Here's a Video of the Ferrari 488 Mule With KERS

Lately, Ferrari has been stuck behind the affordable supercar curve. McLaren, meanwhile, made the firm push for downsized twin-turbo engines, which the 488 also has. But if you want a more affordable version of the technology in the Porsche 918 Spyder, there's only one choice: the Acura NSX.

So while Lamborghini is busy turning its business into making SUVs, Maranello is finally introducing Formula 1 technology into its mid-engined road car.

For those of you who don't know, KERS stands for Kinetic Energy Recovery System. The laws of physics dictate that you turn one thing into another. When your want to stop or slow down, brakes convert kinetic energy (that's movement) into heat... lots of it. Nowadays, plenty of cars have brake energy recovery, which captures some of the waste and turns it into electricity for the stereo, air conditioning or engine management system.

But when you say "KERS" it automatically implies dumping all the electricity to make the car much faster. And yeah, the 670 horsepower Ferrari 488 GTB apparently needed to be even faster.

Installing KERS likely implies that one or two motors have been installed at the front of the car. Two would be preferable because it would give it torque vectoring.

So why do people think that it's got hybrid power? Well, YouTuber Marchettino spotted a similar 488 mule at the Ferrari track. One of the technicians apparently told the other to make sure the KERS was off when he moved the car. Furthermore, Sergio Marchionne hinted that all Ferraris would have some sort of hybrid tech by 2019.

Of course, there's also the possibility of a much simpler mild hybrid setup or that this is a chassis testing mule for the so-called Dino successor, a cheaper mid-engined sportscar.