- Doors and Seats
2 doors, 2 seats
- Engine
3.9TT, 8 cyl.
- Engine Power
530kW, 770Nm
- Fuel
Petrol (98) 11.5L/100KM
- Manufacturer
RWD
- Transmission
Auto (DCT)
- Warranty
3 Yr, Unltd KMs
- Ancap Safety
NA
2018 Ferrari 488 Pista review
You'll need to own a race track to tame this thoroughbred.
- Staggering acceleration
- Superb steering and handling
- Evocative soundtrack
- It's all but sold out
- Needs a racetrack to appreciate its talents
- Needs a race driver to show you its talents
“Attack,” commands Ferrari’s chief test driver, Raffaele De Simone. “In this car, you need to attack. It wants you to attack. That’s the only word for the 488 Pista: attack.”
Which is pretty damn easy for him to say. Not just one of Ferrari’s most skilled drivers (a man paid to explore the absolute outer limits of every new Prancing Horse, no less, including the insane LaFerrari), De Simone is also the proud owner of a pair of the fastest oversteer-catching hands in the business.
And with them, he makes man-handling Ferrari’s fastest 488 look like a Pista cake. Me? I’m more than a little worried it’s going to attack me right back.
We’re talking, after all, about the most powerful V8 engine to have ever been stuffed into a Ferrari; an insane and insanely clever twin-turbocharged 3.9-litre unit that produces a staggering 720 horsepower (that’s 537kW) and 770Nm.
It’s enough, Ferrari promises, to clip 100km/h in 2.8 seconds, and then crack on to 200km/h in 7.6 seconds. To put those mind-boggling numbers into some sort of perspective, that's faster than the really very fast 458 Speciale GTB (3.0sec and 9.1sec) - a car that the Pista is also a full two seconds faster than around Ferrari's Fiorana test track. So yes, very quick.
You’d need four years at Hogwarts to fully comprehend the dark magic that has gone into squeezing this much performance out of the Pista. But it’s best summarised like this: everything that could be stripped, tweaked, inverted or adjusted to save weight, reduce drag and increase downforce has been.
It’s a game of small increments when played at this level (the 488 GTB they started with wasn't carrying a whole lot of winter weight to begin with) but added together, the changes make a serious impact. A new thermal management system - responsible for 20 per cent of the power gains - has helped shaved six kilos, while a new exhaust manifold saves another 9.7 kilos.
Inverting the placement of the radiator, a trick borrowed form the 488 Challenge, saves another kilogram, but also provides a new and deep well of downforce, channeling the air in a way that acts as a suction force that glues the front end to the road.
The engine is made up of 50 per cent new and lightweight components - cylinder heads, pistons, etc - while the carbon fibre bonnet, bumpers, rear spoiler and intake plenum all help keep the weight down, too. All up, it’s about 90 kilograms lighter than the 488 GTB on which it’s based.
But therein lies the danger with the Pista; the long list of impressive numbers, aerodynamic percentile points and kilograms shaved off the kerb weight paint a picture of a car obsessed with detail, overcome with clinical precision.
I’m happy to report, though, that the 488 Pista is anything but.
Strap into the drivers seat (you literally strap in; European cars are equipped with four-point seatbelts that rope you to the chairs with such enthusiasm that checking your blindspots involves a post-drive trip to the chiropractor), prod the engine start button and, at just about the moment the exhaust (louder again than the 488 GTB) thunders into the cabin, you realise this is a car about so much more than spreadsheets and algorithms.
The steering is as perfect as its probably possibly to get - feeling sharp enough to carefully engrave glass, and with plenty of telepathic-feeling feedback - and the brakes, including the servo from the 488 Challenge, have been designed to feel like those in a bonafide race car. The pedal travel has been shortened, and pressing it serves up a pit-bull bite. So much so that, initially, you apply far too much far too early, and end up pulling up miles from the corner.
Also very cool is a new addition to Ferrari’s traction system - on top of the Side Slip Control function that allows for smokey and heroic drifts, only taking the power away from the driver when it senses things are about to go badly - is a new progressive braking system which senses whether or not you want step the tail out, and then applies just the right amount of stoppage to maintain a drift, rather than pulling the car up completely.
In the right hands, the system is ridiculously impressive. Unfortunately, those hands belonged to De Simone.
But it’s the outright acceleration that doesn’t just stand the hairs up on your head, but feels like it could tear them out, follicle and all. A flat-footed blast is impressive enough, but it’s the way the Pista piles on speed when exiting a corner that genuinely redefines your concept of on-track acceleration.
It closes the gap between bends in lightning-quick time, so much so that you find yourself already halfway through a corner while you’re mentally still trying to figure out what gear you should enter it in.
Ferrari makes no bones of the fact the Pista is the most track-focused 488 to date, and it reckons some 60 per cent of its owners (it’s just about sold out, by the way) will use it on a circuit.
But away from all that mayhem, the Pista is a surprisingly liveable and loveable thing. The ride, even on badly broken roads, isn't tortuous, and in its most tame settings, it will happily doddle about at low speeds without rattling teeth or badly damaging your spine.
If the $596,888 Pista proves nothing else, it’s that in a new world of incredible electric power, there is still life in a fire-breathing V8 engine. There is not an all-electric car on the road today - and there possibly never will be - that can offer the kind of visceral, palm-sweating, heart-thundering fun of this most mental of 488s.
And even in hands significantly less skilled than those belonging to a Ferrari test driver, it serves up the kind of thrills that make even that wallet-exploding price tag feel like something of a bargain.
Writer: Andrew Chesterton
2018 Ferrari 488 Pista Price and Specifications
Price: $596,888 (plus on-road costs)
Engine: 3.9-litre V8 twin-turbo petrol
Power: 537kW at 8000rpm
Torque: 770Nm at 3000rpm
Transmission: Seven-speed dual-clutch automatic, RWD
Fuel use: NA