Driving a Ferrari 488 for the First Time: A Practical Guide to the First Hour

A 488 is a lot of car for a first Ferrari, and if you have already booked one you are probably running the first hour through your head. That is the right instinct and this guide is written for it. Everything that is different about the car is set out in the order you will actually meet it, from opening the door to the first open road, so that nothing about the drive is a surprise except how good it is.

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Nerves Are Normal, and Useful

Almost every first-time 488 driver spends the morning of the handover quietly wondering whether
they have taken on more car than they can handle. Keep that feeling. Drivers who arrive with a
little respect for a 492kW Ferrari are the ones who settle into it quickly and enjoy the whole
hire; the ones who arrive certain of themselves are the ones we worry about. Nothing in this car
is designed to catch you out. It is fast, it is wide and it is low, and each of those three things
has a simple technique attached to it.

The honest note goes here rather than at the bottom, where nobody reads it. If this is your
first supercar of any kind and what you really want is a car that does more of the work for you,
our own Lamborghini Huracan is the gentler place to start: it drives all four wheels and its V10
gathers its effort steadily rather than leaning on turbochargers. Mention your experience when you
send your dates and we will tell you plainly which of the two we would put you in. If it is the
488 you want, that is a good decision as well, and the rest of this page is about how to drive it
properly from the first minute. It is confirmed by request from $2,500 a day, which means we
source a car for your dates and send you its details and the full total before a cent is taken.

The Car in Numbers

Two of those rows matter more than the rest on your first day. Seven hundred and sixty newton
metres is an enormous amount of pull for a two-seat car, and all of it goes to the back tyres.
Everything below is really about making friends with that one fact.

Getting In and Sitting Properly

The doors are ordinary hinged doors, not the upward kind, and they are longer than they look,
so leave a decent gap beside the car before you swing one open and keep an eye on the leading edge
near posts and high gutters. The seat itself sits much closer to the road than you are used to.
Trying to step in one foot at a time ends with your head against the roof lining and your dignity
somewhere in the gutter.

Do it the way people get into any very low car. Stand with your back to the seat, lower yourself
onto it first, then lift both legs in together while holding the door frame. Reverse the order
getting out: feet onto the ground, hand on the frame, stand up rather than clamber. Once you are
sitting, set the car up before the engine is running. Slide the seat forward until your right leg
still has a slight bend with the brake pressed hard, sit the backrest upright enough that your
wrists fall on the top of the wheel with your shoulders touching the seat, and pull the wheel
towards you on its reach adjustment. A stretched-out, reclined position looks the part and makes a
wide car harder to place. Then set the door mirrors deliberately wide, with only a sliver of the
car's own flank in the inner edge of each, because they will do most of the work of looking
behind you.

The Steering Wheel Is the Control Panel

This is the part that catches people out more than the speed does. Ferrari puts controls on the
wheel that every other car puts on stalks around it, and the indicators are the ones that matter.
They are buttons on the wheel spokes rather than a lever behind it, so the first few turns at a
roundabout feel clumsy while your hands look for something that is not there. Sit in the car with
the engine off at the handover and indicate left and right a dozen times until your thumbs find
the buttons without you thinking. It takes about a minute and saves an embarrassing junction
later.

The red dial low on the right-hand spoke is the manettino, and it sets how the car behaves. Our
advice for your first day, and the advice in the 488 review
itself, is to leave it in sport and keep the traction systems on. Sport is not a timid setting: it
is the one Ferrari expects you to use on a road, it keeps the safety systems working properly
behind you, and it lets the gearbox change gear quickly without the harshness of the firmer
settings. If the surface is damp, turn the dial down to its wet position and leave it there. The
starter button is also on the wheel, the wipers and lights have their own switches near it, and we
run through the lot with you before you drive away. The paddles are fixed to the steering column
rather than the wheel, so they stay where they are when you turn: right hand for a higher gear,
left hand for a lower one, and neither is needed while the gearbox is in automatic.

Pulling Away, and the Gearbox in Traffic

Much of what people have read about difficult Ferrari gearboxes belongs to the older
single-clutch cars. The 488 has a seven-speed dual-clutch, and in ordinary driving it is as easy as
any automatic: it creeps gently off the brake, crawls along in a queue, and changes gear at walking
pace without any input from you. Leave it in automatic for the first half hour and let the car take
care of itself while you learn the width and the view. Put your left foot on the footrest and drive
with your right alone.

The one thing to unlearn is how far your foot needs to travel. In a normal car you press the
accelerator a third of the way to pull out of a side street. Here, think of the first centimetre of
pedal travel as your whole range in traffic, and move it slowly. The engine responds to very small
inputs, so smoothness comes from small movements, not from being timid. Parking follows the same
idea: creep at walking pace, take the bay you can drive out of forwards, and use the reversing
camera or the sensors if the car we secure has them. The exact control for reverse varies between
cars and we show you that at handover rather than leave you hunting for it with someone waiting
behind.

What 760Nm Actually Feels Like

Here is the difference between the 488 and anything you have driven before. A turbocharged
engine of this size makes its strength low down and everywhere, so the car does not need revs to be
quick. At 60km/h in fourth gear, a light press produces the sort of acceleration most fast cars
need a downshift and 6,000rpm to find. You almost never have to change gear yourself to make
progress, and the paddles become a pleasure rather than a necessity.

Ferrari meters that torque so the full amount is only available in the higher gears, which is
the single most helpful thing the engineers did for a new driver. In first and second, where a
rear-drive car is at its most sensitive, the engine deliberately holds something back. It still
produces more than enough to reach the speed limit before you have finished the on-ramp, and it
still builds the further up the gearbox you go, which is why the car feels like it is gathering
strength as it accelerates rather than exploding all at once. The practical lesson is simple:
squeeze the pedal, do not stab at it, and give the car a fraction of a second to answer. If you
want to enjoy the engine without going anywhere very fast, change up early, around 3,000rpm, and
let the mid-range do the work.

Watch your speed on a road you know. The 488 is quiet and composed at a legal cruise, the
suspension deals with bumps without fuss, and the number on the dial is regularly higher than the
one in your head. Glance at the speedometer more often than usual for the first few hours, because
the car gives you fewer of the normal clues.

Your First Proper Road

Save the good roads for after the settling-in period, then choose one with room and a clear
view. A weekday morning on the Old Pacific Highway, the loop through the Royal National Park, or
the run south over Sea Cliff Bridge all suit the car and none of them needs speed to be worth the
trip. Leave the manettino in sport, stay in a higher gear than instinct suggests, and use the
torque to pull out of each corner rather than trying to chase revs on the way in.

Two things will surprise you. The steering is much faster than a normal car's, so the first
roundabout gets more input than it needs and the car turns in more sharply than you asked; after
twenty minutes your hands quieten down and it feels natural. The brakes are the other one. They are
enormously strong and they want a firm, deliberate push rather than the gentle squeeze that stops a
family car, and they work best once there is some heat in them. Find a straight piece of empty road
early on, with nothing behind you, and brake properly once from a moderate speed so you know what
the pedal feels like before you need it.

Wet Roads

Rain is not a reason to leave the car parked, but it is a reason to change how you drive. Put
the manettino in its wet setting as soon as the road is damp, keep every safety system on, and
treat the throttle as something to lean on rather than press. Wide tyres skim more readily on
standing water than narrow ones, painted lines and steel plates are slippery in a way that takes
people by surprise, and the first shower after a dry spell lifts oil off the surface. Double your
usual following distance, brake earlier and more gently, and be especially careful accelerating out
of a wet roundabout, which is where a rear-drive car with this much torque asks the most of its
driver. Driven like that, a wet day is perfectly manageable. If your whole booking looks like rain
and this is your first time in a car of this kind, say so and we will happily talk you through the
all-wheel-drive alternative instead.

The Nose, Driveways, Speed Humps and Ramps

More first-day damage happens at 5km/h than at any other speed. The front of the car hangs low
and reaches forward past the wheels, which means it meets the top of a kerb crossing or a hump
before the tyres get there. The fix is angle and patience: approach anything raised at true walking
pace and slightly across it, so one front wheel climbs first and the nose lifts with it instead of
running square into the slope. The same applies coming out of a steep driveway in reverse, where it
is the tail that touches.

Some 488s carry a front-axle lift that raises the nose on a button, and some do not. The
confirmation for your car tells you which, and we show you at handover where the control is and how
long it takes to finish rising before you move off. Either way, give multi-storey car parks with
tight spiral ramps a miss on the first day, since there is nearly always a street park or a flat
open lot nearby, and park nose-out wherever you can so that leaving is a straight line rather than
a three-point turn between bollards. Pull up parallel to a kerb a good hand's width further out
than feels right; the wheels are expensive and the gutter is closer than it looks from that seat.

Fuel and the Small Practical Things

The 488 takes premium unleaded and gets through it briskly, so plan on refuelling more often
than you would at home, especially if the hire involves any spirited driving. Choose service
stations with a flat entrance rather than a steep lip off the road, and where the filler sits and
how it opens is one of the things we show you at handover. Luggage is a boot under the front
bonnet that takes two soft bags and no hard suitcase, so pack accordingly. Set your phone and your
navigation before you move off; there is nowhere convenient to fiddle with either once you are
going, and a car this wide deserves your full attention in a narrow lane.

What the Handover Covers

For a first-time driver the handover is the most valuable half hour of the hire, and we do not
rush it. Expect it to include:

• A walk around the car together, photographing every panel, wheel and the underside of the nose with you there, so its condition is agreed before you drive.
• Your licence checked in person, and every additional driver confirmed on the booking.
• The wheel: the starter, the manettino, the indicator buttons, the wipers and the lights.
• The gearbox: automatic mode, the paddles, neutral, reverse and how to leave the car when you park it.
• The front-axle lift if the car has one, and a practice run over the kerb crossing you will actually use.
• Where the fuel filler is, what fuel it takes and what level the car should come back at.
• Time to sit in the car with the engine off, move the seat and mirrors, and ask whatever you like.

Ask the small questions. Nobody has ever looked foolish asking where the boot release is, and
the questions people swallow at the handover are usually the ones that matter an hour later.

Your First Ten Minutes on the Road

• Before you move: seat, wheel and mirrors set, phone mounted, destination entered, manettino in sport or in wet if the road is damp.
• Minutes one to three: a quiet street. Pull away and stop half a dozen times until the first centimetre of throttle feels predictable.
• Minutes three to five: one firm brake from about 50km/h with nothing behind you, so the pedal holds no surprises.
• Minutes five to eight: a few turns at junctions to learn the quick steering, the width and where the front corners are.
• Minutes eight to ten: indicate left and right at every opportunity until the buttons are automatic, then join a main road at an ordinary pace.

Leave the motorway, the good roads and the full range of the engine until that is all done. Most
drivers find the car feels familiar within half an hour, and that is the point at which it turns
into the thing you booked it for.

If You Would Rather Ease Into It

Reading all of the above and deciding you would like something more forgiving first is a
sensible call, not a loss of nerve. Our own Lamborghini
Huracan sends drive to all four wheels, has a nose lift and is bookable today, and it is what
we recommend to anyone whose dates look wet. If you want the car itself compared with its closest
twin-turbo rival, the 488 against the McLaren 650S
covers that, and if you are still weighing up the naturally aspirated Ferrari that came before it,
the 458 and 488 compared lays out both. Whichever way you
go, tell us it is your first time in a car like this when you send your dates, and we will build
the handover around that.