No need to be frightened of this supercar. It's like the most benign historic, just rather faster.

Ever wondered why our heroes can drift historic sports and racing cars so freely? How it is that they know just how hard to try? It's all about communication and progression. If you can feel exactly what a car is doing and what it's about to do, then you're confident with it and can get the best out of it. But too many modern cars have too much grip and tell you too little about that grip.

So here's the new Ferrari 599 HGTE, or Handling Gran Turismo Evoluzione. It's no faster than a normal 599 GTB and its tyres are no bigger, but it costs an extra £13,960.51 on top of the GTB's list price of £202,000. Or you can have the mechanical changes retro-fitted for slightly more, to allow for the fitting charges.

What you get are lighter three-piece wheels wearing stickier-compound tyres, lots of cabin carbonfibre, fewer slats in the front grille (or mesh instead, if you prefer), brushed-aluminium prancing horses and some different detail paint finishes. Much more important, though, are the stiffer springs, the 10mm-lower ride height, the thicker rear anti-roll bar, the extra negative camber for the front wheels and the firmer settings (when in the manettino's Sport, Race or everything-off mode) for the adaptive dampers with their magnetisable fluid.

There's also a new throttle map, giving a more linear response which now stays the same regardless of manettino settings, and the exhaust system has a deeper note. Carbon-ceramic brakes are standard. All the new settings were devised on Ferrari's computers, and the calibration of the F1-Trac stability and traction system is altered to suit.

Handily, Ferrari's Fiorano test track is wet and slippery for my first laps in the HGTE. It's the ideal way to test a car's communicative abilities and find if any evil lurks within. Engineer Matteo Lanzavecchia says there's less steering angle needed at the limit, there's 15 per cent less yaw at a given lateral acceleration and that the steering response time is 19 per cent quicker. He mentions many other numbers too, but they matter less than the fact that the HGTE is easy, measured and friendly in a way I hadn't quite expected.

With the manettino in Race mode, which means lots of freedom but an ultimate safety net, the Ferrari proves wonderfully precise and progressive, each input giving exactly the desired result. It's a car you can really feel on a wet track, transparent and predictable whether leaning hard on the tyres in a fast bend or powersliding around a hairpin.  I overcook the entry to the sharp right at the end of the main straight, but a hefty dose of corrective lock and a footful of power brings it back beautifully.

Out on the road the ride is firmer but not uncomfortable, and as the heavens open again the HGTE proves faithful, talkative and fabulously confidence-inspiring. No need to be frightened of this supercar. It's like the most benign historic, just rather faster.