And this is what a supercar should sound like!
No miserable V8s, or puny little turbochargers.
That is Ferrari's Greatest Hit!
The sound of 12 cylinders properly arranged in a V.
Molte grazie!
And then there's the price.
LaFerrari has the other two licked there, as well.
The Porsche 918, £646,000.
The McLaren V1, £866,000.
The LaFerrari?
A million pounds!
That's a proper price! No mucking about!
And there's more.
Pinky and Perky have been at great pains to explain
just how clever the McLaren and the Porsche are.
Well, this is also very clever.
It's built from not one, but four different types of carbon fibre
to keep it as light as possible.
In fact, it's lighter than the Porsche or the McLaren.
The driver's seat is fixed
and instead, it's the wheel and pedals that move.
This means you don't need a seat mechanism,
which means the driver can sit lower,
the roof can be lower and that drops the centre of gravity...
to the benefit of cornering.
Then, we come to the engine.
Like the McLaren and the Porsche, LaFerrari is a hybrid.
It has a petrol engine and an electric motor to drive the wheels.
But whereas the other two can be driven on electric power alone,
like a Toyota Prius, the Ferrari can't, because, Ferrari say:
"We are not interested in electric cars."
Instead, the battery and electric motor combination
works a bit like the kinetic energy recovery system in an F1 car.
In very simple terms, it captures energy that's normally wasted,
during braking, for example, and keeps it for when you need it.
The electric motor, the petrol engine, they're all working together,
all of the time.
You cannot separate them.
This is simply a 950 horsepower supercar.
But, despite the racing technology,
you don't find yourself in a world of austere track-car misery.
You've got the sat nav, the air conditioning.
It's perfectly comfortable.
Actually, it's very civilised.
However, this is also supposed to be the fastest
and most exciting road car Ferrari has ever made.
And to find out how exciting, we must come here...
Ferrari's Fiorano test track.
To Prancing Horse fans, this is the sacred tarmac
where the company's greatest F1 cars were born.
But when I rolled up, sacred wasn't the word that came to mind.
Oh, cock!
After two hours of dithering on the start line...
Pedals a little bit further away.
No, that's too far away. Hang on.
...the track was finally dry enough for me to have a go.
Red, red, red...
God's holy trousers!
Strewth! I'm already at the first bend.
Lots of brakes.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is 950 horsepower for you!
And while we're at it...
950 horsepower is a slam-dunk top trump over the other two.
And so is the top speed, 218 miles per hour.
But it's not just the amount of horsepower that's impressive.
It's the way it's served up.
Even if you're a bit clumsy, or a bit timid,
as I am being on this one, you've still got that enormous grunt.
It just hits you like a runaway train.
That's the KERS system working. That's exactly what it's for.
On top of that, Ferrari has remembered that not everyone who'll drive this car
will be called Sebastian or Vettel.
Because LaFerrari will go quite a lot faster than you can think,
Ferrari do quite a lot of thinking for you.
It has for example a very, very sophisticated traction control system
based on Formula 1 tech and you can leave it turned on.
Why not?
Stops you crashing.
LaFerrari also bristles with active aerodynamics.
That's not new on a supercar,
but this system is controlled by 21 computers...
which means, according to the Ferrari eggheads,
even I should be able to take Fiorano's notorious Turn 7...
flat out.
Active aerodynamics, here we go.
Don't bottle it. Don't bottle it!
It works! Look at that!
The faster you go, the better it works!
I mean, like Jennifer's McLaren, it is pure rear-wheel drive
and that's quite intimidating, but it's not a widow maker.
Oh, my God!
Oh, yes!
Wahey! Sorry!
Right, let's just slow this down a bit.
Richard Hammond, he says the Porsche 918,
that's the one that takes the hybrid supercar the furthest.
It's the most responsible, if you like.
Jeremy likes the P1 because he says
it takes an idea that was essentially an environmental one
and uses it to make the supercar more dramatic.
In this respect, the Ferrari is more like the McLaren.
Except for two things...
LaFerrari looks better...
and I reckon it is better.
This is the greatest car in the world!