Would you hand the keys of your Porsche Cayman GT4 over to a pro driver for a ride-along lap of the Nurburgring? That’s exactly what this intrepid owner did, and he was given the ride of a lifetime. The joy of watching this onboard video is entirely in the owner’s reaction to the driver’s ability to take corners much faster than ever dreamed possible. To make things even more surprising, this was allegedly the driver’s first time in a Porsche GT4, though he currently runs in an SRO-organized European GT4 series, and has run at the Nurburgring regularly.
The video description does not list the driver’s name, but mentioned that he won the N-ring round of the GT4 series recently. With a bit of sleuthing, it seems the series was at that track in mid September of 2017, and the weekend double-header was won swept by the Ekris BMW M4 GT4 of Max Koebolt and Ricardo Van der Ende. The owner of the car was under the impression that his driver was an ex-DTM driver, but neither of these drivers appear to have been involved in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft series. Based on the small sliver of facial view we can see in the video through the rear view mirror, I’d guess this driver to be Mr. Van der Ende. It would appear that at least some of the video poster’s information was lost in translation at some point, so we can’t be sure. In any case, this driver is seriously committed and it’s incredible to watch.
From the beginning of the video you can see the driver takes a little time to warm up to the car, learning the limits by pressing them further with each corner. With a passenger in a street car, negotiating traffic, and running at what he calls 8/10ths, this guy is absolutely slamming this car into the corners, and puts down a respectable 7 minute and 42 second run from ‘bridge’ to ‘gantry’, which isn’t a full lap of the track, but is the standard ‘lap’ during open lapping days. Maybe this guy is a great driver, maybe the Cayman GT4 is an exquisite platform. Maybe it’s both.