It’s hard to imagine just how many g-forces drivers of this
new Stradale will be dealing with as it uses more than 25 new
control systems to manage all the power and torque (up to
900Nm of it) being provided by a completely new, 4.0-litre
turbocharged V8 engine, good for 574kW on its own, and
three electric motors – two on the front axle and another
between the gearbox and the engine, which throw down
another 162kW in total.
That gearbox is also all new, with eight gears instead of
seven, and shift times dropped by 30 per cent, from 300
milliseconds down to just 200. The blink of an eye, in case
you’re wondering, takes 300 milliseconds.
Select “Qualifying” mode, and you’ll get the full force of
all of this power, and unless you’re an actual F1 driver, it will
probably terrify you. Ferrari insists, however, that its new
all-wheel-drive system, the first time it has been forced to
use 4WD in a performance car, just to get all of its grunt to
the ground, will make it easy, and thrilling, to drive fast.
The company even tested the car on ice, in the Nordic
north, for several months, just to make sure it was drivable
in all conditions.
While a plug-in hybrid might seem a strange choice for
a company so famously associated with operatic engine
noise, Ferrari believes its customers will appreciate, and
regularly use, the EV technology, mainly so they can sneak
out of the house quietly in the mornings without waking
anyone, apparently.
THE POWER AND TORQUE
OF THE FASTEST FERRARI
The engineers also insist that what they call the “Ferrari music”
coming from the engine is undiminished, and indeed they’ve
come up with a new way of getting the sound of the V8
directly into the cabin, to make it more instantly intoxicating
than ever.
There are plenty more innovations introduced on this
incredible tour de force of a car, including a new multilateral
space frame containing carbon fibre in the actual structure for
the first time, to both reduce weight and increase torsional
rigidity, and Ferrari had to admit that if it told us all of them,
it would take all day.
All you need to know is that the SF90 Stradale is not just
the fastest and most advanced car Ferrari has ever made –
beating its own previous hyper cars in both speeds and lap
times – it is possibly the fastest and greatest car that anyone
has ever made. Period.SAME “FERRARI MUSIC”
Ferrari SF90 Stradale Assetto Fiorano
Ferrari CEO Louis Camilleri
at the reveal party of the
Ferrari SF90 Stradale194 | theceomagazine.com
INDULGE | Ferrari reveal