Mass centralisation: Handling the Porsche Cayman

MALMO — Sturup Raceway in Sweden is as tight as they come — think of a pretzel folded in half and you would be quite close to visualising the track’s layout, since it has almost no straights of any great length. Exciting elevation changes give it an almost roller-coaster-like nature.

There is no doubt it was chosen to demonstrate the 718 Cayman’s mid-engined prowess. The original model 718 was the successor to the Porsche 550 which snared James Dean under its spell, and both machines had similar mid-engined configurations.

The engine is usually the single heaviest part of a car. So when it is located either at the front or rear of a car, it has to deal with more unevenly distributed centrifugal forces than one with its engine located in the middle.

On track, the Cayman is extremely well-behaved, the vast forces generated by going fast are more evenly distributed, which contributes to driver confidence. Sturup has demanding sections like blind dips as well as long and tight bends with bumps in the middle, and is not an easy track to learn quickly.

Moving from the road to the track, the Cayman responds in almost the same way, unlike many cars which behave very differently when pushed to the limit. The chassis simply smoothes out the worst of it, while the turbo engine in the regular, non-S model is just powerful enough to keep mistakes caused by over-driving small.

The fact that it has no trouble keeping up with another Cayman S, or even an all-wheel drive 911 Carrera 4S shows the standard Cayman’s potential as a giant-slayer — as long as there are no long straights involved.