burrellbloke
Paid Member
We took the Clio to Zandvoort for the Open Track Zandvoort double header on Saturday 28th February and Sunday 1st March 2026. It was a great weekend at a track that is just wild in terms of camber and layout.
In the weeks running up to our visit to the Netherlands the car had slowly been put back together and prepped for a long drive and two track days back to back. When the alignment was looked at a few weeks ago it had been pointed out that the aux belt looked slightly damaged. Ethan remedied that within 24 hours.
We packed up the car on Thursday and travelled over to Zandvoort on the Euro Tunnel early on Friday morning. This was the first long journey that we had done in the Clio with a stripped out interior other than completing a few short journeys and me taking the Clio to Donington Park and back. The journey was okay but I spent all of it wearing ear plugs and Ethan spent all of it wearing noise cancelling AirPods. There was not much conversation going on during the long motorway stints.
Neither of us had been to Zandvoort before. I had unintentionally booked a hotel that was directly opposite the track which was very convenient. As we arrived on Friday afternoon we walked over to the circuit as we could see that there were cars on track. It looked like there was a test day running for some GT3 or GT4 cars. The weather at this stage was wet with light but constant drizzle.
I had been looking at the weather forecasts in the week before the trip and they had suggested that we would get rain over the weekend. On Friday the forecast suggested that there would be rain on both days, but a few hours of dry weather in between. On Saturday morning I opened the curtains at the hotel to see that the weather was looking a bit grim as it was damp outside and there were dark clouds in the sky.
We usually book a garage for a track day but the garages were about £500 per day at Zandvoort so I did not bother. Helpfully I knew someone who had booked a garage and they were happy for us to store out spare wheels and tools in their garage. Later on the second day we sneaked in to an unused garage.
When we got to the track I realised that bringing a Clio 200 to a European track day was a bit like bringing a knife to a gun fight. The range of cars that were on the track day included a few Clio 182s and another Clio 200 on the Saturday. There were about 4 or 5 Porsche GT3 RSs, lots of other Porsche variants, many BMW M cars including a large amount of OG M2s. Virtually every other car at the track day would have been faster and more capable than the Clio 200.
Zanvoort is a very different circuit to the other tracks that I have been to. It doesn’t feature on mainstream console racing games so to prepare for the track day I watched a few videos on YouTube - there weren’t many that involved Clios and most of them were Clio Cup cars crashing. One track day video showed a Clio 197 doing a last time of 2m 10s so I set that target in my head as the time to equal or beat. It is really difficult to describe the amount of camber that Zandvoort has on certain corners. If you have ever been to the Nurburgring you will know that the Carousel is pretty wild when you drop in to the cambered section and then jump out of it. Shell Oils corner at Oulton has a lot of camber. Zandvoort has large amounts of camber on lots of the corners. The first corner Tarzanbocht is cambered which then takes you in to another set of corners when you reach Hugenholtzbocht which is a 180 degree corner on what feels like 45 degrees of camber. Later in the course when you go through the Audi S Bocht and Hunterud it is another 180 degree corner with excessive amounts of camber. On the last corner Arie Luvenoukbocht you build up speed on the banked corner to then speed down the straight to the start finish line. Videos of the circuit do not give you a real feel for how dramatic the camber changes really are. If you watch videos of cars going round Paddock Hill bend at Brands Hatch or cars going round the Nurburgring they never really capture the elevation changes.
We did the sighting laps and kept the road wheels on that have a combination of PS5 tyres at the front and PS4 tyres at the back. When we finished the two sighting laps I genuinely thought that me driving on Zandvoort in the rain was going to end up in disaster. Despite watching a few videos I did not know the full track layout, there was going to be no grip due to the weather, our car is set up with about 4 degrees of negative camber so is not suited to wet conditions, and the biggest disaster factor that that it was me driving.
I made Ethan drive the first two sessions. Although the day had started wet by mid morning the conditions were getting better as the track was drying out a little and the rain was holding off. I then plucked up the courage to take the Clio out. I had seen Ethan struggle for grip on certain parts of the circuit so I drove even more carefully. Although I survived the first session my driving was erratic as I was trying not to hold up traffic and my lack of confidence showed as I was trying to keep out of the way of others but slowing down at inappropriate points. With a combination of rain and red flags we did 3 sessions in the morning and had an early lunch.
Red flags were a regular feature at Zandvoort, maybe not as bad as they are at Donington Park but there was a fairly constant stream. Zandvoort seems to operate a different policy to UK circuits that if you break down they give you the chance to recover your vehicle before they get out their recovery truck. On both days I saw a pick up truck that towed a few vehicles off track. I did not see any flat bed recovery trucks operated by the circuit. There was one break down when a Clio 182’s gearbox failed. The pick up truck had tried to tow the car off track but the tow strap snapped twice. Eventually the driver drove is own flatbed recovery truck on the track and winched his Clio on to the back of it before driving it off of the circuit.
Over lunch on the first day it tipped it down with rain and reset the track conditions to how they had been at the start of the day. We completed another 3 sessions on track but by 4.30pm decided to finish. The weather had not been good enough to get out the semi slicks and even a few people that I spoke to who gone out on semi slicks changed back to road tyres for more grip. We knew that we had a second day on track and when we looked at the weather forecast for Sunday at 5pm on Saturday evening it looked like we would have dry morning with rain by Sunday lunchtime. My driving had improved by the end of the day but I was left unsatisfied as my best lap time was 2m 26 in the wet which was way of my 2m 10s target. Also, I felt like the Clio had a lot more to offer if we could get some dry track time.
After a good meal and a good sleep we got up on Sunday morning to see the sun and what looked like dry conditions. There was still some moisture on the ground but lots of cars lapping would be enough to dry the track out. After our very short journey to the track we swapped the road wheels for the track wheels which had a set of Direzzas on that had only done about 25 easy laps at Donington Park with a dodgy gearbox meaning they were brand new other than being scrubbed in. The Gaz Golds were stiffened up slightly and tyre pressures were set. We were going to make the most of the weather.
Ethan did the first session on the second day. He set a reference lap of 2m 17s. It was obvious that the Clio had so much more grip with drier weather and semi slicks. The Clio’s negative camber was working. I did the second session and for once managed to beat Ethan’s time by a few hundredths. By the third session Ethan was flying with a 2m 07s lap time. I did the last session before lunch and managed to get closer to my arbitrary target time with a 2m 11s lap time. I came in from this session feeling that I was taking the right lines in every corner and I could see where I could improve - mainly braking less to carry more speed.
Although the weather forecast suggested that we would get rain around 12pm it held off until 4pm.
Ethan did his fastest session after lunch with a 2m 05s lap time. His afternoon sessions were good as he was clearly pushing more capable cars around the track who then conceded that they were not as fast in the corners even if they should be faster in a straight line.
My best session was also in the afternoon when I reached my target lap time of 2m 10s. At this point I felt like I had “completed” Zandvoort. It was my best driving of the weekend.
Ethan did his last session about 3pm and I went out again just before 4pm. After doing about 2 laps there was some light rain and I decided that I was ready to finish for the day. The car was still in one piece, I had enjoyed my time on track, and I was going to tempt fate by pushing the car in weather conditions that meant less grip. After coming in to the paddock the rain cleared up but I had still had enough.
The Clio has survived back to back track days, and the gearbox has worked. They say that patience is a virtue and being patient with the gearbox is probably the way forward. Rather than trying to rush gear changes we both accept that the Clio will change gear when it is ready. Everything on the car seems to be okay. The arch liners in the front are starting to lose bigger and bigger chunks after each track day. The tyres still have a lot of life left in them.
If you have the chance to do a track day at Zandvoort then do it. It is an amazing track and I may well go back there in the future.
In the weeks running up to our visit to the Netherlands the car had slowly been put back together and prepped for a long drive and two track days back to back. When the alignment was looked at a few weeks ago it had been pointed out that the aux belt looked slightly damaged. Ethan remedied that within 24 hours.
We packed up the car on Thursday and travelled over to Zandvoort on the Euro Tunnel early on Friday morning. This was the first long journey that we had done in the Clio with a stripped out interior other than completing a few short journeys and me taking the Clio to Donington Park and back. The journey was okay but I spent all of it wearing ear plugs and Ethan spent all of it wearing noise cancelling AirPods. There was not much conversation going on during the long motorway stints.
Neither of us had been to Zandvoort before. I had unintentionally booked a hotel that was directly opposite the track which was very convenient. As we arrived on Friday afternoon we walked over to the circuit as we could see that there were cars on track. It looked like there was a test day running for some GT3 or GT4 cars. The weather at this stage was wet with light but constant drizzle.
I had been looking at the weather forecasts in the week before the trip and they had suggested that we would get rain over the weekend. On Friday the forecast suggested that there would be rain on both days, but a few hours of dry weather in between. On Saturday morning I opened the curtains at the hotel to see that the weather was looking a bit grim as it was damp outside and there were dark clouds in the sky.
We usually book a garage for a track day but the garages were about £500 per day at Zandvoort so I did not bother. Helpfully I knew someone who had booked a garage and they were happy for us to store out spare wheels and tools in their garage. Later on the second day we sneaked in to an unused garage.
When we got to the track I realised that bringing a Clio 200 to a European track day was a bit like bringing a knife to a gun fight. The range of cars that were on the track day included a few Clio 182s and another Clio 200 on the Saturday. There were about 4 or 5 Porsche GT3 RSs, lots of other Porsche variants, many BMW M cars including a large amount of OG M2s. Virtually every other car at the track day would have been faster and more capable than the Clio 200.
Zanvoort is a very different circuit to the other tracks that I have been to. It doesn’t feature on mainstream console racing games so to prepare for the track day I watched a few videos on YouTube - there weren’t many that involved Clios and most of them were Clio Cup cars crashing. One track day video showed a Clio 197 doing a last time of 2m 10s so I set that target in my head as the time to equal or beat. It is really difficult to describe the amount of camber that Zandvoort has on certain corners. If you have ever been to the Nurburgring you will know that the Carousel is pretty wild when you drop in to the cambered section and then jump out of it. Shell Oils corner at Oulton has a lot of camber. Zandvoort has large amounts of camber on lots of the corners. The first corner Tarzanbocht is cambered which then takes you in to another set of corners when you reach Hugenholtzbocht which is a 180 degree corner on what feels like 45 degrees of camber. Later in the course when you go through the Audi S Bocht and Hunterud it is another 180 degree corner with excessive amounts of camber. On the last corner Arie Luvenoukbocht you build up speed on the banked corner to then speed down the straight to the start finish line. Videos of the circuit do not give you a real feel for how dramatic the camber changes really are. If you watch videos of cars going round Paddock Hill bend at Brands Hatch or cars going round the Nurburgring they never really capture the elevation changes.
We did the sighting laps and kept the road wheels on that have a combination of PS5 tyres at the front and PS4 tyres at the back. When we finished the two sighting laps I genuinely thought that me driving on Zandvoort in the rain was going to end up in disaster. Despite watching a few videos I did not know the full track layout, there was going to be no grip due to the weather, our car is set up with about 4 degrees of negative camber so is not suited to wet conditions, and the biggest disaster factor that that it was me driving.
I made Ethan drive the first two sessions. Although the day had started wet by mid morning the conditions were getting better as the track was drying out a little and the rain was holding off. I then plucked up the courage to take the Clio out. I had seen Ethan struggle for grip on certain parts of the circuit so I drove even more carefully. Although I survived the first session my driving was erratic as I was trying not to hold up traffic and my lack of confidence showed as I was trying to keep out of the way of others but slowing down at inappropriate points. With a combination of rain and red flags we did 3 sessions in the morning and had an early lunch.
Red flags were a regular feature at Zandvoort, maybe not as bad as they are at Donington Park but there was a fairly constant stream. Zandvoort seems to operate a different policy to UK circuits that if you break down they give you the chance to recover your vehicle before they get out their recovery truck. On both days I saw a pick up truck that towed a few vehicles off track. I did not see any flat bed recovery trucks operated by the circuit. There was one break down when a Clio 182’s gearbox failed. The pick up truck had tried to tow the car off track but the tow strap snapped twice. Eventually the driver drove is own flatbed recovery truck on the track and winched his Clio on to the back of it before driving it off of the circuit.
Over lunch on the first day it tipped it down with rain and reset the track conditions to how they had been at the start of the day. We completed another 3 sessions on track but by 4.30pm decided to finish. The weather had not been good enough to get out the semi slicks and even a few people that I spoke to who gone out on semi slicks changed back to road tyres for more grip. We knew that we had a second day on track and when we looked at the weather forecast for Sunday at 5pm on Saturday evening it looked like we would have dry morning with rain by Sunday lunchtime. My driving had improved by the end of the day but I was left unsatisfied as my best lap time was 2m 26 in the wet which was way of my 2m 10s target. Also, I felt like the Clio had a lot more to offer if we could get some dry track time.
After a good meal and a good sleep we got up on Sunday morning to see the sun and what looked like dry conditions. There was still some moisture on the ground but lots of cars lapping would be enough to dry the track out. After our very short journey to the track we swapped the road wheels for the track wheels which had a set of Direzzas on that had only done about 25 easy laps at Donington Park with a dodgy gearbox meaning they were brand new other than being scrubbed in. The Gaz Golds were stiffened up slightly and tyre pressures were set. We were going to make the most of the weather.
Ethan did the first session on the second day. He set a reference lap of 2m 17s. It was obvious that the Clio had so much more grip with drier weather and semi slicks. The Clio’s negative camber was working. I did the second session and for once managed to beat Ethan’s time by a few hundredths. By the third session Ethan was flying with a 2m 07s lap time. I did the last session before lunch and managed to get closer to my arbitrary target time with a 2m 11s lap time. I came in from this session feeling that I was taking the right lines in every corner and I could see where I could improve - mainly braking less to carry more speed.
Although the weather forecast suggested that we would get rain around 12pm it held off until 4pm.
Ethan did his fastest session after lunch with a 2m 05s lap time. His afternoon sessions were good as he was clearly pushing more capable cars around the track who then conceded that they were not as fast in the corners even if they should be faster in a straight line.
My best session was also in the afternoon when I reached my target lap time of 2m 10s. At this point I felt like I had “completed” Zandvoort. It was my best driving of the weekend.
Ethan did his last session about 3pm and I went out again just before 4pm. After doing about 2 laps there was some light rain and I decided that I was ready to finish for the day. The car was still in one piece, I had enjoyed my time on track, and I was going to tempt fate by pushing the car in weather conditions that meant less grip. After coming in to the paddock the rain cleared up but I had still had enough.
The Clio has survived back to back track days, and the gearbox has worked. They say that patience is a virtue and being patient with the gearbox is probably the way forward. Rather than trying to rush gear changes we both accept that the Clio will change gear when it is ready. Everything on the car seems to be okay. The arch liners in the front are starting to lose bigger and bigger chunks after each track day. The tyres still have a lot of life left in them.
If you have the chance to do a track day at Zandvoort then do it. It is an amazing track and I may well go back there in the future.
