Ferrari SF90 Assetto Fiorano review: A prime asset to own

Fiorano Modenese, Italy

I WAS insanely jealous of William Shatner last week when he blasted into space aboard a Blue Horizon rocket and, what's more, made it back. But eat your heart out, Captain Kirk, because I've gone one better and strapped myself into the Ferrari SF90 Stradale Assetto Fiorano for a few hot laps of the track it was named after.

The Assetto Fiorano is a hardcore version of the SF90 Stradale, Ferrari's flagship. That's saying something; the SF90 is not only the most powerful car ever to come with a prancing horse logo, but also the most expensive one today.

I'll say right now that at full power, the acceleration of this thing makes your head buzz like you've just injected an espresso straight into your brainstem. The high lasts for hours.

At the heart of the SF90 is a hybrid petrol-electric system that conjures up 1,000 horsepower, an almighty figure that means it can rocket to 200 kmh in a breathtaking 6.7 seconds.

That's the part that grabs headlines. The wider story here is that the SF90 could be the Ferrari to end all Ferraris, at least as we know them. It feels like a reboot of the brand in some ways. It has three electric motors. It's sometimes front wheel-drive. It can roll along in silence for 25 km as an electric vehicle. It has a charging port.

And here's where the purists need to look away: instead of a 12-cylinder engine it has a V8, a first for a Ferrari flagship, and a move that highlights how battery propulsion is starting to displace the type of engine that Enzo Ferrari dedicated his life to building.

Parts from the SF90 have already made it into Ferrari's latest car, the 296 GTB, which is also a hybrid that does without a few cylinders, trading V8 power for a V6.

Yet, viewed from the outside, the SF90 presents little to suggest all this upheaval under its skin, especially since it's very much in the mould of the modern Ferrari. It looks delicate and low, with clean lines that suggest a slipperiness through the air.

Flavio Manzoni, the man in charge of design at Ferrari, is allergic to huge wings and unnecessary air intakes, and jokes that he is in constant tension with the aerodynamics department about whether their winglets or vents are allowed to sully his cars. "The relationship between design and aerodynamics is like a marriage," he says.

His desire to keep things clean does produce novel results, however. The aero guys found room for vortex generators beneath the car by raising the floor under the driver's feet 15 mm. Other cars use pop-up wings, but the SF90 has an element that pops down instead, to stall the airflow when needed. Things like these result in 390 kg of stabilising force pressing the car to the road at 250 kmh, yet leave the Ferrari's lines smooth. "Sometimes we, let's say, cross-contaminate each other, but in a positive way," Manzoni jokes about his aero colleagues.

Mind you, the design chief doesn't always get his way. Two tiny slits behind each rear wheel bleed hot air from the engine bay. He considers them a blemish, but the aero department says they were absolutely necessary.

The steeply flicked-up tail wing of the Assetto Fiorano is also there by necessity. It's the most obvious of the go-faster bits on the car. The basic SF90 has horsepower coming out of its ears, but Ferrari wanted a sharper version for drivers who enjoy the odd day at the track, so engineers set to work tuning it for Fiorano, the private circuit so many legendary cars and drivers have passed through on the road to greatness.

Instead of active suspension, the Assetto Fiorano has a fixed setup that uses lightweight titanium springs, and the cabin is largely stripped of noise insulation. The result is a more well planted car that's lighter by 40 kg, but a more uncomfortable one. "If you want to go on a bumpy road, the base model is better than this. You can push a button and put the suspension in a softer position, but here you cannot," says Matteo Turcini, the product marketing manager for the car.

He says he takes pains to explain to customers that a track-focused machine isn't the right SF90 for popping down to the shops in, but many end up seduced by the idea of buying the best of the best, or by the two-tone livery that gives the front end a hammerhead look, specific to the Assetto Fiorano.

Turcini admits to being surprised that half of SF90 sales around the world include the S$200,000 Assetto Fiorano pack, far more than Ferrari projected.

Yet, I defy anyone to resist the allure of the carbon-fibre interior or the racing seats with four-point harnesses.

The SF90 might be unashamedly digital inside, with a touch-sensitive panel replacing even the scarlet Start button that made firing up a Ferrari such a tactile experience, and a massive display in place of a dancing rev counter, but it's still the association with Ferrari's long racing history that gives the car its appeal - indeed, the SF90 tag alludes to 90 years of Scuderia Ferrari, the racing division's formal name.

Hence the driving mode marked "Qualifying", which is what you engage to unleash the maximum power from the motors and engine. To be sure, there are other modes that juggle the petrol-electric mix in different ways, and even a pure electric setting more to appease your sleeping neighbours than to save the planet, but no one buys a car with 1,000 horses without wanting to use all of them.

Even so, the first time I felt the SF90 unleash its full acceleration, I freely admit it made me scream a little. Ferraris tend to leave the box fast and then get seriously quick as the revs climb, but the SF90 starts out ballistic and then gets violent as the V8 and motors do their thing.

But after a corner or two it becomes apparent that the SF90, at least in Assetto Fiorano trim, works magic to keep the driver on the track. It responds rapidly when you turn the wheel, and once settling on its springs, it's not possible to unstick, instead tracing your chosen line through a corner reliably. That leaves you free to dive from one bend to another, and simply savour the other-worldly performance whenever a bit of straighter tarmac gives you a chance to let fly.

As it turns out, the hybrid system isn't just there to propel the Ferrari like Samson. The two electric motors that power the front wheels do so independently, so they can coordinate their output to aid the driver, making the car turn more sharply, or help it resist sliding unceremoniously towards the outside of a bend.

The rear motor helps give the thunderous V8 instant kick when it isn't working as a generator to keep the 7.9 kWh lithium-ion battery pack energised, and getting everything to play nicely together is the result of serious computing power. The SF90 has at least 60 computers crunching numbers in the background, including one for that pop-down rear wing. It is, in short, a fiendishly complicated car. The magic is that driving it is anything but.

There's a steep price for the experience, because the base price is just over S$2 million, and who knows what the final tally will be when you're done with the extensive options list (or rather, when it's done with you).

But between this and a US$28 million ride into space, I know which I'd rather have. The SF90 is Ferrari's magnum opus and does feel like it, harnessing the collective might of the brand's powertrain, aero, suspension, styling and even computing departments to marvellous effect.

It's also a message to purists that they needn't fear the age of electrification. If nothing else, the accessibility of the car's performance means there's certainly no need to fear the SF90 Assetto Fiorano itself.

Ferrari SF90 Stradale Assetto Fiorano

Engine 3,990cc, V8, turbocharged Power 780 hp at 7,500 rpm Torque 800 Nm at 6,000 rpm Gearbox 8-speed automatic Electric Motors 220 hp Battery Type / Capacity Lithium ion / 7.9 kWh Charging Time / Type 1.5 hours (estimated) / AC 11.4 kW Electric Range 25 km System Power 1,000 hp Top Speed 340 km/h 0-100 km/h 2.5 seconds Fuel Efficiency 7.4 L/100 km Agent Ital Auto Pte Ltd Price S$2,018,000 without COE Available Now