Of raging bulls and wild boars

The sage of petrol-heads Jeremy Clarkson, once said: "To be born Italian and male is like winning the lottery of life." That is the first thought that struck my head when I met Max Venturi, Chief Test Driver, Lamborghini Academy. It seems that if you want to be a test driver for the craziest Italian car company, you need to have a cool name. Venturi has inherited this mantle from Valentino Balboni. Here is the thing, no matter how much you would like to believe that stereotyping is bad, the way Italians speak English is still funny. As if to underline this eccentricity, Venturi and his team of extremely good looking men suddenly tell us to watch out for wild boars and errant photographers. I don't know about photographers, but I definitely did not want to be doing Asterix and Obelix in a car that costs Rs 2.5 crore a pop. Dent the front quarter panel, and it will set you back over Rs 3 lakh. Forget a Tata Nano, a missed braking point could cost a Honda Civic in repairs. As it is, we were going to destroy a few sets of Pirelli P-Zero racing tyres, where each tyre costs upwards of Rs 25,000. So, how is the car? Well, it wears its power on its sleeve, 560 horsepower going to all four wheels, though never more than a third of it to the front. Here's some perspective—you would need seven Hyundai i10s (the Kappa engine variety) to get that much power. It has a 5.2-litre V10 petrol engine that generates this wallop so you wouldn't exactly call it economical. But it does have a toggle switch that allows you to raise its suspension so that you could even take it to work. There is no doubt that the car is extremely comfortable. While ingress and egress is quite a workout in itself, once you're safely ensconced in the racing seat, your hands in the 9-3 driving position on the wheel, a couple of fingers on the super fast, double-clutch, flappy paddle gearbox (you could also, if you are lazy, drive in full auto) and your right foot on the accelerator, you don't have a worry in the world. The interiors of the car can be made to order and the Gallardo Spyder we were driving came with a blue velour finish with yellow stitching. A bit over the top, but then again when you are spending so much on a car, you would demand some luxury. The Gallardo might be preened to look nice, but when you let her loose, she is worse than an angry spouse armed with a golf club. When you put your foot down, you should be prepared for a surge of power that almost pulses up your spine, while the speedo moves at an alarming speed. We drove the cars in corsa mode, which means "race" in Italian, but it could well have meant "insane". In fact, the Gallardo Spyder was the only one of the three cars that we were driving—the other two being regular Gallardos—that was equipped with carbonceramic brakes. Now, engine power is one thing, but over the past decade, huge advancements have been made in stopping power. Press these brakes and you know how it feels to have your lungs and heart liquefy as they smash against your ribcage. The Irungattukottai race track outside Chennai isn't what you would call a difficult race track. There are some twisty parts, but lots of sweeping corners. They felt great on the Gallardo because this car has immense amounts of grip. After every lap you take, you get more and more aggressive on the throttle, even going into a turn and the car still points exactly where you want it to. Yes, there were times that we came close to touching 200 kmph, but believe me, taking sweeping left handers at close to 150 is far more exciting. But the cherry on the pudding was the drive that Giorgio, one of Venturi's colleagues, gave me. Put it mildly, sitting next to a slightly insane Italian in a slightly less insane car came very close to being the scariest thing I have ever done. When you know that your car is going sideways enveloped in a cloud of expensive tyre smoke, with the corner you are supposed to take still a few metres away, time does tend to get very slow. And then Giorgio pressed the pedal and my spine merged with the seat. Fun? This drive redefined fun. Oh yeah, and I didn't manage to see any wild boars. M