Tennis superstar and fast-car lover Maria Sharapova joined GQ to serve up real pace with the German giant's new compact racer, the Cayman GT4.
Eleven years after her precocious victory at Wimbledon, Sharapova is the world's highest-paid female athlete - though she claims not to know exactly how much that amounts to each year - with a string of blue-chip sponsorship deals and endorsements to her name. Her personal brand and, let's not be coy, Amazonian beauty might be potent enough to land her regular appearances on the US TV chat-show circuit but, even at the venerable age of 28, five-time Grand Slam champion Sharapova still has a formidable presence on the tennis tour, too. She heads into this month's Wimbledon ranked third in the world, trailing her fourth Australian Open final appearance.
I forget to ask her if she's heard of Andreas Preuninger, who runs Porsche's GT division and is therefore a deity in the world of fast cars. Think McEnroe or Borg, with engines rather than a tennis racket. Anyway, the rumour alone of a Preuninger-fettled Cayman was enough to turn the car into a sellout among Porsche's fanatical fanbase. The smaller of the company's coupés, the Cayman has long suffered from something of an identity crisis, unsurprising given its overachieving family background; the rear-engined 911 in particular is deemed pretty much the archetypal sports car.
Eleven years after her precocious victory at Wimbledon, Sharapova is the world's highest-paid female athlete - though she claims not to know exactly how much that amounts to each year - with a string of blue-chip sponsorship deals and endorsements to her name. Her personal brand and, let's not be coy, Amazonian beauty might be potent enough to land her regular appearances on the US TV chat-show circuit but, even at the venerable age of 28, five-time Grand Slam champion Sharapova still has a formidable presence on the tennis tour, too. She heads into this month's Wimbledon ranked third in the world, trailing her fourth Australian Open final appearance.
I forget to ask her if she's heard of Andreas Preuninger, who runs Porsche's GT division and is therefore a deity in the world of fast cars. Think McEnroe or Borg, with engines rather than a tennis racket. Anyway, the rumour alone of a Preuninger-fettled Cayman was enough to turn the car into a sellout among Porsche's fanatical fanbase. The smaller of the company's coupés, the Cayman has long suffered from something of an identity crisis, unsurprising given its overachieving family background; the rear-engined 911 in particular is deemed pretty much the archetypal sports car.
Although the GT4 doesn't get any purebred competition upgrades, it uses the 3.8-litre, 380bhp power unit from its big brother. It's also longer, lower and wider, has a re-profiled nose, more cooling and, as the adjustable rear spoiler indicates, is also the first Cayman to summon up significant aerodynamic downforce. It borrows its front suspension from the epic 911 GT3, while the presence of chunky Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 rubber underlines the GT4's overt race-track mien.
Porsche has even developed two settings for the car's adaptive dampers, depending on which circuit you find yourself. And owners can also graze their knuckles tweaking the anti-roll bar setup. Not that I'd remotely trust myself to spanner my own £65,000 car.
Porsche, of course, is also the de facto king of notorious German racing circuit the Nürburgring, a 15-odd-mile, 73-corner concrete rollercoaster through the Eifel mountains. Has Maria done any track driving? "Not yet, but we keep talking about it," she says. "Mark's good friends with my coach [Sven Groeneveld], and we need to do it with someone who knows what they're doing."
You should go to the Nürburgring. It's terrifying... "[quietly] Oh, don't tell me that."
She laughs, then continues. "I love speed. I'm not sure I'd be naturally good at it, and you'd want some sort of direction or tutoring in the turns. But I love the adrenaline rush. I'll definitely do it. When I have another life."
For the time being, though, and despite the best intentions of the GT4, Sharapova is in no rush to start her new life. The speeding violations will just have to wait...
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