Here’s Chris Harris’ take on the rocket-disguised-as-a-road-car Ferrari SF90 Stradale. With nearly 1,000bhp, born from a twin-turbo V8 and three electric motors, it’s marking a new generation for Ferrari. But does Chris like it?
Now chris you may not remember this but about a year and a bit ago you had driven the 488 pista for the show we’re talking about that doing a video we also mentioned this car just been unveiled and you weren’t that keen on it i think to be more specific you weren’t that keen on the direction modern supercars were going in more weight more power i think you called
It a rabbit hole of performance that we were going down um now you’ve driven this car have you warmed up to it a bit no i’m not warmed up to the recipe anymore yeah i feel entirely vindicated in what i said but the things undeniably impressive you know you get in these things with your bucket of cynicism and they the ferraris tend to do a good job of um of
Expelling that quite quickly it’s it’s a vehicle that you you find yourself admiring more than lusting after when you drive it because it it trades in speed and if you can only trade in speed you’re just trading in applying forces to the body of the driver that’s really it yeah but if you if you start to break it down in the way it feels the steering’s quite
Clever the electric steering is starting to get a bit of feel through that but the rest of the thing it’s almost so fast you don’t have time to to get on and understand what’s going on i think you tweeted uh on set when you’re driving this they just fried your brain oh it’s outrageous yeah so we filmed it at vallalunga and it was sensational we had the normal
Stradali version this is the asceto fiorano isn’t it this is the this is the got more aero carbon wheels different suspension and this is just thrashed as you’ll now know the lap time here by 1.4 seconds which is it’s a silly margin it’s a silly margin expect stuff to go two or three tenths quicker that’s a wow that’s fast but well over a second is just stupid
And it’s all about it’s all about how the electric works with the v8 engine right and the way you know there’s a bit of a story as we say at the end of the film about how the one they gave me to drive wasn’t quite right we predicated the entire film on that and then when i finished driving it and we finished doing the film they rolled out another one i wouldn’t
Try this one you might like it more and i was like how are you doing sure you buy an i think there’s a setup argument going on around just how much can people handle and therefore they put it understeer into the into the one i drove which did spoil it slightly but the fundamental concern i have is this you’ve got a hybrid powertrain that’s got an electric front
Motor bit of electricity at the back and you’ve got um your ic at the back yeah okay this then means that the packaging the front is so critical there’s no room for a boot so you can’t put a bag in it really which is an issue because then it sees as being a car yeah it’s a it’s just a toy it probably fares quite well as a gt if you wanted to it would do if you
Could fit stuff in it yeah okay so the other problem is that the complications around the chassis mean that i think it would be it would be a more fun car to drive it was rear-wheel drive so that points to one thing why can’t you have a hybrid ferrari berlinetta mid engine with everything at the back so you don’t have the front axle power because you don’t care
About that and you get a boot as well yeah that’s what i’d like so but you know maybe they’ll make that i don’t know but at the moment well rumors suggest that a car this is you know paving the way for a more junior hybrid ferrari that will sort of replace the f8 etcetera as we go along maybe you’ll get the other way it’s quicker than a ferrari yeah and it’s a
Third of the money well that’s what i was going to come on to is it yeah third third well la ferraris are going for probably two million quid these they’re gonna soften though aren’t they yeah okay it’s all gonna soften chris it doesn’t feel anything like a special la ferrari look at it it looks like a normal car there’s a la ferrari with the recorder last night
You see it and you go you expect batman to get out of a laferrari you expect me to get out of there so so the way it looks then you think bit bit sober well i’m not really one to pass on aesthetics am i it’s it’s really growing on me yeah from the rear i like it more and more i do think the upturn spoiler of this version helps yeah it looks like it was styled
By a computer rather than some italian bloke who was puffing on a with a pencil another flick here another flick lacking a bit of emotion i’ll tell you what i do like though you go around the back look in the engine bay the engine is fully scraping along yeah but scraping on the ground well isn’t yeah yeah you can barely see it i love it so so look it’s mighty
Impressive yeah the day i’ve drove the sf90 i came back to the uk and my car was being serviced and the dealer happens to have a ferrari franchise and they lent me an f8 tributeo yeah and i was staggered at how good that felt after this it felt nearly as fast it was two-wheel drive it’s more playful so i’m not convinced that this is the route they should be going
Down but is their new technology package let’s see what they do with it yeah and the other thing is has ferrari got a bit of a problem on his hand because it’s been churning out the new cars of late um this this year sf90 the f8 the roma um they’ve got an suv coming it’s going to come back to bite them it’s going to come back to bite them yeah because there’s
Just so many models i i can’t keep up there’s all these new ones coming out i’m thinking well i’m i haven’t driven i’m driving a portofino briefly i’ve only just driven an f8 tribute have you ever gone to roma no there’s a new ferrari haven’t driven chris and that looks like an aston martin to me that does so i i’m they’re slightly losing their identity let’s
See what happens the one thing they have proved over time is they know their business better than we do so i’m sure they’re going to pull something out the bag but right now what i want is 500 horsepower 950 kilograms a manual gearbox and maybe a little bit of electricity to get me through town quietly and start up quietly in front of my neighbours give me that
That’s the car i want with the ferrari badge on the night absolutely yeah you had it here first
Transcribed from video
Chris Harris on… the Ferrari SF90 Stradale | Top Gear By Top Gear
