I don’t think Ferraris are cars you simply like or admire, they seem to ignite something in your soul that means you will defend them to the hilt, allow subjectivity to lord it over objectivity and overlook all the obvious Italianisms. Which brings us to the 458 Italia. I haven’t seen one in all its carbon/aluminium fleshiness yet, let alone driven one. And yet… I’m not sure about it. I know it’s going to be brilliant (I obviously trust Harris’s judgement on that), but that’s half the problem. I preferred the gritty, battling Ferrari F1 team of the early ‘90s with Mansell, Berger and Alesi wringing the most from the V12 compared to the assured confidence of the Schumacher era.

I think my worries are encapsulated by the 458’s switch to a DSG gearbox. I liked the fact that Ferrari was swimming against the tide of cog-swapping opinion and persevering with the automated manual. The F1 SuperFast2 system in the Scuderia was mind-blowing but adding to the excitement was the almost palpable sense that it was slightly fragile and could go bang in a cloud of oil and mistimed gears.

Then there’s the switchgear on the 458 steering wheel. I mean someone’s actually thought about that instead of designing the whole car and then butchering the indicator stalks from a handy Punto and shoving them into the steering column moments before unveiling it to the public.

I want an Italian supercar to have a sense of seat-of-the-pants engineering. They shouldn’t be flawless and ‘useable everyday’… should they?