Upgrading from MY20 4S to MY25 Turbo

[Boss Hogg]

Car looks great ??

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[kmcdonal]

I just picked up my 2025 Turbo today. I had a 2020 4S, but sold it 2 1/2 years ago when prices were high.

Overall the car feels very familiar. The PCM does seem way smoother than my 4s. I haven't driven it enough to validate the range. The power difference between the 4S and the Turbo is huge. You need to be REALLY careful with that power. I will post more thoughts as I have them, but overall I am just happy to be back in a Porsche. I have been driving a WRX. While the WRX is fun in some ways, I really missed the Taycan.

 

[Singularity]

Taking my MY25 Turbo to the track today! A car dealer is hosting a track day at Alastaro. It's my first time on the track with a car so probably not going to push it too much, but it'll be interesting!

 

[Singularity]

Quick track report!

It was quite an experience to go on track with my Taycan Turbo. For me it was the first time track driving a car, I've only driven karting cars and a formula once. There were a couple of interesting findings that might be of interest to others who want to try this. First I must note that everything I write is from a perspective of a track newbie, an experienced track driver might have a different experience and different opinions.

• At least the MY25 Turbo has plenty of battery capacity for track driving. I did a fast charge near the track and came in with approximately 90% charge. I left with something like 60%. Note that I only drove approximately 6 laps total (on a 4.5 km track) due to reasons I'll explain in a further point, but even if I had driven a lot more, I would still have had enough charge left to drive off to the fast charging station on my way back. This is not a big issue when tracking a Taycan (imo) as long as you can arrive there with a high charge level. Overheating wasn't an issue for me either, but as I didn't drive that much, it wasn't really put to the test.
  
  
• I did 4 laps on my first stint, very excited and driving as fast as I could. During the last lap the left side of the car actually went over the track curbs after the main straight (oops!). That didn't damage the car based on my assessment. It did inhale a lot of sand to the left side wheels and wheel wells but after some slow driving and manual clean up it was fine.
  
  
• But what I personally experienced after the 4 initial laps was bad nausea. The 10+ launches from a corner you do in one lap and I did 4 laps, I apparently couldn't handle it. I almost threw up multiple times during the track day after this initial nausea build up. I did a couple of short stints afterwards, having a 20min break each time, but the nausea never really disappeared. It took like 2 hours from the last lap to be feel completely normal. This issue is of course very individual but I especially recommend anyone with a Taycan of a sub 3 second 0-100 time to consider this possibility of nausea going on track. I haven't experienced this nausea from street driving and doing launches there, I have a fast street driving style but track driving is totally different and I apparently can't handle it that well.
  
  
• If you don't know whether you will get nausea or not, I recommend doing short stints. So instead of going 4 laps like I did, do 2 laps instead. Take it slow. If the nausea builds up fully as it did in my case, it doesn't go away during your time on the track. Next time if I do take my Taycan to the track again, I will drive very short stints, to avoid nausea build up.
  
  
• Couple of other points concerning Taycan's performance on track. As expected, it launches like a beast. On a straight and when exiting corners, it is very fast. But entering and going through corners is difficult. The car is heavy and I think the tires I have (Pirelli Cinturato P7) are definitely not the best tires. I felt the brakes on the car were great, that is not the issue. The issue was that I didn't have traction.
  
  
• I did lower tire pressures as instructed by the professionals holding the track day event. I may have not "warmed up" the tires in the right way, resulting in much poorer traction than I could have had. But I still think the Pirelli P7 tires might be the main issue. As a track newbie I'm not sure, but this is what I suspect. The braking power at least felt really good so that I'm confident about in the Taycan.
  
  
• Next year I will be receiving my Artura Spider which is probably more suited for tracking and perhaps will also cause less nausea as it's slower to launch. Not sure if I will track my Taycan again. But it was a unique experience which I do recommend people to try. It would have been very fun if I hadn't gotten the bad nausea, as it was now it was a mixed experience.

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