FERRARI 488 GTB

Fast as F*#K

IWOULD KILL TO DRIVE AN F40. I’D BEND over for a 250 GTO and well, there are so many unmentionables I’d allow done to myself to drive a Ferrari that Kevin Spacey’s ears would perk up. So when the opportunity presents itself to drive a 488 GTB, hatching a plan for my selfish gains without submitting myself to the wrong kind of attention required absolutely no motivation. You have read a lot about this car at evo India, how it feels to get a 488 Spider sideways in Dubai, how a tuned 488 GTB tears up tarmac on a drag strip and much more. The 488 GTB is the hard act that followed the 458 Italia and it had to prove itself to a sceptical world of enthusiasts that refused to keep pace with our turbo’d times. Most of the 488’s initial life has gone in proving that there’s still a glorious future left at Maranello despite forcefed air, feeding its Italian cylinders. But time has got it out of the 458’s shadows and the 488 GTB has an identity of its own now.

I don’t know what it’s like to drive its predecessor and only know what it sounds like. So fresh thoughts on a 488? Give me three seconds.

Alright I’ll take more than three seconds because I am in the 488 GTB, popping my Ferrari cherry, so I sit in the sculpted driver’s seat which is a lot larger and more comfortable than I’d imagined, soak in the view, the ridiculously raked A-pillar, the 488 GTB badge on the dashboard framing itself centrally in the view to the left of the driver and the rather spacious cabin, allowing so much space near my left foot. I get my seating position right, and turn the Manettino dial to CT Off. I have ogled enough, my jaw has dropped to the carpet and my pupils are fully dilated. But as they say, when it’s time to drive a Ferrari, you better have steady hands.

Years behind the wheel of hundreds of cars brings you to such a moment, and on our roads, there’s barely a shot at experiencing the Ferrari to its potential. What an anticlimax. But I was not letting go of a good launch and a few following minutes with it. So I switch CT Off, put my foot on the brake, tug the right paddle to get it to first gear, press the Launch Control button on the central spine till Launch appears on the display and that’s how I get my first quickie. The 488 limits revs to 7500rpm in the first three gears to