The S5 Quattro was shod with special Swedish Lappi metal-studded winter tyres. Our instructor for the two days was Uwe Fricker, who has been an instructor with Audi Driving Experience for no less than the past 31 years. One of the biggest differences in respect of this ice drive — apart, of course, from driving in Arejplog this time — was that we were in Lapland and, for the first time, I was driving a sedan and not an Avant, as I had done on the previous two occasions.
The first instruction from Uwe was that before one got into the car, one had to remember that this was a four-wheel-drive car and, therefore, the driving technique was completely different from a rear-wheel-drive car. In the latter you can turn the steering slightly and feed the power and the tail will hang out; but in the Quattro you have to use the dynamic weight transfer to do this.
In order to achieve the dynamic weight transfer, you have to brake and, as you brake, the front wheels get loaded with the weight of the car and get more bite and traction and the nose of the car turns in. At the same time, the rear wheels get light on account of the dynamic weight transfer, and you can hang the tail out and gently feed the power, with the car going sideways in a controlled manner with a little bit of opposite steering input. The one thing that Uwe kept insisting on was very little steering input and control of the car mostly with power and brakes. Once the steering is at full lock, there is no coming back. Another point that Uwe made was that one must use the full width of the track, which means using the racing line.
