There were moments. Flickers of doubt. Even a little bit of guilty hand-wringing. The Ferrari 296 GTB is a lot of money. It’s the most powerful car at PCOTY. The shape is almost sinfully gorgeous and nothing quite pulls at the heartstrings like a car emblazoned with those Scuderia Shields on the front fenders. To declare it our champion is a cliché and entirely predictable. “Cars shouldn’t be this fast,” people lamented. “It’s too much for the road,” uttered others.
They were convincing too. Almost. The 296 GTB is absurdly potent, outrageously capable, and to feel its full force unleashed on road or track is something akin to madness. This thing travels, squeezing space and time. Yet for me, and many others here, there were no doubts. The Ferrari might compress every lap or mile of a sinuous road, but in a surreal, impossible twist, it also expands and enlivens all the stuff you want to savor. Sensations are elevated and purified. The Ferrari enhances talent, celebrates and rewards effort. The driver feels immersed to the point of drowning in the sheer excitement of it all yet flies over the surface with an incredible sense of freedom. The 296 GTB simply isn’t constrained by normal rules, so forgive us for ignoring earthly concerns around money, infuriating user interface, and speed limits. It wins. It’s out of sight. There is no other conclusion.
My introduction to the Ferrari could hardly have been more intimidating. It’s the first morning of PCOTY, and Thunderhill is eerily quiet. Not a single car on the circuit. I’ve been here before, but I’ve never really driven it in anger. A few YouTube videos have provided a vague sense of where the West Circuit goes, but as the allocated driver tasked with setting lap times, I need some real experience to start unlocking its secrets. Logic suggests doing this in something not overburdened with power. Something with soft, friendly manners. However, the Ferrari has so many tires at its disposal that it’s deemed most sensible to, um, use the mid-engined supercar packing over 800 hp to learn the track.
This particular 296 GTB is fitted with the Assetto Fiorano package. So, on top of the usual ingredients—a 3.0-liter twin-turbocharged 120-degree V-6, making 654 hp and 546 lb-ft supported by an axial-flux electric motor positioned between the engine and eight-speed dual-clutch gearbox rated at 165 hp and 232 lb-ft—it drops the standard magnetorheological dampers in favor of fixed-rate spool valve items, increases downforce slightly with front dive planes, and is lighter too. As with even a “standard” GTB, Qualifying mode offers a total available output of 819 hp. Incredibly, on Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2R tires it quickly becomes apparent that it can use every single one of those horses.
The early laps come and go so quickly. Despite my fears, the 296 is the perfect car to fast-forward the learning process. It’s so precise that hitting every apex is easy. There’s so much grip that even misjudgments are easily recovered and the powertrain and gearbox offer the sort of relentless, overwhelming performance that means there’s basically no such thing as “the wrong gear.” Hairpin in fifth? No problem. The 296 will still leap out of the turn faster than a fully lit Ford Mustang Dark Horse bang in its sweet spot. It’s otherworldly.
Similarly, the body control afforded by the Multimatic dampers is breathtaking. Later, on the road, there’s a price to pay for the steely control, but, for me, it’s a trade worth making. Imagine a Porsche Cayman GT4 RS. Now sharpen it up by maybe 20 percent. Then throw an 819-hp engine into the mix that revs to the far side of 8000 rpm but hits from tick-over like a brick wall. That’s the 296 GTB Assetto Fiorano. Even among some pretty wonderful cars, the Ferrari’s allure is animal and irresistible.
Track committed to memory, I start back down on planet Earth, ticking off lap times in the slower cars and edging back toward the Ferrari and the enormous task of wringing a representative lap time from it. Now I can properly push and discover its incredible sharpness is matched with fluid on-limit manners and stunning poise. How can a car so complex feel so simple and intuitive? Where does all the mass associated with the hybrid system go? I don’t know, and I don’t care. I just want one more lap. Really, I do. I’m on for a solid 1:16.0 but mess up the final corner and slip into the 17s. I’m not quite good enough for the Ferrari. But then again, who is?
It’s good enough for us, though. Oh god, yes. “F*ck me, what a car!” babbles contributing editor Mike Duff. Editor-at-large A.J. Baime scrawls “Clear winner” in the notebook left in the car for people to record their thoughts. Then some more superlatives. And then—as if to reiterate “CLEAR WINNER!”—I’d love to tell you what editor-in-chief Daniel Pund thought, but he was so affected by the Ferrari that his writing is illegible. Editor-at-large Matt Farah restores some semblance of critical gaze by moaning about the haptic controls (which are dire), but also concedes the Ferrari feels like it weighs “at least 400 pounds” less than the spec sheet says, even though Ferrari spec sheets have been known to advertise some pretty skinny “lightest dry weight” figures. Brian Silvestro hits on the real magic here. “Wonderfully balanced and pure in a way that the SF90 is not.”
Balanced, pure, cohesive . . . . These are the words that defined the Ferrari at PCOTY, but they don’t convey the sheer energy of the whole experience. The incredibly alert steering takes a little getting used to but creates a sense of supernatural agility. Yet no matter how hard you push the turn-in phase, the rear can keep up and the balance remains calm and easy to manipulate. Push further still, and you’ll find oversteer and lots of it. But the e-diff and the flat, unflappable body control take away much of the fear factor. The 296 GTB can still bite—it’s an 819-hp supercar, after all—but mostly, it indulges, encourages, and rewards.
And amazes. Boggles the mind, in fact. Nobody emerges from the 296 GTB without a rapid shake of the head and a muttered stream of expletives. I’d like to say something like “you can’t put a price on that.” But you can. And it’s a very high price. However, there shall be no guilt felt here. The 296 GTB might not be very good at navigating you to a preselected destination through its godawful user interface, but it never fails to transport you to another world entirely.
