I hadn’t heard the voice in my head for
many years, but it returned the instant my hands touched the wheel of the
Ferrari LaFerrari. It was a familiar, repeating whisper: “Just don’t crash it,
Chris. Just don’t crash it.”
Curiously, the Voice didn’t appear when I
drove the Porsche 918. And its absence was very much appreciated when I was
lucky enough to slither a McLaren P1 around Yas Marina. So is LaF a bigger deal
than the other two hybrid hypercars because it has a bigger spec-sheet Speedo
bulge? Or, more likely, is it just that I’m in something very red and very
expensive at Fiorano—and something hidden behind the implacable Italian
sunglasses of my observers says that they’re waiting for me to bin it?
On balance, probably both of the above.
The
McLaren P1 is enjoyable and controllable, even when pushed
This is the year of the hybrid hypercar.
With dual power sources have come point-and-laugh power figures and
million-dollar price tags. The accusation has been made that each of these cars
only incorporates electricity to allow its parent company to place a greener
foot forward, and there’s some truth to that. Yet all three are faster because
of their complicated powertrains, not in spite of them.
And why are we stuck in a 10-year rotation?
I have no idea, but I can state that in 2004, when Porsche’s Carrera GT and
Ferrari’s Enzo were rocking carbon tubs and big atmospheric motors, it didn’t
matter that McLaren wasn’t even producing a new supercar. The brand’s epochal
F1, then a decade old, was still just as quick as its newer rivals.
By the time I hit Fiorano, we’d been
driving the LaFerrari on the street for a few hours, so I was already familiar
with it. When I say “familiar,” I mean I have an idea of how wide it is, how
the controls work, how surprisingly supple the ride is, and how much throttle
can be used before a sense of social unease seeps in.
The
LaFerrari is very possibly the world’s fastest, most exciting hypercar
But I have never scratched the surface of a
car’s potential more lightly than while driving LaF on Italian roads. Narrow,
jagged pavement, soporific tractor drivers, million-plus sticker: no thanks. We
pulled a couple of slides, took pretty pictures, gave it to another hack as per
the instructions, and bagged a terrifying ride back to fortress Fiorano in a
Lancia people carrier. That’s what brought me here, to coffee with a
restorative bang beyond any Class A drug; to passenger laps with supremely
talented test driver Raffaele De Simone; to sitting in the fixed seat of the
La- Ferrari. To the Voice, and my thumb on that juicy red button labeled
“Engine Start.”
This will be the fifth time I’ve pushed it,
but my grin’s intensity isn’t diminished as the funky LCD dash blinks and the
790-hp V-12 fires with a demented shriek. It’s amplified within the covered
pit-box area to the point that, for a split second, the sound registers as
pain. You sit low in the car, propped up by heavy padding bolted straight into
a carbon tub that is stronger than the Enzo’s in every way. The pedals move
backward and forward on a sprung lever, and the wheel has the usual adjustment,
plus more telescopic movement to allow for the fixed seating position.
The
Porsche 918 is the most technologically advanced and complex sports car that
Porsche has ever released
Why fixed? According to head of vehicle
concept Franco Cimatti, to avoid seat and frame flex that can contaminate the
driver-machine interface. I think that gives you an indication of the level of
obsession that has been vested in this machine. Owners will have the seat
padding fitted to them, naturally.
