Ferrari Pilota and GT2
It's been a while, life is very busy, work is great but hectic.
A lot has happened since a few months.
My 599 is still in order. But delivery sometime in 2009! So long!
Ferrari France has lent me a black one for a whole weekend to test it and I, of course, loved it.
Recently, they also invited me (lucky me!) on a two day Pilota Ferrari course. It was very nice, I must admit that the asking price for costumers is steep (7k Euros) but the service is 5 stars. Great hotel, great food and of course, the course is great. You drive 430s and 599s on Fiorano track assisted by very competent instructors and F1 telemetry, pretty cool stuff.
My overall impressions of the cars are:
- 430 much more fun than 599 on track. (to be expected with a 200 kgs plus difference)
- 599 ultra stable on long curves (again thanks to weight).
- Power of 599 simply awesome!!!
- The F1 gearbox is fantastic, I love it!!!
- Although the brakes of the 599 are very effective, the pedal feel is much worse than 430 (I'm talking ceramic brakes here) i.e. the brake pedal feels very spongious at the top, which for track work it not that great but for the road, more comfortable.
- purely subjective, but I've never really been a big fan of the 430 noise, I think the V12 sounds much better.
- All 599s were black and I loved it, I changed my order from Silvertone to Black as a result, not sure about the interior yet. Any thoughts?
My conclusions are that the 599 is THE surpime modern GT car, comfortable, confident inspiring, ultra powerful, and ok for the occasional track day althouth it's not its purpose.
430 is fantastic too, it felt like a go kart, lacks a bit of grunt at low revs but engine is explosive past 4000 rpm, and the E-diff does wonders, it really is very effective.
I saw a 430 Scuderia lap the track too. Car looks very similar to F430 (obvisouly) but sounds different (better IMO) and most impressive, the gearchange are without pause!
I would really love to own one, sadly, they are all spoken for til 2010!!!
So I have ordered a 911 GT2!
Similarly to the Scuderia, a track orientated car, yet with great road manners and most importantly for me, stability control (the reason why the GT3 RS is no go unfortunately).
Indeed, everytime I get on a track, I am reminded how PSM/ E-diff is effective as a safety measure.
The car will be GT Silver with dark grey natural leather.
I fell into Porsche's trap and ticked a silly numbers of options but considering the price of the car, it's all relative. So it's got loads of stuff in leather, carbon and goodies like Sat Nav, etc.
Delivery March/ April!
It will complement the 599 very well, once for long GT journeys and one for track days.
Enjoy the few pics!
