Ferrari makes some of the highest-performance cars on the road today, and while the obvious choice for a competitive drag race with one of its models would be another car, Driven Media had a different idea as they drag raced a 488 Pista against a superkart.
The Ferrari is powered by a 3.9-liter twin-turbo V8 making 710 hp (720 PS / 530 kW), while the superkart’s 250cc 2-stroke engine makes 85 hp (86 PS / 63 kW). That being said, the 488 weighs nearly eight times as much as the kart, with the former tipping the scales at 3,054 lb (1,385 kg) and the latter at just 397 lb (180 kg).
See Also: The Ferrari 488 Pista Is A Thoroughbred That’s Less Demanding To Drive Than You’d Expect
Surprisingly, the kart managed to get the jump on the Ferrari at the start of the drag race, but the Italian supercar quickly made up ground. It continued ahead of the kart for the rest of the race, but not by much, finishing the quarter mile just 0.8 seconds quicker. The rolling quarter mile was even closer, with the kart finishing less than a car’s length behind. The fact that a sub-£8,000 kart can keep up with a £350,000 supercar just goes to show how important power-to-weight ratios are, even if the Ferrari’s is slightly better.
Unsurprisingly, the kart won in the braking test when it had full traction. There were two other runs where it locked up, but even in those it only stopped a few feet after the Ferrari. In the moose test, even on slicks in the wet, the kart was able to best the 488, even completing it 15 mph (24 km/h) faster than the Ferrari’s max. To watch the full comparison for yourself, you can check out the following video.