Can you just hear that engine? The Ferrari 812 Superfast. When it comes to literal names,
they don’t come much more literal than Superfast, do they? Ferrari has given us one for a day
so we’re going to test it on the hairpins of northern Italy and I’ll run you through
all of the technical updates. But before that, first thing of the morning, we are going to
take it for a few laps of Ferrari's Fiorano test circuit. What an introduction then to
an 800 metric horsepower, so that’s 789 bhp, super-GT car. Somebody’s own test track.
However, Ferrari will tell me, as they will tell you, that this car is much easier to
drive than an F12 which it replaces despite the extra poke. Thanks to lessons learnt from
the tdf, which was not an easy car to drive, but the active rear steer that it has, has
been put on here to help. I will come onto all the technical details in a minute. Right,
first impressions, cabin architecture not dissimilar to an F12’s. Updated nicely,
it’s got the secondary display there which the passenger can look at, made its debut
on the GTC, looks really nice actually. The steering is quick, it is the same ratio as
the F12’s but it is electric for the first time, electrically assisted. So it’s still
light, still very direct, very responsive but it will do clever things. What it does
is if the back begins to slide it doesn’t steer for you, it’s electric - it could
do theoretically, but what it does do is it reduces the amount of torque you need to steer
into the slide. That’s to encourages drivers to apply opposite lock if the rear steps out
and to bring the limits that much closer to you. So if you get a bit of understeer and
it is possible to get a bit of understeer, the active rear steer will just sort of turn
in to try and help the front turn so it will turn against the front. If you get over steer,
they call it virtual short wheelbase it’s not well it’s kind of virtual long wheelbase.
If you get oversteer what it will do is it will turn with the front wheels to try and
make that slide more manageable. In the tdf that transition was weird, it was odd. It
was a really spiky hard car to drive quickly. We’ve got CT on which allows a little bit
of slip but when it comes it does not come anything like as drastically as in a tdf.
It feels immediately quite an easy car to drive, I mean that’s an absurd thing to
say isn’t it but it feels quite settled, it feels quite controlled. So we’re resting
at nearly 9000 now, which is a lie isn’t it for a 6.5-litre so it’s bigger than the
old 6.2. Yeah, that gets off fairly quickly. The engine response time, Ferrari says is
the same as the F12’s tdf response time and that was absolutely crackers, it is so
sharp. It makes an amazing noise. This has been mapped, it feels to me to be a little
bit more usable, a little bit more accessible, thankfully, because it’s not one of the
rare specials it is the everyday mainstream Ferrari super-GT car. Everyday mainstream,
ha it’s £250,000 and has got 800hp! If only all cars were so everyday and mainstream.
The brakes are good, carbon ceramics come standard on all Ferraris these days and the
brake pedal feel is good. This car is good, this car is definitely easier to drive than
a tdf, I mean that’s no surprise is it but it is also much less spiky than an F12 I think even.
Oh yeah, oh yeah what a car. That’s absurd, I’m sorry but that’s absurd. This
is a rear-weight-biased 800hp V12 that behaves like a GT86. Elsewhere it feels like a Ferrari,
just the character of the F12 and the tdf just ooze through it. It makes you feel a
lot better than you are as well. What a piece of kit. Right, science bit. Okay so, the 812
Superfast is the most powerful series production Ferrari ever. The V12 engine is still based
on the Enzo’s engine of 2002 when it was a 6-litre unit and it still uses that very
same block but now at 6.5 litres it is as big, Ferrari says, as this engine can possibly
get. There are still no turbos, just revs, it spins to 8900rpm making peak power at 8500rpm
and if you're thinking ‘hmm, that sounds revy, you’re right’. Peak torque and only
530lb ft of it comes in at 7000rpm. That gives the following headline figures. 0-62 in 2.9
seconds. 0-124 mph, that’s 200kmh, in 7.9 seconds
and a top speed of 211 mph. The car's dual clutch gearbox is mounted at the rear which
gives the 812 a slight rearward weight bias. The chassis itself is similar to the F12’s,
new construction methods make it a bit more rigid but the car's weight remains the same
at a claimed 1630kg at the kerb. Though the last time we weighed one, full of fuel, the
F12 was just over 1700 kg so that’s what you should assume here. There is actual
real downforce front and rear, partly because of the shape of the car over the top but mostly
because of new underbody treatment. But it is the power steering and rear steer system
that is the really big advance over the F12 and the tdf. Electric steering is much more
tunable than hydraulic steering and Ferrari has made one ECU to monitor and control all
of the car's dynamic functions. So the adaptive dampers, the electronically controlled differential,
the stability and drift control system all work with the active rear steer and electric
power steering. The rears steer the correct way to make it easier to drive on the limit
while the power steering needs less force to turn it one way or another to give you
hints about which way you want to turn the wheel.
What does all of that equate to on the road? Let’s go to the steering first. Maybe, maybe, maybe it doesn’t feel quite
as natural as it did before but still, honestly, in terms of weighting, in terms of speed it’s
pretty much there or thereabouts. It’s a lovely set up. It’s two turns lock to lock.
Sometimes it can feel a little bit quick on straighter, higher speed roads but really
when you're on switchbacks like this, oh god - listen to that! It is magnificent. I was
just going to calmly go down here and tell you what it’s like but god this thing is
so addictive. Every time you get in it you just want to work that engine and because
it’s got the extra capacity, the extra stroke, it’s got quite a lot of torque from low
down. You don’t have to rev it but why wouldn’t you, frankly! Those faster gearshifts you
can really tell, especially on the downshifts they’re so fast. Apparently you can fit
in three downshifts where you used to be able to fit in two. There’s quite a lot of front
end grip to lean on but then as soon as you get back on the power if you want it to, there’s
so much of it that it’ll light up the rears. How much is too much power? How much before
it becomes just too much? Well, the guy who looks after Ferrari’s dynamics says no much
is too much if you can control it. I think he’s probably got a point. It’s so rapid
though this thing, it’s so absurdly quick but good fun all the time and far, far easier
to drive than an F12 or a tdf. It’s ridiculously good, ridiculously adjustable. So it’s got
a brilliant noise, a brilliant gearbox, excellent steering, fabulous handling, a good ride.
It looks like a Ferrari, it sounds like a Ferrari, it goes like a Ferrari.
Raffaele de Simone who is Ferrari's sort of chief engineer says ‘no car is perfect of course’ and
he’s right but I tell you what, when it comes to super GTs, nobody has yet got closer.