W210 Huracán Gr.4

What is the secret behind speed on a racetrack? Is it assuring and trustworthy stability a driver can easily get used to and come to rely on? Or is it a loose, easy to maneuver car that can dance around opponents, and occasionally its own driver? If you were to pose that question to Lamborghini, I have a feeling their answer will be "yes", while presenting to you on one hand, the rock solid Huracán Gr.4, and on the other, the utterly diabolical Huracán GT3 '15.

The annoying conundrum here is that they're both wickedly fast in their respective categories, being mainstays on time attack leaderboards and podium finishes alike, all while being polar opposites in how they drive. Neither sibling requires an introduction, but the Huracán Gr.4 under the spotlight this week is the rock solid, stable Lambo of the two, one that most of us here at Car of the Week are already intimately familiar with, as my peers and I already have hundreds, if not thousands of kilometres on the odometers of our Huracán Gr.4s on race day. As you may have already surmised by now, familarity with the Huracán Gr.4 is a necessity, and mileage on the cars is a rite of passage, because for the longest time, it was an "auto win" car in Gr.4, and anyone not driving one in a Gr.4 race was just willfully running at a disadvantage—a huge one at that. So much so in fact, that even someone like me, who openly despises most Italian cars we've tested here in COTW, and who also happens to be artistically impaired, even designed a custom livery for my Huracán Gr.4!

To understand how a 1,365kg (3,009lbs) car with a detuned 404HP (301kW) can be such a menace, it's important to understand the category in which it resides: Gr.4. Gr.4 is, in the most polite manner of speaking as I can muster, an unadulterated, unabridged flustercuck of chaos and imbalance. That's just the reality of smashing together an FF hatchback Mégane, an FR 86 with weightless steering, and an AWD 5 speed Lan Evo all into the same category. It's precisely in this goop of barely regulated diversity that the Huracán flourishes, being blessed with the absolute best parts permissible within the slack Gr.4 regulations: a responsive and linear Naturally Aspirated 5.2L V10 engine slung aft the cockpit, sending power through a close ratio 7 speed sequential gearbox to all four wheels, wrapped up in a svelte, low cg, low drag package. At a glance, the Huracán simply has no weakness, no area in which it compromises, and thus one can only hope for tyre wear or Balance of Performance to rein in the Huracán if they end up racing one in something else.

Good luck waiting on either of those though. While most AWD cars chew through their front tyres with the hunger of a malnourished, rabid dog, the prizefighter raging bull has a much more balanced appetite, having a 42:58 weight distribution and a colon tangling 30:70 torque split, both of which largely rear biased to ensure that the front tyres last the whole course. Of course, AWD cars have a strong appetite not just for tyres, but for fuel as well. To this end, the Huracán retains the use of a 7 speed gearbox like its road going counterpart, which is one more gear than the vast majority of its peers in Gr.4, making it one of the very few cars arbitrarily blessed with an almost literal leg up in a category consisting of 6 speed NSXes and Corvettes. Not that the NA V10 was picky with revs to begin with—it has enough torque to lug from mid range no problem—but the seven speed box just means that the Huracán can save fuel by short shifting without sacrificing nearly as much speed as its NA compatriots.

Okay, how about we try outrunning the conservative car for track position then? Well, if the track is wet, forget it—the Huracán is easily the fastest and easiest Gr.4 car to drive in the wet, combining AWD stability and a rear midship agility without the mass and understeer of the Veyron, and guess what? Those are the only two rear mid engined, all wheel drive cars in Gr.4. In the dry? The featherweight and responsive front end will trace a neat line to the apex of any corner like only a rear mid engined car can with barely a hint of understeer, the sort that you as a driver subconsciously compensate for without even realising it, which is to say that you'll only note the understeer when jumping into or from something truly sublime. As you might expect from a car with understeer, the rear end of the Huracán Gr.4 never threatens any shenanigans on corner entry or exits. Power delivery? Don't even have to think about it—just gun it out of the corner; the AWD will hook you up almost literally, and the V10 engine has enough low end torque to lug from the mid range. When to upshift? Just rev it out, it's a NA V10. Downforce? Not enough to change the way you drive even in the slipstream of others. Kerbs? Don't feel them. It's such a rock solid and consistent drive in any situation, I almost want to say it's brain dead easy.

So what is it, then? If it's not its lack of longevity, not its handling, then surely the weakness of a Huracán lies in how it's been balanced by Balance of Performance, right? It HAS to be massively slow in the straights to compensate for its brilliant handling and superb longevity à la the 86 and Cayman, right? Surely no car without a Ferrari badge can be so blatantly favoured in a sanctioned racing category, right? Well, what better way to find out than to bring said Ferrari? You know what they say: Ima beat a fothermucker with another fothermucker! Or something!

Similarly Italian with its naturally aspirated rear mid mounted engine hooked up to a 7 speed box, Ferrari's elegant and svelte 458 Gr.4 trades brashness and AWD for a more elegant design and the aforementioned truly sublime turn–in, but can the Ferrari sashay its red buttock ahead of the raging bull when the cheque-

Yeah I'm not even going to bother finishing that sentence. No way in HELL can the 458 compete with the Huracán. I just wish I knew that prior race day! The Ferrari has actually been bopped to compensate for its razor sharp handling and stellar longevity, resulting in it losing out on both power and mass to the Huracán with BoP applied, and not even by just a little bit, either! Yes, the 2 wheel drive car has less power and more mass than the AWD car when raced in the same category. Why? Hell if I know, ask PD! The result of all this shenanigans is that the 458 barely gains at all in the slipstream of the Huracán, and can't hold off the raging bulls' charges even in the corners despite having a sharper front end. It was such an abysmal matchup that I couldn't even beat Baron's beached Bolognese bull to the line at Big Willow coming out of the final turn on the last lap! The Huracán is so disgustingly quick, it makes a Ferrari of all things look ethical!

So... Huracán perfect car, then? Why did I say that the Huracán "was" an auto–win car? Well, the Huracán fell out of favour because the type of races we have in Sport Mode changed; wear rates were exaggerated and pit loss times were elongated, shifting the tides and funneling drivers into the most fuel and tyre efficient car, the Mégane Trophy. That, plus the fact that PD suddenly decided to comically boost the power and drop the mass of FF cars in Gr.4 to be completely untouchable in races that didn't have any wear enabled (i.e. Daily Race B). Due to these extreme circumstances, Gr.4 races began to revolve around one trick ponies that performed their one trick better than any other steed in the stable, and it was just a matter of selecting which one trick the race demanded. Due to the Huracán not being the best in any single area, it just feels lost and purposeless for the first time in its life, a sad reflection of its category more than an indication of the car's capabilities. Make no mistake though—as a complete package, I argue that there isn't a single car in Gr.4 that can even come close to fantasising about being as good as the Huracán, and if I could only drive one Gr.4 car for the rest of the game's life, I would pick it. If dynamic and unpredictable weather ever becomes more prominent in Gran Turismo 7's Sport Mode races, there may well be a resurgence in hurricane warnings around every track the Huracán finds itself at.