To engage manual mode from the start, depress the clutch before pressing the start button. An orange icon of a shifter gate appears in the instrument pack and the gate pattern on the top of the ball shifter also glows orange. Select first gear – sherr-clack! – find the clutch bite point, raise the revs a fraction and we’re away. I’d prefer slightly more weight to the clutch but right now, trundling around the feeder roads at the Balocco test track in Italy, it feels like I’m driving a real manual.
Things soon get more demanding. Next I’m chasing another 12 Cilindri driven by a Ferrari test driver, trying to learn a track that is in places both very slow and very fast, and get my heel and toe downshifts nailed too. I don’t manage the latter too well at times, which reveals that there’s quite a lot of leeway built into the system, smoothing shifts and ensuring the rear wheels don’t lock up with engine braking on the overrun. It’s very tolerant of ham-fisted shifts.
In the standard car with its wheel-mounted paddles, I’d be effortlessly in the right gear everywhere, but a manual requires more planning, getting the shifts in before turning. Occasionally, I’m in a higher gear than ideal but our drive reveals what a wonderfully flexible and refined engine the 819bhp, 6.5-litre V12 is, as well as being searingly potent at 9000rpm. It pulls strong and clean from hardly any revs, which is a joy. Fast laps done, mooching around, lazily snicking the lever around the gate, I find myself using the V12 in ways you might never find in the regular car, which feels like the major plus of the Manuale.
