There was nothing wrong with the 458 Italia, but Ferrari fixed it anyway. By most any measure, the Ferrari 488 GTB is a better — and certainly faster — car, but when the company designed it, they weren’t just thinking of the road version of the car. They were thinking ahead to the race version. Formula 1 is definitely important to the global Prancing Horse family, but Ferrari’s mission has long been to take its road cars to the racetrack. The 488 GTB is undeniably gorgeous, inside and out. It certainly resembles the car it replaced, the 458 Italia, but there’s one big difference in the profile that will allow any casual fan of the brand to pick out the 488 GTB: the enormous air intakes located just ahead of the rear tires. And because this is Ferrari we are talking about, designer Flavio Manzoni and his team integrated them so nicely that suddenly we see a 458 Italia and think: Man, that would look better with a pair of big, horizontally bisected air scoops. Autoweek readers were among the first to know why those big air scoops are on the side of the 488 GTB. A couple of turbochargers are mounted to the 3.9-liter V8, and turbos need air. The engine does indeed pump out 661 hp, compared to 570 for the larger, naturally aspirated V8 it replaces. Ferrari, and captive tuner Michelotto Automobili, developed the track version of the car in concert with the designers and engineers for the street car. The 488 race car “is based on a road car that already incorporated track-friendly solutions as standard,” claims Ferrari. Ferrari developed two basic professional race cars from the 488: the GT3 and the GTE. But that’s where the Ferrari 488 design becomes so innovative—for the first time, they are essentially the same car.

The No. 62 IMSA GT Le Mans 488 GTE LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC

The GT3 classification has been around since 2005, and its specifications are regulated by the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, or FIA. At least two dozen groups around the world, including the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and the Pirelli World Challenge, sanction races for GT3 cars. Each sanctioning body retains the right to change the specifications for individual models, to slow down the fastest cars and speed up the slowest. Previous GT3 Ferraris have mostly been an offshoot of the cars produced for the Ferrari Challenge, the one-make series for wealthy amateur racers. There is indeed a 2017 Ferrari Challenge 488—the car made its debut in April at Yas Marina in Abu Dhabi—and with its sealed engine benefiting from some aggressive computer mapping that Ferrari says gives it 670 hp, it could potentially be the quickest of all the factory-built 488 race cars in a straight line. Neither the 488 GT3 or GTE are allowed by the sanctioning bodies to have anywhere near 670 horses. Gotta keep the field even, you know. It should be obvious why GT3 cars are so important to manufacturers. After decades of either supporting their own race cars or having racers build cars from street cars, GT3 — and the fast-growing GT4 class, which are slower but less expensive — lets manufacturers actually sell completed race cars. And since the GT3 cars are raced all over the world, resale value is boosted; those moving on from GT3 have a global market for used race cars. And when the race cars race, and fans watch, it has to be good for brand recognition. Not only is the Ferrari 488 GT3 an exceptionally well-conceived race car, Ferrari took the bold step in designing it so it could be converted, rather easily, into a GTE car. Which means you start out with the Ferrari 488 GT3, and after you get some experience in that class, you can convert the car to GTE specifications, making it legal for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. That’s huge: Drivers of GT3 cars now have to either buy or rent a suitable car if they want to race at Le Mans — no GT3s allowed. To change over a 488 GT3, you must change the front and rear wings and arches for the wheels, and there’s work you must do to the engine — but the projected cost of about $125,000 is reasonable because, in the end, you have a Ferrari 488 GTE.

The No. 61 Pirelli World Challenge 488 GT3 LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC

If you want to buy a new Ferrari 488 GT3, expect to write a check for about $600,000. That’s a very expensive GT3 car. But even if you spend $150K extra to make it into a Ferrari 488 GTE, $750,000 for a brand-new car that could win its class at Le Mans is pretty appealing. At least, that’s how it all works out on paper—your mileage may vary. So what’s the difference in the cars? Here’s the tale of four Ferraris: In stock form, the 488 GTB is slightly lighter than the 458 Italia, weighing in at 3,431 pounds. The twin-turbo, 3.9-liter V8 has 661 hp at 8,000 rpm, fed to the rear wheels through a transverse seven-speed dual-clutch automatic. Base price is just under $250,000, but few leave the showroom at that—you can easily add $100,000 worth of options, the vast majority of which don’t make the car go any faster. Then there’s the Ferrari 488 GTE/GTLM. There’s only one team, and one car, regularly racing in the U.S.: the No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GTE of Toni Vilander and Giancarlo Fisichella, both Ferrari factory drivers. There’s no argument that they are outnumbered—the Chevrolet Corvette team always has two C7.Rs, and the Ford Chip Ganassi Racing team brings two, three or four Ford GTs, depending on how bad Ford wants to win the race. But if you’re going to the O.K. Corral with only one gunslinger, Risi is a good choice: The Houston-based team, founded by Ferrari dealer Giuseppe Risi, did introduce the Ferrari 360 GT to the North American racing market in 2002—and the 430 GT in 2006, and the 458 in 2011.

The No. 31 Pirelli World Challenge 488 GT3 LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC

Those who have covered IMSA sports-car racing over the years have often found Risi crew members surprisingly candid. Take, for example, Rick Mayer, lead race engineer. So, how about that turbocharged engine, Rick? “Don’t really care for it,” he said. Settings are more sensitive, the “Balance of Performance” directives from IMSA are harder to assimilate. Plus—and Mayer didn’t say this, but he didn’t need to — what difference does the engine make, as long as it is reliable, has the proper power band and gets acceptable mileage? IMSA will slow down the fast cars, speed up the slow cars to the point where absolute horsepower, as delivered from the factory, is less relevant than you’d expect. Mayer does like the 488 GTE’s extra downforce—up 50 percent on the street car over the 458 Italia—and he says the basic platform is solid and suitably stiff. Ferrari 488 GT3, IMSA: So intent on getting the Ferrari 488 GTE ready for its global debut at Daytona in January 2016, the company didn’t have the 488 GT3 ready, so the car made its U.S. debut in March at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring. And quite a debut it was: The Scuderia Corsa team of Christina Nielsen and Alessandro Balzan, with help from Jeff Segal, not only put the new Ferrari on the pole for the GT Daytona class, it gave the car its first win. Nielsen and Balzan, newly teamed for 2016, won the season championship. Scuderia Corsa, appropriately based in Beverly Hills, California, was founded in 2011. Giacomo Mattioli, one of the founders, owns Ferrari Beverly Hills, which (again, appropriately) is the highest-grossing Ferrari store in North America. Born in Modena, the Italian home of Ferrari, Mattioli graduated from law school and began working for Ferrari. He subsequently proved that his success at the company was not entirely due to marrying Enzo Ferrari’s granddaughter, and the company sent him to the U.S. in 1995. Scuderia Corsa co-founder Art Zafiropoulo made a fortune in the semiconductor industry, then bought into some Ferrari dealerships. To say Scuderia Corsa is well-funded is an understatement.

The No. 63 IMSA Daytona 488 GT3 LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC

Not surprisingly, Mattioli loves the Ferrari 488, street and race version. “It’s a wonderful car, a genuine step forward,” he said. “It has done very well for us in every aspect.” For Long Beach, the BoP regulations had the 488 GT3 at 2,965 pounds, more than 200 pounds heavier than the 488 GTE. It would have been the heaviest car in the field, except that the BoP added 10 kilograms to the Mercedes-AMG GT3s, bringing it to 2,976 pounds. The 488 GT3 started out the season, incidentally, 44 pounds lighter than it was at Long Beach. The BoP further reduced the 488 GT3’s fuel tank size and made the refueling restrictor smaller. The GT3 cars run on “IMSA 100 E10” fuel ($10.65 a gallon), a mix of 100-octane VP unleaded gas with 10 percent ethanol. The GT Le Mans cars use “IMSA 100 E20” ($11.52 a gallon). That said, Risi’s Rick Mayer believes that the 488 GT3 cars would actually be faster than the 488 GTEs if the GT3 cars had the same tires the GTEs do. Continental is the supplier of all the IMSA WeatherTech classes except for GT Le Mans, where — in a nod to IMSA’s partnership with the FIA and ACO — teams are allowed to choose their tire manufacturer. Every team in the IMSA GTLM class chooses Michelin. Still, Mayer’s assertion seems surprising, given the 488 GTE’s lighter weight and more powerful turbo (at 5,000 rpm, for example, the GT3 is allowed a boost ratio of 1.587, the GTE 1.764), but he knows a lot more than we do, and a Michelin representative backed him up. Both classes run on 18-inch tires and wheels; the stock 488 GTB, as mentioned, has 20-inchers. Ferrari 488 GT3, Pirelli World Challenge: It was not a surprise to see the Toronto-based R.Ferri Motorsport team start the season strong, fielding the first Ferrari 488 GT3 car in the Pirelli World Challenge series, racing in the top GT class. Newly hired driver Alex Riberas finished sixth and third at the season-opening St. Petersburg doubleheader, and he finished fifth at Long Beach. Remo Ferri’s team has been racing since 1991, mostly in the Ferrari Challenge series, most recently running six cars there. He owns Ferrari of Ontario and Ferrari of Alberta, and he said he really wanted to go racing in the new Ferrari 488 GT3. “I love the race car,” he said. “Ferrari did a magnificent job with it.”

What was a surprise in the Pirelli series was the entry of a second Ferrari 488 GT3 by Fort Lauderdale-based TR3 Racing, the only entry in this story not directly tied to teams that also own Ferrari dealerships. Italian driver Daniel Mancinelli, entirely an unknown quantity to the PWC people, was entered at St. Petersburg in the GTA category, as in “A” for Amateur — you don’t move up to GT until you’ve shown you’ve got the right stuff. It didn’t take long. Mancinelli, driving a car he had never raced at a track he had never seen, put the car on the overall pole—unheard of for a GTA driver. And, as you can imagine, he quickly lost the “A” from his entry designation. He could only manage finishes of 14th and 10th at St. Pete, but he qualified and finished fourth at Long Beach, one spot ahead of Riberas.So, finally: How fast? The fact that the IMSA WeatherTech series and Pirelli World Challenge both raced at Long Beach the same weekend gives us the only chance we’ll have all year to make a comparison of how fast the IMSA Ferrari 488 GTE and GT3, and the PWC Ferrari 488 GT3, really are. Fastest, not surprisingly, was the IMSA Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GTE, with a time of 1:17.043 on the 11-turn, 1.968-mile street course. Second was Mancinelli in the PWC TR3 Racing Ferrari GT3, at 1:19.169. Third was the IMSA Scuderia Corsa Ferrari at 1:20.203. It would also be interesting to compare fastest lap times, but the Risi car crashed out on the first lap. And none was the fastest in their qualifying classes, period. The Risi Ferrari 488 GTE was third fastest in qualifying, the Scuderia Corsa 488 GT3 eleventh, and the TR3 488 GT3 was fourth. Of course, with the buzzard that is Balance of Performance watching over the time sheets, maybe not being fastest is a good thing.

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