Winner of the Performance Direct Ferrari 458 Italia Driving Experience at Silverstone, Esta from Birmingham, came along to visit us at the Classic Motor Show / Top Gear Live at the Birmingham NEC to collect her certificate. She was the lucky winner of the competition amongst the many thousands of entrants and will get driven by a professional driver around the world famous Silverstone circuit, home of the British Grand Prix. The Ferrari 458 Italia has very much been the car of the moment for some time in the motoring world and anyone who has been in one, which includes me, will tell you what a sensational experience it is. At the show Esta was able to get up close and personal with the very special Ferrari 458 Italia Carbon Edition modified by Oakley Design. Forza Magazine stated it best when they said 'Oakley Design take this well-bred racehorse and effectively put it through finishing school'. The power of the car has been ramped up from 570bhp to 644bhp which, when combined with improved aerodynamics and a lower kerb weight, is now capable of an incredible 0-62mph time of 3.0 seconds. Yes, that's right - Three point ZERO seconds. That's three seconds dead. That's is exactly three seconds and no longer. Yes, I've stated the exact same thing a few times there but I just wanted to really hammer home how incredibly quick this car really is. The top speed is also increased to a massive 214mph and that is all before I've even mentioned the cornering. I have never been in any kind of road going car that can corner like the Oakley Designed Ferrari 458 Italia. It truly verges on being unbelievable.
As motoring enthusiast Esta stated herself:
"I have always been into cars, having been bought up by a Mercedes loving Dad and Jaguar loving Mum; being into cars is just in my blood and led me to take up a career at Jaguar Land Rover as an engineer. I'm so excited to get the chance to do this, I just can't wait! I've never been around Silverstone, and certainly didn't think that when the opportunity arose, it would be in a Ferrari 458!"
What could be better than a Ferrari experience like that at Silverstone I hear you cry? Well, the only thing that could be better than that is if we threw in a Radical Driving Experience on the same day. For those of you who haven't heard about Radical Sports Cars, their range of track cars are the fastest and most focused trackday cars available for your money. Evo Magazine voted the SR3 and SR4 as 'Trackday Car of the Year'. To put the speed of the Radical cars into perspective the SR8 road-going version went along to the Nurburgring and put in a lap time of 6:55 which smashed the previous lap record by more than 20 seconds. Performance Direct sponsor the Performance Direct Radical Clubman's Cup which provides affordable racing for Radical's range of 4 cylinder cars across eight of the UK's best loved racing circuits. Esta is certainly one lucky girl and we at Performance Direct hope that she has an absolutely fantastic day. I for one am slightly jealous!!
Performance Direct are not only here to provide you with some of the best insurance quotes available, but also love to give something back to loyal and dedicated motoring fans. Two more competitions (at time of publication of this blog) are currently being run on the Performance Direct website. You too could be as lucky as Esta, all you need do is click onto these links for your chance to Win a Lamborghini Aventador Driving Experience or to Win a Weekend with a Stunning E-Type Jaguar .
