumping 405Nm, its top end is curbed to 270bhp rather than the GT4 car’s 380. If that sounds paltry, keep fresh in your mind that despite its apparent size this version tips the scales at only 1100kg dry. Suspension, brakes and bodywork all look familiar Ginetta fare, with ground-up motorsport design seeping plainly from every vent and aperture. The gearbox is a six-speed paddleshift with helical gears – no ear-piercing whines nor savage dog engagements to be found here. Intended as a learning tool, there’s no ABS and no traction control either. Pull the featherlight door open and you’re greeted with a tall transmission tunnel, a wide
Photo: Ginetta
sill and a reassuring conflagration of steel tubes enclosing you. It’s all business in here: buttons you’d need in a hurry are all on the steering wheel, the rest arrayed on a broad panel in easy reach even when strapped in tight. A digital dash is topped by shift lights, in case you should fall unaccountably deaf out on the circuit. The cost for all this? £75,000. If that sounds a large number, some context is in order. Ginetta’s own G55 is by far the cheapest homologated GT4 car in the market and it’s a hair from double that money. Its competition stretches all the way beyond the quarter-million mark, yet here we have a car wielding most of the underpinnings and all of the sense of theatre for the same money as a wellspecced Cayman. Road car, that is. It’s quite an extraordinary offering. It’s plain that Ginetta has fought hard to drive down the entry point to this class of car. The price undercuts every serious track day toy I can think of, and all of those are inherently compromised beasts that you couldn’t go on to race without intensive modification – and devaluing. It’s no exaggeration to say that the G56 GTA opens the door to whole rafts of enthusiasts for whom a big factory racing car had never been within reach. You don’t need to be or even employ a race team if you want to run one, either. Ginetta has that covered with the option of a support package, even going so far as to store the car and deliver it for you fully prepared to race. Ticking that box adds £20,400 to the £7,200 entry fees for five triple-header rounds of 20-minute races. Less than two grand a race for arrive and drive in a high-profile championship on the British GT bill? It sounds ludicrously cheap. Apart from the endorsed factory championship, the G56 could be raced in a plethora of club series – and can be uprated to 300bhp with only calibration changes. It lands
at a really versatile performance point and, if you were so inclined, you could probably find a competitive home for it every weekend of the season to squeeze a whole lot of value out of the purchase price. But with all the corner-cutting and decontenting that might have gone on behind the scenes to get it here, will it still drive like the real deal? And if it’s aimed at new, amateur and gentleman drivers, is it all going to feel a bit sanitised? I find myself not quite sure what to expect as I hit the starter button and the big V6 settles into a surprisingly refined – if plenty vocal – idle. Certainly it scores maximum points for the process of pulling away. Drawing back the paddle for first gear brings a satisfyingly meaty thud as the driveline loads up, and the clutch – only required at a standstill – bites sharply and cleanly. For which you can read that I stalled it, obviously.
Once rolling the size feels all the more apparent, sitting low with far-forward visibility in a car that suddenly seems very wide. As soon as you’ve processed that concern, though, the steering’s immediacy reassures you that you’re firmly in control. A passing thought reaching a couple of your fingertips is enough to make this car change direction at pitlane speeds. The powertrain delivers that same sense of directness. Extend your foot, open the throttle, give the car its head and you get a visceral kind of shove. It may not be enormous, but it feels punchy and willing and it sounds the part. After a few corners of acclimatising to the controls and learning to position the car, I start to build a picture of how it handles. Ramping up the pace, leaning deeper into the surprisingly pliable brake pedal and getting on the power harder brings no knocks to the confidence. The car settles quickly on corner entry and as soon as the throttle’s opened, stabilises into a predictable arcing exit. It’s fast, smooth, easily contained and deeply flattering to drive. Its composure over midcorner bumps – those such as Silverstone has – is excellent and it thrums over kerbs with no drama at all. It feels like a great big pussycat, a driving experience entirely at odds with its imposing presence. I wonder whether it might all be a bit onedimensional until I’m nudged into really driving it like a racing car and trailbraking towards the apex. I grab the Ginetta by the scruff, throw it into Brooklands on its nose and something utterly different happens. The car positively dives towards the inside kerb, demanding a whisker of opposite lock before we’re even through the first phase of the corner, and more as I get on the power and the rear tyres are smeared across the circuit. It slides beautifully and controllably, flicking willingly into a transition towards Luffield that feels at once flamboyant and completely within my grasp. This is where Ginetta’s real masterstroke becomes plain. The GTA might have wings, but it does not wear slicks. The 19” wheels are shod with Michelin Pilot Sport 4S high-performance road tyres, widely acclaimed as the best all-round tyre on the market. The effect is to give the car
Photo: Ginetta
compliance and communication that simply doesn’t exist with the slick tyres prevalent in all major GT racing. Far from the tight operating window and snappy characteristics of a slick, on its Michelins the Ginetta feels good straight out of the pit lane and will cheerfully tolerate enormous slip angles without any real loss of grip. It allows the driver to approach its limits with far more confidence and much reduced consequences if they overstep. I can’t but do it again in the next few corners – load the car up, back out of the throttle and feel the balance shift completely. I decide halfway round whether I want to tidy it back into line for a precise exit, or keep a slide going a shade more than is strictly conducive to laptime. The G56 lays all the options out for you and doesn’t seem to mind a jot which way you lead it. It’s an absolute riot. My initial impression was of a car that absolutely looks and feels the part, but demands little of its driver and could be driven competently by almost anyone. Once I unpeeled the layers some more, I found that all that’s true but beneath it there’s a sharp, agile car that would take real commitment to extract the best laptime. There’s proper performance available here, and appreciable downforce that lets you do things in fast sweepers your brain tells you ought not work. I’m reluctant to bring it back before it’s out of fuel – it really is that much fun, an effortlessly joyful thing to play around with but an everescalating challenge to drive faster. Yes, the gearbox is a little blunted, likely deliberately for longevity and to avoid catching out unsuspecting drivers pulling a paddle mid-corner. And while the engine is muscular in the mid-range it does feel a little breathless at the top end, especially as the speed rises and that big wing starts to fight the air hard. It’s also plain that the chassis could happily manage much stickier tyres. Ginetta sees all those thoughts coming, of course. Wonderful machine, but after a couple of seasons cutting your teeth you might feel it could do with more grip, a lot more power and a proper sequential ‘box. Step right this way, Sir, for we have just the GT4 car for you... Good on ‘em. You certainly wouldn’t feel short-changed learning your craft in this brilliant creation.
Photo: Ginetta
