As promised, here's the 458 review, not done on the 'Ring though.
Ferrari 458 Italia review:
Before
Power: 576hp (approx.)
Weight: 1232kg
Tyres: Sports hard
PP: 580
Well, it’s a Ferrari, so what do you think it’ll be like? Pin sharp handling, huge speed, wonderfully balanced with a hint of pantomime, drama and a lot of hooning and tyre smoke keep you entertained. Couple this to the wide, open playground that is the Top Gear Test Track and you’d have something which should be driving heaven, only without the scenic views. But, sadly, the 458 rather falls short on some of the points listed above. For a start, it doesn’t go like you’d expect it to. 571hp in a car weighing 1232kg should be a recipe for time-warping performance in a straight line, but it just doesn’t feel that fast. And then there’s the cornering. On entry, the car feels fantastic, lively but controlled, compliant yet aggressive. But what happens afterwards is a wayward mix of understeer, oversteer and knife edged handling. Midway through the corners, it will push wide and on exit, it’ll snap around and try to catch you out with mental high-angle drifts. If it does catch you out, you’d be wrestling the car out of the grass constantly or be sent head first into the nearest wall or off the track. If you can control it though, it’ll hold a graceful drift while towing a wall of smoke out of the turn. But you’d normally be too scared to try that. Why? Well, this car has a tendency to twitch under braking, it’s quite unnerving sometimes but just terrifying at others. Another problem is that it attacks the redline with ruthless aggression in the first three gears. Which makes cornering at low speeds tricky because when it hits the redline, the rear tyres will give up gripping and you’ll start sliding. And chances are, when the backend kicks out, you’d crash. This car is easily the hardest car to control when it’s sideways if you aren’t prepared to be twitching the steering to guide it back in line. So, quite a tricky little b****** to drive then. And with a laptime of 1:19.814, it’s not that much faster than a 300hp honda S2000.
After
Power: 576hp(approx.)
Weight: 1232kg
Tyres: Sports Hards/Racing Softs
PP:587
Hmmm…what should I talk about first? The smoother handling? The fact that the car is easier to push to the limits? Hmmm…Ok, simply put, this is the car it always should have been (if we can forgo the wings and lips and sticky out bits it’ll be even better, looks a bit too excessive, I think). The steering is just as sharp, the car is just as exciting, but behind the tyre destruction, the beautiful looks (better without a wing, as I say again, but it’s still a looker with it), and the lightening responses, is a car that gets close to being perfect. It isn’t though. The brakes are still a little edgy, brake too hard and give the steering a nudge, it’ll start getting wayward. The tyres don’t feel connected to the road on slow corners, it feels like it’s on ice. But once you look at the fastest lap, you’d forgive it for these faults. It did a scarcely believable laptime, on the wrong tyres, of 1:15.590. 4 seconds faster! If that time alone isn’t enough to show the improvements, let me put it this way. A Ruf RGT tuned by one of the most respected and renowned tuners on GTPlanet (Rotary Junkie) with 531hp and 1170kg in my hands can lap this place 1:14.2xx, and that car had was on sports softs and weighed less than this did. Now imagine what type of times it’ll do on Racing Softs. Actually don’t, I’ll just tell you. It did a lap a very controlled and undramatic lap of 1:07.385, 12 seconds faster than stock. In fact, I’m willing to bet if you took the tyres down to sports softs, it’ll be around 5-7 seconds faster than stock and will easily run rings around the RGT. This car goes through a character change when the tyres are swapped. It felt a bit tricky on sports hards, even with the wing, downforce felt minimal. But slap on a set of racing softs, and suddenly it becomes more dignified, less oversteery, less of a prancing stallion, more of a fire-breathing race car. Which means it has lost some of its Ferrari blood, but you really won’t care when the engine is charging up towards the 9000RPM redline and a corner is coming up. The Italia has become complete, if you like. A bit of Ferrari blood to keep you entertained, and a bit of race car DNA to remind you what it’s for. Perfect.
You know, I had my doubts when I saw that racing tyres were needed. Not because it’s an expensive way of getting more grip, not because it was always going to be overkill, but because it would mask the car’s bad points and dull out the good points and replace it with sheer grip. And this is definitely the case here. The car’s good areas, the fun, the slight sense of danger and the bit of waywardness, all of it was taken away once the slicks went on. Now that might make the laptimes faster, but the driving experience is somewhat diluted now. Still, that’s enough whinging and nagging, because this is still a great car. Flawed, but perfect.
Laptimes: (Tested on TGTT)
1:19.814 (before)
1:15.590(after, sports hard)
1:07.385(after, racing soft)
), albeit not as noticable. It is alot easier to put the power down upon exiting a corner though, so it holds the road a bit better. The transmission settings seem to have helped alot with this, and the LSD appears to fit the tune nicely. 
