FERRARI CORSO PILOTA AROUND THE WORLD

There are several threads buried here somewhere on this topic, and I know several Fchat folks who have attended.

My wife has done the Basic course twice, and Advanced course, in North America.

My view is that it's probably one of the best run performance driving programs I've seen, in terms of quality of instructors and participant development. I attribute that to the instructors themselves, their ability to teach/coach, and the structure of the program. for my wife, her progression (skills, confidence, knowledge) was tremendous.

The fact that you are driving Ferraris and at a great venue are very nice "extras". To us, getting her instructed seat time in the cars was also key, as for someone new to powerful sports cars, they can be intimidating. She now knows how to get the most out of the cars and her skills/safety are exponentially better.

There are a lot of good driving programs out there, many using exotic cars. Most are focused on "drive this fancy car, and don't crash it". The FDE was really more about being a driver. Again, comments limited to the North America program, which is 2-days and they do nice hospitality, you have a good time. Porsche runs a good program down at Barber in the US as well.

My sense is that to do a similar program at this standard in a high-end car (eg. Porsche GT-3), you could find one for less money. You do pay a premium to thrash someone else's 458, F12 and FF around a race track, no doubt. I did some comparisons and the "Ferrari premium" was about 25%.

 

Absolutely agree. Ferrari does a great course. Highly recommended. Its nice that you can explore similar cars to the ones you likely own in a controlled environment with proper instruction and guess what- its someone else's brakes, tires, clutch etc.

 

I did the basic course twice (Mont Tremblant and COTA) and the advanced course once (Mont Tremblant) last year. I enjoyed all of the courses and everything from the accommodations to the track experience were first class. I suppose that's what you get for the premium price. Since I own a 458, it was nice that most of the track time was spent driving 458s.