The morning began as all good mornings should, with a cup of tea. I met John Glynn, the Autocar wordsmith, at a cafe just down the road from the Longcross Proving Ground. There with him was Jed the photographer, one of the nicest and most enthusiastic chaps I've met. Shortly after I arrived, the 612 rumbled into the car park with the other civilian, Richard, at the wheel.
Over a cup of tea we did our introductions and talked cars, then we were off to the proving ground to make a start. I was fortunate enough be chosen by Jed to do a sighting lap of the track and "snake Pass" with him so that he could get a feel for how he wanted to shoot the cars through the day.
Once back at the paddock area the close up pics were taken, this involved to some expert level standing around and not getting in the way.
As luck would have it, there was a couple of little somethings to keep us occupied in the shape of.....
This, as some of you may be aware, belongs to a certain Nick Mason. I've actually seen the car a few times over the years at various shows and events, but had never seen and heard one on the move. It was there for the Octane magazine cover shoot as they were doing a comparison piece with this.....
We would bump into these two throughout the day and hear the F1 where ever it was.
Once the close up stuff was done we headed to the track and did some moving shots with a rather brave Jed hanging out the back of a lead car whilst Richard and I followed closely side by side. It's surprisingly intense to be driving as close as you could to the Ferrari next to you at 30mph around a banked corner, and required quite a bit of concentration to make sure there was no contact. I had intended to take a pic from the driver's seat of Jed hanging out of the car in front but sadly I didn't have mental capacity to multi-task at the time. After a few changes of formation it was back to the paddock for John and Jed to jump in the Maser and take shots of the Ferrari over the dash whist following it. So I took the opportunity to take a passenger ride in the 612.
Initial thoughts as we entered the track again was that the 612 had a lot firmer ride than the GT, it also has a **** site better stereo and sat-nav compared to the Fiat Multipla one in my car! The next thing that struck me was the noise, or lack thereof. I was expecting a bigger brother to the 4.7 V8 with an even stronger pair of lungs to sing with, but instead from the cabin the 5.7 V12 was boomy and lacked a tuneful note.
Back to the Paddock once again and this time with John as my passenger we set off for “Snake Pass”, which is a stretch of twisty, hilly, tree lined track that is designed to test handling through unsettling the car with adverse cambers and blind crests. Or to put it another way, an awesome stretch of road which we were asked to hoon up and down for some action shots.
The first couple of passes were done fairly sedately whilst I learned where the road went and as the confidence grew. A few passes later and John is holding firmly on to the door handle and centre console to prevent him from slipping out of the seat. Before any observations were made about the handling, the first observation was that the all leather seats in the GT do not hold you in place. The cabin is also too wide to steady yourself against the door or centre console without sliding across your seat like a cornering Moto GP rider. As a result the steering wheel becomes more of something to hold on to rather than to give delicate input in to the direction of travel. Fabric/alcantara seats and harnesses would sort this, if only they did a model like that.... there you go, I knew I could justify a Stradale eventually!
With ever growing confidence I started to experiment with understeer and oversteer. Discussing with John, as we understeered toward the edge of the track, that with a dab of left foot braking it soon found front end traction again and that for a big car it was quite “chuckable”. Over an adverse camber crest I played with the back end a couple of times, until quite subtly John asked me to calm down a little. The purpose of us going back and forth was for pics over one crest about midway along the track, not for playing about – but all credit to John he let us have plenty of fun!
After the Snake Pass we went off to a 4 lane wide straight stretch of track to do some more formation shots. Initially we were asked to drive past Jed in formation as close together as we could at about 30mph. After a few passes we were asked to go a bit faster... this very quickly degenerated into drag race after drag race between the 612 and the GT-S. The McLaren chaps were using an adjoining bit of track for there cornering shots....
....well they were until we started our impromptu drag racing, where upon their camera phones came out and they watched with grinning faces. Apparently, one of the Octane writers asked John who he's drivers were. When he replied that we were just owners helping out his response was one of surprise as we weren't shy give our cars a **** good thrashing! Perhaps even amongst journo's the thought is that a lot of these types of cars are bought as garage queens – may be they're right?
After quite a few passes and some photos I am pleased to announce that the opinion from the on lookers is that the GT-S actually had the edge over the more powerful 612! (or may be I just jumped the start more often...?)
After some more photos, some of which I took whilst Jed was running around with a flash gun....
it was once again back to the paddock. The pics were all done. We were all done. Unless.... we fancied another few laps. Well, it'd be rude not to! This time Richard and I swapped keys and headed off to the track. I've never followed my GT-S before (certainly not whilst driving a 612!), and my god does it sound awesome! Then, rather embarrassingly, I got a phone call from Nav-Track telling me that my car was being driven without the security tag in it. I told them that it was OK as I was chasing after it in a Ferrari.... the line went quiet so I thought it best to let them know the full story. Phone call over I pulled the left paddle a couple of times and gave chase. After 1 lap I could see the GT-S again, after two laps I was on it's tail. It was at this point that I had to constantly remind myself that this was someone else's £100k car and that it would be really frowned upon to launch it off the track at 140mph. Any way, during the pursuit laps I noticed a few things about the 612. Interestingly it's not as settled through high speed bends as the GT-S and the traction control is very interfering, as it cut the power on the exit of every bend, so much so I thought I'd missed the loud pedal. The gear change is not as quick as the MC Shift, but then the MC Shift 'box is the same 'box that's in the newer 599.
Whilst the above all seems quite critical, I was concerned when we started the day that I might end up coming away thinking that I'd bought the wrong car once I'd had a drive of the 612. I know a lot of this is subjective and the 612 is still an amazing machine, however, I came away feeling that I had 100% chosen the right car when I walked away from a 612 on the forecourt and ordered the GT-S all those months ago.
A great day, huge thanks to John Glynn and Jed for letting us play about in between the more serious stuff. Thanks to Richard for letting me have a go in his lovely Ferrari. And most importantly a massive thanks to Peter and Loz who brought this opportunity to my attention – cheers!
