SF90

WITH 1000 HORSEPOWER, FERRARI HAS UNLEASHED ITS FIRST EVER PLUG-IN HYBRID. WE DRIVE IT

- CHRIS CHILTON

THE FERRARI SF90 Stradale is a 1000-horsepower mid-engined supercar. So far, so good.

But it’s also a four-wheel drive plug-in hybrid. Is it a case of tech over talent? Thrashing it on road and track might help us answer that question…

But first, we need a name decode. Built on an all-new aluminium (with a carbon fibre rear bulkhead) chassis, the SF90 was first seen in 2019 and celebrates the 90th anniversary of Ferrari’s racing arm, Scuderia Ferrari. And even leaving the tech aside, it’s a new one for Ferrari. It doesn’t replace any current or historic cars – it’s not the new LaFerrari – but at $846,888 establishes a permanent mid-engine halo model above the front-engine V12 812 Superfast.

There aren’t many rivals at that price, except an Aventador… And while Lamborghini’s Aventador might have the fancy doors, a carbon chassis and V12, in comparison it looks distinctly low on tech – and performance.

It’s tempting to say the SF90 just uses an up-rated version of the F8 Tributo’s 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8, but you’d probably get slapped by one of the engineers. While the block is the basically the same – bored and stroked to slightly increase capacity from 3902cc to 3990cc, compression decreasing from 9.6 to 9.5:1 – pretty much everything else is different. Redesigned heads, different internals, new turbos, manifolds, everything. It’s also the first direct-injected Ferrari V8 ever, is 25kg lighter than the F8’s engine and mounted 50mm lower in the chassis. The exhaust is made from Inconel, like a Formula One car.