Nice. I am happy you have the opportunity to do this and hope I can as well some day!
by the significant figures on the speed, i'm assuming the speed was measured on something besides the onboard speedometer. if so, then the advertised 211mph max is pretty damn good. within 2.3 miles, it's amazing that a street car can hit those speeds.
Yes Secret, the speeds are all independently measured to the thousandth mph by the sanctioning body, IMRA. Speedometers are notoriously unreliable, and in most cases woefully optomistic. There’s little worse than doing a speed run and finding out that the 200 mph you think you saw on your speedo was actually 191. I’ll try to share more later, but for now, all I can say is that the Pista is a very, very special car.
They are calibrated that way on purpose. That said, modern Ferraris have quite reliable speedos. At top speed, the 458 had an "error" of just 10 kph (340 indicated vs 330 on the V-Box). Finally, cars can measure their exact speed with tremendous accuracy (some have secret menus where the actual speed is displayed), they just read a little more on the speedo.
so does this mean high fives in Maranello on Monday morning when some technician reads off the numbers that this Pista generated???
Hee hee. I was wondering that myself. As far as I know, the published top speed is 211. It’s gotta make them feel good that their number has been independently corroborated...heck, not only corroborated but bettered. No fudging of the numbers in this case. Good job, Maranello. Better start ringin’ those bells.
Great results!! I had the opportunity to run with this group last year and it was amazing. You are making want to head back. I’m sure this is a IMRA World record time to boot. how did she feel at that speed?
Certainly! The 675LT is one of my favorite cars. Like all McLarens, it is scary fast and very light. It feels and acts like it is a small car, and that’s a good thing. Very, very potent at the track. I love the carbon tub, and it is among the most torsionally rigid cars I have ever experienced, even in spider form. With all due respect to Ferrari, there really is no comparison between the rigidity of the open McLaren compared to the open Ferrari. In coupe form, the Pista feels more...agressive and nasty than the McLaren, if that makes any sense. The Pista feels beefier and more substantial, and accelerates harder IMO. Given the choice between the two as my only cool car, I’d have to say I prefer the Pista; its just oozing with swagger and personality, while the 675LT is almost surgical. What’s really ironic is that I preferred the McLaren to my Speciale, which arguably has more personality than the Pista...sometimes I can’t figure myself out
I'm a bit stunned that your Pista performed as well as it did in comparison to Ferrari's own performance claims for the car given the company's propensity to, shall we say, embellish their specs and performance figures. I'm a huge Ferrari fan but I can't help but take the factory's performance claims with a grain of salt, it's great to see your test dispel some of my skepticism. Perhaps the factory should look at this "victory" as being on par with an F1 win and ring the bells. Thank you for sharing some of your thoughts and adventures with your Pista in this thread. I thoroughly enjoyed reading (and seeing) all of the posts.