Watch the New Lexus GS F Tackle Road America Without Breaking a Sweat

By Jerry Perez - June 2, 2016

The 2016 Lexus GS F is, by all means, a back-road bruiser. Sure, it may not be as agile as a BMW M4, or as insanely powerful as a Mercedes C63, but this naturally aspirated Japanese muscle car has no trouble blasting down a race track.

What would you do if you were given the keys to a Matador Red 2016 Lexus GS F? You wouldn’t necessarily take it grocery shopping, would you? (Though with its huge trunk, you certainly could.) No, you’d take it to your local racetrack and find out what it’s all about. Well, that’s exactly what I did.

The 14-turn, 4-mile-long Road America race circuit in Wisconsin isn’t my local race track, but I was lucky enough to blast down its massive straights behind the wheel of a brand-spanking new GS F to find out what Lexus’s new hot rod is really capable of.

The GS F’s 5.0 liter V8 produces a total of 467 horses, all which insist on thrusting you faster and faster until you can hear the relatively large sedan punch a hole through the air at over 130 mph, which is the fastest I dared take it. It was at that point that I put the 6-piston Brembo brakes to the test, and I can now confirm they do a stellar job at slowing down all 4,034 pounds of the Lexus’s steel body.

While the $84,440 starting price is quite steep, I have to admit this is the best Lexus I’ve ever driven on a racetrack.