CAlexio

Pista is fantastic... utterly enjoyable to drive. Steering, balance, power, braking, electronics... nannies which work with you not against you, interior quality, design... amazing what ferrari has become. Just at $500k+ with options simple too expensive to use as intended for most (like me). Spent a day driving it around road atlanta and it was my favorite car over the 1000 hp hybrids.. almost as fast and just more capable in most situations. If you can easily afford one, there is nothing else like it.

Yippiekiaye

thank you sir! Much appreciated!

hf1

Alright I’ll ask. How do you get to spend a day driving 1000hp supercars at the track?

joejenie

Don't tempt me. They were trying to sell me that speedster in Chandler a couple weeks ago. They want to sell it locally. I don't think they are at sticker yet, but if they own it in 90 days, you might end up losing a Pista. haha. Actually, I think they are close with a local buyer on the speedster.

CAlexio

If I named what I do, since it doesn't exist as a position and i don't get paid for it, it wouldn't make sense. But I can say that I'm occasionally asked to advise sports car companies, and I occasionally bring auto industry people to the table to talk who otherwise wouldn't be contractually or publicly be seen doing so. I've done some test driver jobs, advised on market strategy, but I'm just an enthusiast who feels lucky to get to drive and give comparative feedback on a ton of cool cars, and most importantly, made some trusted friends along the way.

On this particular date I organized something I called "Hypercar Invitational".. it's a marketing concept I am trying to sell to sports car OEM's. I have a humble theory that there is a massive supply glut of sports cars, and that their existing marketing model is broken. I'm copying the golf model of a PROAM meet, where owners of cars get to meet with professional drivers (like Randy Pobst and a few others) to drive their cars on track, and get interviewed on video a bit like top gear celebrity guests. The idea is that OEM's and some top dealers can have a day where they reward their top customers with a completely unique event where they meet their heroes and are treated like celebrities themselves. The risk they take is that multiple brands participate so that potential HNW customers can really compare cars and make decisions. the first H.I. event we ran last month was a relative success... we had some cars flown in on planes from Europe from some OEM's, which blew my mind. And the day got enough publicity that Ferrari in Italy threatened us to not publish the numbers on how badly the LaF did vs it's competitors... we are still re-editing the video to try to stay within their "suggested" guidelines... It was as exciting to get ferraris attention as it was frightening to see how powerful their reach is... but that's another story for another day. people will be amazed when they find out which car destroyed the others.. no one will guess.

Anyway, I hope that explains things. I do feel lucky beyond belief as I've probably driven more different sports and hyper cars than probably any journalist.. and one day when I sell my medical device company I'd like to find a way to be around sports cars full time and even make money from my car passion and my connections. For now I'm just an anonymous middle-man who occasionally brokers a deal here and there, and gets to drive fun cars and compare them. that's about it.. oh, and the cgt is far and away the only car I want to own, and the manual gt3 is my close second. We are on the right path on this forum... right brand right cars.

If you want to see silly amateur video reviews of other cars I've driven, I edit footage for fun on iMovie on my YouTube channel. I don't make money, again, it's just for my own pleasure and memories. AlexioFlexio channel.

hf1

Sounds amazing! True labor of love. Good luck!
MC & HNY!

Yippiekiaye

i know the potential buyer....

Saru385

did some driving around today and ended up passing by McLaren SF and saw this sitting out front.
Mantis Green 675LT Coupe with 5521 miles. They are asking $225k.

https://www.mclarensanfrancisco.com/used/McLaren/2016-McLaren-675LT-ff52bd960a0e0ae73fbd571c8d97e030.htm
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MaxLTV

So is it fair to say you prefer it to 675LT or 720?

TRAKCAR

^^ Let’s stay focused here and stick to reality that Fiats and McLarens can’t be tracked enthusiastically much.
Unless you bring backup, money doesn’t matter, or if you don’t mind losing track time.

Saru385

our 570S will likely never see any track time, so can't really comment from personal experience, but does seem like there are a number of Bay Area people who track their McLarens quite often and don't seem to have issues. i'm sure Yesyoucan (corrected) can speak to this better than I can.

that said, what you've done with your RS cars definitely speaks well for their track ability and reliability!

Yippiekiaye

I’m not a track geek so can’t comment. Yes you can is probably the best person to comment on this. And whether some Porsche homer thinks that Ferrari or mclaren can be tracked or not means nothing to me. I’ve owned all the cars, enjoy all the cars. I appreciate what Ferrari, mclaren and Porsche can do but not a blind loyalist by any means. I got rid of the Porsche poster off my wall in high school.

Saru385

oops, sorry. meant Yesyoucan.

yesyoucan

There are a good number of track focused people who own ferrari's/mclarens/porsche's in my area (San Francisco Bay Area). It's getting common to see Mclarens at HPDE days. People are buying them when they see other Mac's at track days after seeing them in action and talking to the owners.

Off the top of my head; I'd say I have about 25 track days in 720s and about 15 track days in 600 LT. Most of the miles driven are track miles. 720s has gone limp once and that was a spark plug issue. It went limp about 3 turns after one of the "laguna pipes" fell off the car. (after market turn away pipe). Not sure if that had anything to do with it but it went limp right after it fell off.

Mac cars are very sensitive to check engine lights. They are almost always FYI and do not impact the operation of the car. The condition that would cause a CEL would also exist in every car but Mac throws the CEL light when the others won't (as an example; "fuel temperature not met" (this was after fuleing up at the Laguna Seca pumps). The engine/oil temps not met when I started to push the car (not a good idea to turn on the car and then start pushing it two minutes later on track). These lights don't impact the car and something you learn as time goes by. For those who aren't sophisticated enough, they might just shut it down for the rest of the track day (OBD reader is your friend).

I get into a lot of discussions with people at the track and they ask me all types of questions (buying related). They don't' ask me much mechanically related type questions because they see me out there all the time and have started to see a good number of Mac's on track. I tell them that it is much more expensive to track a 720s/600 LT ijn OEM set up then it is a GT3RS or GT3. However, if they go aftermarket steel brakes and get the goodyear f1 supercar 3r tires then it is actually more cost effective then tracking a porsche (most of the track focused mac people in my area have gone to this set up).

Ferrari - You don't see much on track. Primary reason is that the Ferrari dealers discourage you from tracking them (they push the ferrari challenge car on you or their customer racing program).

Last friday; a few of us had our own run group with the Audi club at thunderhill (12 c, 2X600 LT, 720s, gt4 cayman, 3x .2gt3rs).

Over the week-end; another group that I track with from Southern California were at Buttonwillow (2 X12c, 720s, 2X Pista, GT3). Attached is a video of my coach driving the Pista with the owner as a passenger chasing a 720s being driven by the owner of the 720s). The 720s has about 20,000 miles and the Pista has about 14,000 miles. Almost all miles are driving to the track, tracking the car and then driving back home. They track at least 3 to 5 times per month. The best time of the 720s was 1:48.3 (driven by my coach), 1:48.5 (driven by the owner of the car) and the best time of the Pista was 1:50 (driven by my coach) and 1:51 driven by the owner. This is under the most common/favorite configuration of 13CW. Anyone who has driven at Buttonwillow knows how fast those lap times are.

His description to the video.

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Turn in Track Out3.72K subscribers
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Best times when I drove: 720s - .3 w/passenger Pista - .2 w/passenger NOTE!!! Pista tire pressures were WAY off and could use camber. Reduce the delta to 1 second slower on the same tires. Amazing cars and a great time!!! I hope you enjoyed. Let me know which one you like more and why.

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flsupraguy

I love your videos and sub'd. Thank you for sharing.