The Ferrari 812 Competizione makes you feel things Elon Musk can't
The Ferrari 812 Competizione makes you feel things Elon Musk can't The Italian marque's latest supercar provides as much high-tech fizz as you can handle, with design intricacies that feel like classic Ferrari Jason Barlow The car world tends to fixate on acceleration. How quickly something can get to 60mph is a well-worn metric, and it's one even the likes of Elon Musk can't resist (although we all know he has his, erm, playful side). Look online for the latest version of Tesla's big saloon, the Model S Plaid, and you won't find much about its ingenious software integration or zero emissions at the tail-pipe. No, the internet loves the fact that it can warp to 60mph in 1.98 seconds. Sure, the track surface, weather and tyres all need to be bang-on but even so… 1.98 seconds. That's rad, as the Teslerati probably don't say.
But here's the bit no one ever admits to: try doing that after a reasonable breakfast and you'll be forking out for a new interior. The truth is, anything under three seconds is actually physically unpleasant, whether you're in a tri-motor, all-singing and dancing new EV or regular, fossil-fuelled supercar. Unpleasant and pointless, once you've proven it can done.
As it happens, the new Ferrari 812 Competizione can dispatch 62mph (100km/h) in 2.85 seconds, which puts it in the top tier of supercars, but this is possibly one of the least interesting things about this phenomenal car. Because more than ever it's not what the Ferrari does but how it goes about it that really bakes your noodle. If Musk is all about enflaming social media, Ferrari's spiritual home is La Scala.
Now, I'm not rubbishing Elon's work here, or the ability of the best electric cars to summon up all their vast torque from zero and then peel tarmac like they're opening a beer. It's a cool party trick and a reminder that the world we're rapidly heading into isn't one of eternal ecological self-flagellation. But the moment you point the 812 Competizione onto Ferrari's famous Fiorano test track and gently squeeze the throttle pedal is a reminder that a high performance car is about so much more than, well, high performance. It's about noise and sensation, the creation of what my old friend James May memorably refers to as the 'fizz'. And as the 812 Competizione is part of the mighty front-engined Ferrari V12 bloodline, the fizz here is fizzier than a truck-load of Perrier that's been up-ended over the M25.
Don't be distracted by the fact that it's based on the 812 Superfast. As is often the way in Maranello, these limited series cars are conduits to the next phase in the company's grand engineering plan rather than gussied-up versions of the existing car. The Comp is also part of the lineage that gave us 2010's 599 GTO and 2015's F12tdf, two of the most majestic Ferraris of recent years. And two cars whose dynamics were as edgy and uncompromising as any Ferrari in its 74-year history.
Really it's all about the engine, a magnificent 6.5-litre V12 that's been subjected to a major makeover. The pistons have been redesigned, there are lighter titanium con-rods, a material called DLC (diamond-like carbon) has been applied to the piston pins to reduce friction, and the crankshaft has been rebalanced. The 812 Competizione uses sliding steel finger followers on its valve springs to improve gas flow and combustion, a technique used on the most powerful superbikes that's partly responsible for their razor-sharp throttle response (now times that by 12). There are also variable geometry inlet tracts on the intake to maximise the might of the explosions going on in the combustion chamber. This is all nerdy technical stuff but also deeply magical. The result is an engine that now delivers 819bhp (up from a mere 789) and revs to a red line of 9,500rpm. A few years ago numbers like this would have been impossible.
Then there's the aero story. It helps to have a Formula One team across the road, and the result is a bewildering array of ducts, turning vanes, and apertures. Very few bits of the 812's body are left intact; check out the bonnet blade that runs the full width of the front end and feeds cooling air to the engine. Evacuating the hot air that comes off the radiator requires vents either side of the bonnet blade, as well as louvres in the wings. There's enhanced cooling for the uprated brakes via 'aero' calipers which integrates an intake into the wheel's casting. Ferrari says the Competizione has 30 per cent more downforce at the front than the Superfast, aided by a load of underbody aero sculpting. There's an extra-clever 'blown' diffuser that runs right across the back of the car, and the rear glass has been replaced by what Ferrari calls vortex generators to 'redistribute the rear axle's pressure field'. It's completely closed, the first time anyone has attempted this on a production car. A little shark's fin camera relays the view to a traditional rear-view camera. After all, most things will end up behind you.
Lots of clever people with planet-sized brains have worked hard to create a car stable enough to cope with – and harness – the physical forces that can make life tricky the faster you go. But it also looks fantastic: Ferrari's Chief Design Officer Flavio Manzoni and his team in Centro Stile are very good at ensuring that the scientific demands of extreme aero are just as effective aesthetically. Manzoni loves the late Sixties endurance racing Ferrari 330 P3/4 and the Competizione's reworked rear end clearly references that epochal car.
The science continues elsewhere. The 812 Comp has independent rear-wheel steering, as did its F12tdf predecessor, but a new electronic management system means that the wheels' angle can now be adjusted individually. This virtually lengthens the wheelbase in higher speed corners for greater stability, and reduces it in slower ones for more agility. Ferrari is also up to v7.0 of its 'side slip control' software which unites the electronic differential, traction control, magnetic dampers and the brake pressure control system so that the car can be taken right up to and indeed over the limit in Race and CT-Off mode without throwing you into the scenery.
And it works. Ever since 2008's 430 Scuderia, Ferrari has been blending the hard- and software with increasingly polished results. Purists used to bemoan the interference of electronics, but we're at a point now where keeping a 6.5-litre, 819bhp V12 Ferrari on the island would be impossible without some serious algorithmic voodoo. The 812 Competizione is a big car but it dives into Fiorano's slower corners and powers out of them with a delicacy and finesse that takes some getting used to. With all the systems on you can feel the tyres – bespoke Michelin Cup 2R track rubber – squirm as they deal with the sheer force of all that power. It feels great but constrained, because it is. Go to 'CT-Off' mode and the Comp will slide deliriously, a million software minions measuring the key parameters and letting you hang it all out there if you know what you're doing, reining you safely in should you start running out of talent. Or luck. It's a stunning, mesmeric achievement, and much less of a handful than the 599 GTO or F12tdf. Those big tyres need a lot of heat to do their best work, though.
Shift times on the seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox have been reduced, and the V12 gathers momentum with relentless vigour – in a way that, I'm afraid, makes even the most powerful electric car feel a bit… inauthentic. Ferrari's first car was a normally aspirated V12, and all these years later it still feels like the configuration that's most spiritually correct. (We'll overlook the emissions; no-one drives these cars all that often. Although if you do take it to a track day, the tyres won't last long.)
The 812 Competizione is another Ferrari that boggles the mind with the intensity, intelligence and inspiration of the elements that have allowed it to evolve. It's also further proof that making cars with the Prancing Horse badge is good work if you can get it: the Competizione and open-roof Competizione A – prettier than the coupe – cost £430,000 and £499,000 respectively, but all 999 of the former and 599 of the latter were sold before the car was even confirmed. Indeed, so fervent is the top-end Ferrari collecting firmament that many will have ordered both…
GQ thinks this is likely to be money well spent: limited series Ferraris traditionally appreciate in the short to medium term, and rarely dip much below what they cost new in the longer term. Not exactly free motoring, but you get the drift. And much, much more exciting than Bitcoin.
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