“I ALMOST SOILED MY PANTS THE
FIRST TIME I LAUNCHED THE 812. MY
HEART RATE SHOT OFF THE CHART
WITH MY LIMBS VISIBLY SHAKY”
034 JULY 2019 →TOPGEAR.COM
thousand write-ups to prepare myself for this one, but none
could have prepped me for the emotions I was about to go
through as I walked up to her. So what if the 812 is a heavily
revised version of the F 12 , it still looks absolutely stunning in
the flesh. The insides too spell luxury rather than sporty and
I’m not in a position to find faults, just yet. What I’m really
excited about is to have a crack at the reworked engine, so
I push the Start/Stop button twice and the monstrous V 12
motor wakes up with a loud roar, announcing its presence
before settling down into a deep growl. Mind you, it’s a Ferrari
V 12 , a free-revving naturally-aspirated motor in a new
6. 5 -litre guise, that loves to visit its 8900 rpm redline every
time you bury that right pedal into the floor, and doesn’t like
keeping its voice down either. It’s sure to rekindle the inner
child in you.
So distracted was I with the gig at the rear that
I completely missed getting acquainted with theunconventional turn indicators, paddle shifters and the
several other knobs and switches around the steering wheel.
But what the heck, I would try them out on my long and
tedious journey to the famed mountain road where I plan to
unleash the wrath of the 788 horses lurking under its long
hood. Before I get onto demolishing those PZeros around the
twisty mountain road, there’s something I must confess. The
route E 311 that connects the city of Dubai to Ras al-Khaimah
is a 125 kilometre long, thinly populated highway, and driving
a 788 bhp Ferrari on a deserted highway at 110 kph for almost
90 minutes is no fun.
However, once I got off the E 311 and turned right into the
sleepy village at the foothills of Jebel Jais, my involvement
with the SF amplified. While ‘Sport’ is the most tame drive
mode available here, and quite aptly so, there’s a ‘bumpy road’
setting for the suspension that does a better job at absorbing
road irregularities. While I wasn’t expecting the 812 to