This is odd. Mid-engined supercars and wet weather are a notably disastrous combination, but the 597hp Ferrari 458 Speciale we’re in seems to be challenging the laws of driving physics as we’ve come to know them.
We’re in Italy to get a taste of Ferrari’s third and latest road-going take on the incredible 458, and the weather is terrible. It’s not so much the volume of rain falling as it is the fact that it hasn’t stopped since we were handed the keys to this US$290,000 (Dh1.065million) supercar, a map of the area and told to come back when a) we were hungry or b) we’d had enough. That was four hours ago. Food is the last thing on our minds.
At the moment, attention is pinned squarely on the snaking series of sodden hairpins that lie ahead, and the terrifying speed at which they can be taken in the Speciale. The roads are narrow, bumpy, off-camber and steep – a cocktail ripe for disaster in a car where most of the heavy bits sit behind you and the threat of losing either end of the car is a constant concern. To complicate matters, we’re driving in dense cloud cover, which offers up enough forward visibility to tempt the right foot, but would render us invisible to other road users should we embark on a little off-road excursion.
But this car sticks. The front-end grip is incredible, turn-in is precise and power delivery is sublime. It’s as though the car’s Michelin Pilot Sport Cup2 tyres and the tarmac around Maranello and the Emilia-Romagna region are magnetically attracted. It’s either that, or Ferrari has managed to secrete a small elephant somewhere under the bonnet to help nail the front end to the road. Its grip is absolutely sublime.
Ferrari says the Speciale is for the true driving enthusiast. It shifts faster, turns in quicker and stops far better than the current Italia. It’s an uncompromising car that puts more power and more control in the hands of the driver, and will flatter the novice and actually help talented drivers to become better. It’s designed to press all the right buttons in your pleasure centre while maintaining limits that far exceed the talents of most who will ever sit behind the wheel.
The centrepiece to this is a trick piece of software that Ferrari has developed called Side Slip Control (SSC). It’s an algorithm that monitors the car’s slip angle in real time, and allows the car to slide in a controllable power oversteer by working with the electronically controlled rear diff (E-diff) and the traction control (F1-Trac).
Computers reduce the amount of locking torque on the diff during understeer, which helps loosen up the rear and get the nose pointed in to a bend. Traditional traction control systems would cut engine power at the first sign of oversteer, but the SSC lets you power out of a turn with the rear tyres lit in a controllable fashion. It’s not, Ferrari insists, designed to turn the 458 Speciale into a drift car, but an aid to help drivers safely explore the limits of adhesion. It’s chiefly designed to work on the track, where you can slide about in relative safety, but it has benefits for those who love to get out and blast about their favourite roads. In the wet. And right now, on these roads, it’s very apparent.
