"God, I bloody love this car. More than an F8 Tributo, more than big brother SF90. With that Ferrari made the tech usable, here it's made it fun" AUTO

"IT'S A SOUND YOU'LL LOVE HAVING POURED IN YOUR EARS, RICHER TONED THAN THE F8"

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The bends never end. Mile after mile of golden third gear curves, diamond-like chippings in the road twinkling in the sun, dappled shade rushing by, surface scrubbed and polished, tarmac twisting onwards, writhing back and forth, up and down, views bubbling at the fringes. Numbing in its monotony, if you couldn’t appreciate the perfection of it.

I have to self-administer mental slaps to stop myself thinking I’m in a dream sequence with a chorus of angels on accompaniment. The car’s not helping. The rhythm of this road is one the Ferrari 296 GTB slips into effortlessly. It compresses in, then springs out, a movement that comes as naturally to it as breathing to us. In and out, in and out. Just doing what it does. Just sweeping along.

It takes photographer Mark in the hired ‘chase’ car 10 minutes to catch up. He is green, the Seat Arona’s brakes are smoking. I hadn’t been going intentionally quickly, but every so often, when third became fourth became fifth, I was aware. Mental slap time.

Encapsulated in those miles, though, is the genius of the 296 GTB. This is a deeply, furiously complex car. It never feels like that to drive. Neither on road, nor on track. But there’s also another contradiction at the heart of Ferrari’s latest and – well, let’s share this now shall we – greatest* achievement. As the occupants of the hard-pressed Arona can attest, the 296 generates speed without effort. It’s by no means alone in that, but so often these days the engineering necessary to give cars that astonishing rapidity further distances the driver from the experience. Not here. Along with the simplicity comes tactility. (*only technically speaking. In a back catalogue that includes the 458 Speciale, F40, F50, 288 GTO and 812 Competizione, there’s no definitive.)