144 GQGQ.COM.AU.COM.AU SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017CARS
The whole
top half of
Mount
Panorama
is a soaring,
shit-scary
test of what
a car can do,
and how far
the human
within is
willing to
push it. WORDS: STEPHEN CORBY.
F
ear is a bitch of a mistress. More often
than not, she sits in the passenger
seat every time you head out on to
a racetrack, but when that track is the
towering terror of Bathurst’s Mount
Panorama, and the car is a Ferrari with
almost 500kW, she seems to sit on your chest, while
playfully kicking you in the bollocks.
Seated in the unfamiliar but lovely surroundings
of Ferrari’s 488 GTB, on the more familiar starting
grid, it’s hard not to keep playing all the spectacular
accidents you’ve seen on TV here over the years inyour mind – and to ponder whether it might be
safer to spend the laps you’re about to attempt
behind a safety car.
Instead, we’ll be following a couple of over-
excited owners – people whose ability to drop
$600,000-plus on a car makes them instantly
annoying – and one male model-cum-‘racing driver’
whose helmet struggles to fit over his dangerously
sharp cheek bones.
People are talking over the radios about whether
we’ll hit 300km/h (the car is capable of 330km/h,
and can reach 200 from zero in just 8.3 seconds,
so anything seems possible), but I can’t join in
because every drop of saliva in my body seems
to have pooled in my shoes.
Normally, racetracks are fantastic fun because
they give you the space and the sight lines to
attack every corner. You have the full width
of the road at your disposal and can see that if
you stuff up, or get too heroic on the brakes,
there’s plenty of run-off and gravel traps
to save your blushes.MOUNTAIN
HIGH
AHEAD OF OCTOBER’S BATHURST 1000,
WE TOOK ON THE FAMED MOUNT
PANORAMA TRACK IN A GQ-APPROVED
V8 – A $600,000 FERRARI 488 GTB.