When the invitation came to go along to Silverstone to try the Audi Driving Experience, I staked my claim as the custodian of our long-term S4. And when several other voices in the office piped-up and said they'd like to spend the day thrashing around track in some high performance Audis, I used the photographer's ultimate deterrent: I threatened to use a wide angle lens for all their portraits from then on. It's a threat that always seems to work, which is how I found myself at a wet and windy Silverstone.

The weather is never kind to me when I visit the Northamptonshire circuit, but being fed and watered in the Audi hospitality tent soon lifted my mood, even though I was going to have to sit through the dreaded technical briefing. When all you want to do is head out on track to annihilate the lap record, these briefings can be a bore, but this one turned out to be very informative. We were told about correct seating positions, the physics that apply to braking, understeer and oversteer, and generally what makes a car throw itself off the road. Once this was over, it was time to forget everything we had just been told, as you do, and jump into the cars.

Being allowed to throw TT V6s, S4s and RS6s in and out of cones with the knowledge that there is nothing to hit allows you to focus on what the car is doing. With the instructors urging you to go faster and faster with ESP both on and off, you soon begin to find the limit of grip.

And as you start to understand what the car is doing, you are able, with a little guidance, to learn how to counter the sort of skids that on the road could put you into the ditch. We tried a slalom, we tried forced understeering around a bend, and we learned the correct line through a sequence of corners, then it was time for a breather. Over lunch, even hardened road-testers admitted that they were finding the course useful.

Lunch over, and with the weather picking up it was back to the track. There is something very pleasing about being told to drive the RS6 as hard as you like, and we put the cars through tortuous lane changing, braking and avoidance manoeuvres. Then it was time for the real fun: chasing an instructor around the circuit in S4s. Putting into practice all the techniques learned during the day, it was obvious how much better and more confident we had become. The day finished with the instructors driving us around the course in RS6s. With someone like Freddy Kottulinsky (ex-Audi rally driver) you know its going to be special. He didn't disappoint, and neither did the RS6.

You can attend the Audi Driving Experience even if you don't own an Audi (visit www.audi.co.uk for more info). So if you've ever wanted to see why we rave about the RS6 and the S4, here's your chance.