Caterham Seven 420R Donington Edition 2017 first drive

"We wanted to bring the 420R racing car experience to trackday drivers in a road-legal model," says Stuart Foulds, the BookaTrack Caterham workshop manager who developed the car and will personally build all 10 examples. "We set out to make an accessible but fast trackday car. It’s almost as quick as the racing car, but it’s fairly easy to drive and it isn’t on a knife-edge. It doesn’t have any weather protection so I don’t envisage them being used on the road much, but it is actually pretty good to drive on the road. I hope in 20 or 30 years, it’ll be a sought-after model."

The Donington Edition is Foulds’ idea of the perfect trackday Seven. It therefore cherry-picks the most track-appropriate components from the Caterham range; the 620R nose cone with its bigger oil cooler; the ultra-sticky Avon ZZR tyres; a plumbed-in fire extinguisher; and a limited slip differential. It also borrows the 620R’s carbonfibre dashboard and each car will carry a plaque with the name of one of Donington Park’s corners inscribed on it. The car is also available with the longer, wider SV chassis.

As you lower yourself down into the cabin through the intricate cat’s cradle roll cage, you’d swear you were getting into the competition car. Once in, though, you quickly notice the differences. Whereas the racing car uses sections of foam that are moulded for each individual driver, the Donington Edition favours conventional seats. And whereas the racing car features fiddly six-point harnesses, this car uses a simpler four-point system. The dashboard is also peppered with buttons for headlights and heaters that you don’t get on the competition car. 

You forget all of those minor differences within two sharp tugs of the sequential gearlever, though. The Donington Edition captures all of the focus and intensity of the competition car and you soon find yourself getting faster and braver with every lap, just as you do in the racing car. You know when you’re getting on top of a track-focused Caterham when you start taking corners a gear higher. You soon realise that bends you had approached in third were better taken in fourth; you carry more speed in, keeping the car up on its toes through the corner rather than overkilling it and letting it sit down, which means you’re travelling way faster come the exit too. That’s when lap times start to drop.

Track driving can sometimes feel like you’re merely pointing a car from braking point to apex, and then to some point out on the exit in a disjointed, inelegant two-step. But when you feel the car flowing through corners, when you link one bend with the next in a smooth and graceful dance, you realise what it’s all about. Once you start getting on top of it, the Donington Edition flows beautifully.  

It isn’t particularly physical to drive, but it does demand all of your attention. There’s enough roll and lean built into the chassis that you can feel it working beneath you, just like the competition car, but whereas the racer can be quite snappy at the limit, the Donington Edition is altogether friendlier and more approachable. When it starts to slide, it does so progressively and it can be held in a drift, rather than spinning suddenly or violently snapping straight again.