Ferrari 488 GTB Nurburgring hot lap

Ahhh, Ring vids. They’ve been around for quite a while, and it’s still a good way to while away a few minutes, dreaming of talent you’ll never possess. Sigh.

There is, of course, something better than watching a Ring vid, and that’s making your own. While us poor saps at Chez MOTOR make do with a dodgy PS3 and a roadside-find telly to get our Nurburgring fix, the chaps at German mag Sport Auto actually get to fling their pressers around one of the world’s fastest, most fearsome and unforgiving ribbons of tar. And get paid for it, too.

Its most recent victim is the Ferrari 488 GTB, in the hands of the mag’s test editor Christian Gebhardt, who hustles the car – fitted with Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2s – around a late arvo sortie in a pretty handy time; 7min 21.63sec, to be exact.

Christian knows his way around, by the looks, and interestingly he short-shifts the 488 in taller gears quite often to dig into that well of twin-turbo torque. There’s a couple of fair old moments when he takes a little too much pace into a corner – a second or more fell out of his pocket through the Karussell, for one – but otherwise it’s a clean, quick lap in a ferociously fast road car.

And if you’re wondering where that lap time puts the Fezza, it currently sits 14th in the top 100, four seconds better than an Enzo and seven in front of the 458 Italia. The fastest, if you’re wondering, is the Radical SRT8LM from 2009, recording a 6min 48sec screamer.