Taming a herd of raging bulls on ice is one of the most challenging and rewarding driving experiences for any avid petrolhead.
Yakeshi, Inner Mongolia - The tranquil calm of the pristine, powder-coated landscape within the winter testing grounds in Inner Mongolia’s Yakeshi is shattered by the strident staccato-beat of a naturally-aspirated V10 engine bouncing off its stratospheric redline.
The culprit? A Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato gracefully slithering sideways through the frozen lake circuit in a shakedown before our Esperienza Neve ‘ice-travaganza’ with Lamborghini commences.
With this recent Esperienza Neve, Lamborghini has ignited its inaugural, annual snow/ice-driving programme in China’s Inner Mongolia Winter Wonderland, where the slideways driving is so frosty, it’s practically searing.
See also: Celebrating 10 years of the Lamborghini Huracan
Compared to the European winter driving playgrounds (Livigno in Italy or Arjeplog in Sweden), Inner Mongolia is a relatively short hop-skip-jump for Lamborghini owners and prospects in Asia-Pacific to travel to, especially those who aren’t looking to take too long a trip away.
For instance, it was a quick weekend trip for those of us from Singapore, although one could also take an extra few days in Beijing if desired.
See also: Driving the Lamborghini Revuelto for our "Year in Cars : 2024"
In this writer’s time in the industry, we’ve participated in countless drive experiences that span race-track, off-road – both activities are also offered by Lamborghini – as well as snow-ice, all of which help fine-tune seat-of-pants sensitivity and develop very specific skill-sets.
Most importantly, it instills one with the confidence to go faster safely, especially when you're slip-sliding around.
It’s easy enough to get addicted to the high-gs, high-grip thrills served up by track driving, but believe it or not, we’ve learned the most about the finer art of car control and weight transfers from snow/ice-driving stints.
Naturally, the pedants will question the need for developing such skills if you’re mostly in sunny Singapore. (Photo above by Dr. Andre Lam)
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However, the point is to develop the muscle memory for when the car loses grip, and this can occur when you drive over oil, gravel or wet surfaces – it’s just expected on snow/ice!
Moreover, we’ve found snow/ice-driving teaches us to be more deliberate, more controlled and more introspective in interpreting chassis movements, before executing a course of action that punches you out of a corner (or trouble, if you prefer).
Restraint in a super-sportscar? You better believe it!
But back to Lamborghini’s Esperienza Neve and the Skittles-like array of rainbow-hued Lamborghinis arrayed in front of the hospitality lounge (pictured above).
All the core Lamborghini food groups are present and accounted for: Urus S, Urus Performante, Huracan Tecnica, Huracan Sterrato and the hybrid-V12 technological tour de force, the 1000+hp Revuelto.
This means we’ll have to wrangle both all- and rear-wheel-drive performance machines of the V8, V10 and V12 varieties into submission… and you can take that to the bank! And we don’t mean the snow-bank of course, because that’s where you could find yourself beached if your driving abilities are more exuberant than expert.
Even then, it’s all part and parcel of the learning experience, and with tow vehicles on standby throughout the various exercise stations, being pulled-out is a matter of when, not if.
We’ve been scheduled to talk to Mr. Francesco Scardaoni, Automobili Lamborghini Regional Director for Asia Pacific (pictured above).
However, given the -20ºC ground temperature, we reckoned we’d do some warming-up by sliding into the hot-seats of some of the cars and sliding them through the specially-cut ice-tracks before putting him in the hot-seat.
Before we’re let loose on the larger, complex circuits though, we’re to practice on shorter, individual stations – such as a figure-of-eight course and maintaining a 360º drift through an oversized circle. (pictured above: The night drive section adds another dimension of compexity!)
This is to get us used to a car’s loss of grip and makes our reflexes limber enough to string everything together when we hit the big-boy-tracks.
Between 4WD, 2WD and the different dynamics of the four model types, there’s loads to learn. Most importantly, one learns to apply throttle and steering with finesse and precision, because having a nuanced touch and patience are the keys to brisk progress. (photo above by Dr. Andre Lam)
It is proper Yin-Yang stuff, where you balance the urge to go-hard, while scrabbling for grip on the soft slushy stuff.
You really need to “unlearn what you have learned” from conventional grip driving and learn to "let it go", because the car is constantly dancing with you on ice/snow and the key to speed is keeping it always on the move, keeping steering flickering and footwork fancy as you search for grip through the car’s contact patch with the ground.
Knowing when to hold back and when to throttle-on turns you into a thinking driver, where you hone your spidey-senses to anticipate how the car will behave and when there’s enough grip for you to go-deep with the throttle. (pictured above: Huracan Tecnica stances in the foreground while the Sterrato dances on ice)
Ham-fistedness and rough movements are amplified on snow/ice, which translate to instant loss of momentum, or in the worst case, waywardness.
To progress swiftly and smoothly, one needs to look far ahead to properly set the car up for what’s coming, as well as to find the order in the chaos – where you learn to make sense of the car’s squirrely skittishness.
Scardaoni (pictured above) tells us, “The reaction of a car at low speed on ice is what the car does at higher speeds on the street, so basically, customers are able to build up this confidence by learning to control the car in a safe environment. Also, because there's not so much grip here, you really need to learn how to control the car and understand its behaviour.”
The quirky “go-everywhere” Sterrato variant of the Lamborghini Huracan proved to be phenomenal on ice. Once you came to grips (no pun intended) with the Sterrato’s stupendous abilities on low-friction surfaces, it was almost unnatural how naturally it took to the no-grip environment!
The Sterrato is powered by the Huracan’s familiar charismatic, naturally-aspirated 5.2-litre V10, but sits 44mm higher than the standard coupe for better ground clearance. It has all the requisite body armour to protect its tenders when you’re tackling mud paths and icy trails on your adventures away from the beaten path.
This includes a Sterrato-specific ‘Rally’ mode, which was deployed to devastating effect on the ice/snow.
Its ability to carve a path through the slush is awe-inspiring, as newfound confidence in both the Sterrato’s and your own abilities lets you push harder and faster through the terrain, with your ministrations orchestrating an intricate dance as it pivots and pirouettes through complex corners.
And then there’s the Revuelto (pictured above).
Truth be told, the prospect of wielding such an elemental force of nature on snow/ice terrified us at the start, but the beast proved to be the most rewarding to drive when you “get everything right”!
Coming from the scintillating Sterrato, the Revuelto almost feels unwieldy and as ponderous as a sledgehammer, but then you start to get into its groove and you peel away the many layers to discover this fearsome beast likes to frolic in the snow!
We couldn’t indulge in the same sort of liberties with the Revuelto as we did with the Sterrato.
Balancing it on the knife’s edge of adhesion with the near-instant surge of torque is a delicate job, because it’s neither quite 2WD nor 4WD, but a striking hybrid of both and with a huge hammer of power that is just waiting to fall.
If anything, it required even more judicious use of the throttle. However, when you start to vibe with it, you realise the key to taming this beast is confidence with one’s inputs, and it’s hard to think of safer conditions than this where you’ll be able to push it beyond its handling limits.
“Such activities are important for existing customers, as well as potential customers, because they can experience our products in conditions that are far from the ordinary, such as driving on ice in Yakeshi for instance (or on a race-track). It helps drivers to level-up and build confidence in our super-sportcars,” Scardaoni smiles.
