Caterham Seven 310R
Our lightweight has had its first trackday outing – and ended the session eager for more
WHILE THE AUDI RS3 WAS A LITTLE out of its depth at the first evo track evening of 2018 (see right), the Caterham was in its element. In the month or so it’s been with us the Seven has already proved itself to be a riot on the road, but get it on a circuit and it truly shines. There really are few other cars that deliver such intense and seemingly never-ending driver involvement. However, before I could pop on a crash helmet and scream onto the Bedford Autodrome’s South West Circuit there were a few pre-flight checks that needed to be done.
With modern motors you rarely lift the bonnet, instead shamefully relying on the ever-increasing array of dashboard warnings to tell you if there’s an issue – which there rarely is, so precise are build tolerances now. Leaking engine oil or escaping coolant is virtually unheard of these days. This vastly improved reliability is as true for a Caterham as for any other car, but such is my affection for the Seven that I wanted to make doubly sure that it was in tip-top health.
It’s always a joy unlatching a Caterham’s feather-light aluminium bonnet because it lifts away to reveal an actual engine and its ancillaries – no sculpted plastic cover, just proper oily bits. Checking the levels revealed everything was in order, which was a good thing because topping up the coolant requires the removal of the car’s nose cone. However, this is the only inaccessible part of an otherwise neatly laid-out engine bay.
Tinkering over, it was time for the track. How was it? In short, bloody marvellous. No matter how many times I sling a Seven around a circuit, I always return to the pits grinning like a Cheshire cat that’s just downed a saucer of pharmaceutically enhanced cream. Some others on the evo team who tried the Seven that evening wished for a little more power on this circuit configuration (although you could still just nick the rev limiter in sixth down the long, long back straight), but for me the sweetspinning 152bhp 1.6-litre was just perfect, with enough torque to make things interesting, but not so much that you were constantly having to be wary with your right foot.
Anyway, it’s all about the corners in a Caterham, and in this regard I reckon our 310R is one of the best I’ve ever driven. Yes, you can carry incredible speed into, through and out of any bend, easily helping offset any time you’ve lost down the straights, but it’s the car’s ability to be driven easily up to and over the limit that
‘It’s all about the corners in a Seven, and our 310R is one of the best’
really makes it such a thrilling device. It eggs you on, willing you to push harder and explore both its performance envelope and your own. You can experiment with your lines, braking points and corner entry speeds, confident that the car’s combination of minimal mass, quick steering, perfect balance and almost synaptic link with the driver will have you pointing in the right direction come the exit.
Yet the true brilliance of the Seven only really hit home at the end of the day. While other attendees were nursing cooked brakes and contemplating tyres that looked very second-hand, the flyweight Caterham looked and felt as if it would happily do the next four
evo track evenings there and then. Brilliant!
Date acquired March 2018 Total mileage 3543 Mileage this month 231 Costs this month £0 mpg this month 33.6