Hotel Du Castellet sits near the Mediterranean Sea, about an hour from Marseille in the south of France. It features indoor and outdoor swimming pools, two restaurants with fine French cuisine and an upscale spa. From the linens to the silverware to the ambience, it oozes luxury from every pore, fitting an almost caricature image of wealth, opulence and “old money,” like descendants of royalty old.

And I couldn’t care less because Hotel Du Castellet is also about a 47-second drive from Circuit Paul Ricard where a Mercedes AMG GT4 race car and crew awaited. This isn’t a track-capable road car but a fully homologated FIA GT4 spec race car replete with racing slick rubber, a carbon seat and a Darth Vader special TIE Fighter lookalike steering wheel. And I get to drive it.

The FIA’s GT4 is one level below the GT3 spec and quickly gaining in popularity. Like GT3, GT4 is based on a production car, homologated to a set spec and subject to Balance of Performance rules to keep the racing competitive. Mercedes built its race car from an AMG GT R, using the same aluminum spaceframe as the foundation and retaining the high-end road car’s kinematics or inherent suspension wheel travel. But from there, the two cars' paths diverge. AMG shucked away the interior, added a steel roll cage and a big bin’s worth of race car goodies.

Mercedes AMG GT4 Racecar Engine

Perhaps the coolest part is the pneumatically operated six-speed sequential manual transaxle. Mounted at the rear axle, as is the dual-clutch transmission in the road car, this gearbox has an honest-to-goodness clutch, clutch pedal and paddle shifters that operate in the same way as an F1 car. Each shift comes as good as instantly, and an immensely satisfying mechanical kachunking sound indicates you’ve selected another cog. Power comes from AMG’s workhorse 4.0-liter twin-turbocharged V8. Peak output: 503 hp and 443 lb-ft of torque.

Other more obvious swaps include a 31.7-gallon (120 liter) fuel cell, adjustable rear wing, front splitter, stiffer springs and fat 305-millimeter section-width racing slicks wrapped around 18-inch forged alloy wheels at all four corners. Holding up those fat tires up is a double-wishbone suspension and KW shock absorbers with adjustable compression and rebound. The bushings in the suspension arms and links are not rubber, but uni-ball, which is a combination of metal and plastic and much stiffer. That, among many other things, helps to speed up the car's response to inputs and increases feel at the wheel.

The least visible -- but perhaps most significant -- change, however, is the motorsports electronics. Everything from the powertrain control module to the antilock brakes uses bespoke software with the sole intention of race car use. This removes the chance of road-car electronics causing a lot of small problems. Death by 1,000 paper cuts, you could say -- conditions like the computer doesn’t understand why tire pressure is 10 psi too low and stability control isn’t engaging. This could result in irritating warnings on the instrument panel at a minimum or trigger a software-driven limp mode as a worst-case scenario.

Inside, AMG replaced the striped leather and luxuries with simple, straight plastics and a series of switches and dials. The seat is a design originally from the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters car and bolted to the frame. To fit drivers perfectly in the car, the pedal box is spring-loaded and moves fore and aft, the steering wheel tilts and telescopes, and final padding is customized to the driver. The safety cell, as it’s called, is carbon and per FIA regulations includes an integrated headrest and an extraction hatch in the roof. Other carbon parts include the front fenders and torque tube, which is the driveshaft tunnel. The hood and front bumper and splitter are made from lightweight plastics.

Sounds like I’ll be physically fine if I wreck this thing, but my ego is less protected and very fragile. I do not want to be the guy to spin, or bang up, a potentially hair-triggered race car. And, thanks to an overnight rain shower, the track has wet runoff areas. The racing line is dry, but putting a wheel wrong will send me to the slick stuff and increase the chances of bending metal.

I’ve never lapped (or even seen) Circuit Paul Ricard before today; it’s an upcoming F1 track (June 24, 2018) so its 3.6 miles are a bit daunting. Not least of which, the 1.2-mile (2-kilometer) straightaway, interrupted by a chicane, which means two chances to misjudge the braking zone after building speed for a kilometer. Of all the modifications, right now it’s the GT4’s massive steel brakes with two front air ducts per side (one for the rotor and one for the caliper) that make me the happiest.

To drive a GT4, you first need to get inside, which involves origami of the body. First lift your right leg in, then fold your back in two, squeeze your butt, then head in between the roll bar and side impact beam. Then, and only then, your left leg can bend in seven different directions and find its way to join the right in the pedal box. After I got in, chief babysitter and AMG driver Thomas Jager showed me how to remove the steering wheel for much easier ingress.

To start the GT4, first switch a series of toggles to the correct setting, then engage neutral, and finally, flick the ignition switch on the lower center console. The unmuffled V8 comes to life with a befitting roar, settling into a throaty rumble. The hair on your arm stands up. Excitement builds.

To get moving, you need to use the clutch. This is the only time you need the clutch. It’s on the floor, just like any road car, but unlike any other AMG GT. I thought that, this being a race car, first gear would be quite tall and the clutch quite quick to engage, just begging to spin the tires or stall. Not at all: Modulation was as easy as a Civic and getting moving required similar effort.

After exiting pit lane and merging onto Paul Ricard for the first time, my eyes filled with a stunning wave of winding pavement and a horizon of asphalt runoff painted in the French flag’s red, white, and blue. You sit low in race cars. My field of view was cut off by the bottom of the windshield, not the top. As I trundled around the course, heading toward hot lap No. 1, my brain scrambled to remember braking points; turn-in, apex and exit markers; and the “tricky” parts of the track to avoid getting silly. Mercedes granted me six laps at speed in this car. They were about to begin. And I couldn’t see.

Sitting buried down in a car brings truth. It feels purposeful, like you’re a part of the car’s low center of gravity -- you and it as one, attached and in the moment. But it’s also true that one can have too much of a good thing. Because when it was time to turn left what I saw was a GoPro camera, a roll bar and a sideview mirror, not any of the markers I sought. I strained to look above, below and around the obstacles to spot markers. Like any burden in life, you find a way to get used to it, but if you have the means to own this car, adjust the seat to a height that allows equal confidence in turning both left and right.

Aside from the obvious and largely self-inflicted caveat, Mercedes built a peach. The GT4 is as forgiving, comfortable, and adaptive as any trackworthy road car out there, if not more so -- no kidding, air conditioning is an option on the car. There are 13 different switches on the steering wheel (such as neutral select, pit speed limiter, water bottle dispenser) and many more controls around the center console. Two of them are dials to adjust the amount of slip allowed from the traction control and antilock brakes. You can adjust ABS lockup!

I never touched the ABS, but I did play with a few of the 11 levels of slip offered by the traction-control system. The first couple of laps, my paranoid right foot treated the throttle like thin ice over a frozen lake -- very carefully. But the GT4 proved forgiving and my foot wanted to play. The strictest settings of TC didn’t allow any rotation of the car exiting slow speed corners, but dialing it back a couple notches sorted that in an instant.

Traction wasn’t an issue on the long straight. The tires easily planted all 503 horses to the ground, making it easy to reach epic speeds on a brand-new track. Each new gear from the pneumatic transaxle brought a fresh and impressive burst of acceleration and a satisfying kachunk. Despite all the ducts, flaps, and wings increasing drag, the GT4 managed 150 mph with ease. Funny thing, you don’t feel the speed in the same way as on the road. When strapped tight into a racecar, you move with the car, not around in it, a little more like an airliner taking off than blitzing down the autobahn.

Either way, at those speeds, braking zones come in a hurry, and whatever the brakes are being paid, they deserve a raise. Stopping power is immense, modulation perfectly intuitive. Even pedal travel is similar to a well-sorted road car. “We put a lot of effort to keep brake travel a reasonable length,” Jager told me. The work paid off. My biggest fear going in was managing the brakes, yet it was the first thing I mastered.

Stopping and going, while important, is rarely the true differentiator of a race car; cornering capability is how to stand out. And, again, it definitely wasn’t what I expected. First of all, electromechanical power assist made the steering as light as an E-class, but turn-in response is an order of magnitude faster than the AMG GT R, and grip was mega. While aerodynamics does not play a huge role, with the slicks, suspension, and low center of gravity, you’re still cornering at one and half gs or thereabout.

With that kind of reaction time and grip, you’d expect a solid suspension that punished your back with every little bump in the road. Yet again, that wasn’t the case. Tires were set at a relatively low 29 psi in front, 28 in the back. More important, the suspension was purposely tuned for curb riding. Instead of kissing the curb's edge, the GT4 encourages you to run them over and make your path as straight as possible. You know, go fast.

Why be in a race car for any other reason? What Mercedes built is a durable, flexible machine with emphasis on longevity of parts and minimal updates to stay competitive. Jager estimates that BOP will probably put the GT4 at closer to 400 hp to start, not 500, meaning racers have plenty of room to add performance to the car without spending a dime. It’s also a totally manageable machine. I went into this scared of damaging the car, and I came away thinking I was way too easy on it.

Mercedes is all set to race the GT4 around the world and that includes the U.S. WinWard Racing out of Houston will compete in IMSA in the Mercedes AMG GT4 in 2018. And if you’re a car nerd of means, you too can hand over roughly 200,000 euros to buy one. After that, it’s a relative bargain.

Faster road cars exist. And a select few, the Porsche 911 GT2 RS for example, could even be quicker around a track. But nothing matches the visceral and emotional pull of a race car’s singularity in purpose. Mercedes instilled that in the GT4. The one and only task the car or driver cares about is going as fast as possible. If two paths diverge in the wood. Racing is the one less traveled by. And it makes all the difference.

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