The not-so-curious case of the Ferrari 488, the Autocar road test and the 'cup' tyres

So I rang Ferrari and asked for an explanation. I was told that the car we tested was the one that went around all of the big European magazines’ performance tests that summer. “And because we knew you were going to drive it on track," they went on, "we prepared it accordingly. Cup tyres were part of that preparation. We’d recommend any customer taking his 488 on a track to use them.” Sounds fair enough, doesn’t it?

Except, when you dig a bit deeper, not so much. “So the Cup tyre’s an official option for the 488, then?” I asked. Apparently not. Ferrari won’t supply a 488 on Cup tyres from the factory, I’m told, and would officially discourage people from fitting such tyres to a 488 in an attempt to make some sort of do-it-yourself 488 ‘Clubsport’. Hang on, though: didn’t you just say you’d expressly advise that a customer did fit those very tyres for track use? Well, yes. But no, not really.

Inevitably, there’s a grey area. If you really want Cup tyres on your 488, you can have 'em – maybe; they are a homologated tyre. And that’s because, for homologation purposes, there’s no difference between a 458 and a 488; and the Cup tyre was homologated as part of the development of the 458 Speciale. Your Ferrari factory warranty will survive intact if you do fit some – and certain UK Ferrari franchised dealers will even take the factory tyres off your new 488 and put Cup tyres on, before delivery, as a ‘special request’.

I hate grey areas. Because of this one, you can take the view that Cup tyres belong on a 488 as a result of a legacy situation; a technicality, almost. Or you can take the view, as I do, that they don’t – because it’s quite plain that the car wasn’t developed for them, or with them, and Ferrari didn’t intend them for the car. It’s up to you.

Likewise, I’ll leave it to you to decide how Ferrari’s decision – using a technicality to gain a performance advantage in a test in which it knew lap times, acceleration and braking would be tested – reflects on the company. True, it's not as if Ferrari fitted non-road-legal hillclimb tyres. But, chances are, this didn’t just happen once; this was the car used for every performance test in every major publication across Europe.

All I know is, when you’re in the business of being fair to every manufacturer and of testing cars in the condition in which most customers will find them, this isn’t news you can just let slide. If the tyre was on the other rim, to butcher a well-worn phrase, and one of Ferrari's key competitors had done the same thing, how much more or less would Maranello expect from us, I wonder?

The 488 GTB is a superb supercar. We’ve tested it several times since our 2016 road test, on road and on track, and on tyres the development engineers did intend for it – so we know that’s the case. And we will continue to recommend it, because one bad decision by a PR department shouldn’t cost an outstanding product the credit it deserves.

But I, for one, will be watching a bit more closely the next time a new prancing horse rolls out of the back of an Italian transporter. I now truly understand what it means when people say you can’t take the competitive streak out of a company like Ferrari; one built on a culture of racing – and winning. And I may not be so quick to defend Ferrari from allegations of cheating performance tests as I have been in the past.

The irony is that, even though the McLaren 720S has beaten its benchmarks by some margin since, back in 2016 the 488 would probably have proved itself the quickest car in its class without the help of Cup tyres. Maranello should simply have had the confidence to let it do that on a level playing field.