Ferrari SF90 XX Review I Ferrari’s fastest road car

You know in the Forza Motorsport or Gran Turismo video games where you save up all of your money and you buy the supercar of your dreams and then you drive it for a while and get a little bit bored so you do things like replace the pistons, upgrade the brakes, maybe even add some monster aero to it. When you're done the car that you've got is so quick that the game puts it into an x-class because its performance is so wild that it simply cannot be categorized with other normal cars. Well today I reckon I'm going to be driving the real world equivalent of that. Welcome everyone to the SF90XX. The regular SF90 was insane and this will absolutely blow your mind. Unlike a racing car it doesn't have any rules to abide by, there's no competition regulation so it can be as quick as it wants and that speed is honestly brain scrambling. As you can see I'm quite enjoying the SF90XX but before I lose my voice let's take you through some of the details. You've probably heard the XX name before. Ferrari wheels it out for its outrageous track cars such as the FXX Evo, 599XX and the LaFerrari based FXXK. This one however is different because somehow Ferrari has persuaded the legislators that it should be road legal. For a car that takes a regular SF90 and turns it up to 11 that's pretty incredible. As mentioned new pistons and specific machining of the combustion chamber means that you've got a higher compression ratio while a polished inlet and exhaust ducts means greater efficiency. They've even done away with the secondary air system to take 3.5kg off the engine's weight. What's more the three electric motors, one on each front wheel and one between the engine and gearbox, have been tweaked to deliver more power while the shift logic of the 8-speed dual clutch gearbox has been changed significantly and mirrors the limited edition Daytona SP3. All in the SF90XX makes 1015bhp up 29bhp from the regular SF90 and goes from 0-62mph in just 2.3 seconds with 0-124mph in 6.5. Those are cool numbers but no doubt the biggest improvement with this car is the aerodynamics. Now Ferrari reckons that this is the most aerodynamically efficient road car that it's ever made and it's also got twice the amount of maximum downforce as the regular SF90. One of the main culprits for that is the fixed rear wing. It is absolutely ginormous as you can see and although it doesn't move the shut-off gurney, which is where the Ferrari logo is, that does move and that adjusts the airflow so it can put the car into a low or high downforce mode depending on the track and the maximum downforce that it can help produce is 315kg at 155mph over the rear of the car. There's also been work to the rear diffuser where they've carefully designed the trailing edge around the car's expansion volume so when it's punching through the air at speed it keeps its wake nice and clean. Moving towards the front of the car and something that you can't see at least from here is that the underside has been redesigned in order to provide maximum air extraction but something that you can see definitely are the louvres or side slats on the rear and the front wheel arch. Now they weren't on the regular SF90 at least in this form but they've been introduced into the XX to reduce back pressure in the wheel well and it's especially important with these front side slats because they work together with the two central S-ducts in order to provide greater downforce at the front end and the S-ducts actually are responsible for an extra 20% of downforce over the regular SF90 but they wouldn't be possible without these because they provide the dynamic extraction so they're important they're not just there for show and neither actually are these slats down here now they were in another form on the regular SF90 but they've been tweaked and improved on this to give even greater downforce as has the front splitter it's larger it's wider and it works together with the new underbody design to provide guess what more downforce. How much we're talking well at maximum speed the front end downforce on the SF90 XX is about 325 kilograms which is a lot. Ferrari's also borrowed clever techniques used on the new Nürburgring 24 hour winning 296 GT3. For example by reversing the layout of the medium temperature radiator responsible for cooling electrical components they've been able to increase efficiency and enclose part of the car's underbody that in turn creates more effective surfaces that are used to generate front downforce. I mean don't get me wrong the downforce on this thing is incredible but just look at it it's like a Hot Wheels car it's got a proper sense of humor especially with the touches of orange around the aerodynamic effects it just looks mega and if that's not crazy enough they also do it as a spider version too. For the track driving however I'm going to keep the roof firmly fixed in place because while there's a time and place to enjoy a convertible this just ain't it. Fiorano is 1.86 miles of challenging test track that's been specifically designed to unsettle even the most extreme cars that Ferrari can build. It's anything but an easy ride for the XX and should be the perfect place to find out if this limited edition road-legal track car is as mad as it looks. As you can imagine the combination of a Ferrari twin turbo V8 with electric power is just something else. In fact it's like the electric motors are electrocuting the engine every single time you put your foot down. It's actually quite old school in that respect but the way it gains speed is anything but. Just looking at the dash the way the numbers increase it's like one of those punching machines after Tyson Fury's just taken a hit. The numbers are just skyrocketing upwards wow. That is that the electric motors are primed to give you the most performance. However it's got a system called extra boost where it gives you up to 30. With 30 is the maximum you get electric boost so coming out of a corner for example the car gives you that punch of extra power and absorption and it just takes that second which is a big chunk of time. Keeping the batteries topped up is crucial to maintaining full performance of the powertrain and regenerative braking does an excellent job of this. Braking hard from high speed corners in qualifying mode the battery is very quick to gain charge. Considering that the brakes are also responsible for regen the amount of feel you get it's sensational. They've taken the abs evo controller system from the 296 gtb or was first seen on the 296 gtb and it was phenomenal in that and it's fabulous in this it focuses on feel and repeatability and it does such a good job. I remember driving the 296 on track with the Artura last year and despite the fact that the Artura doesn't use its brakes to regen the battery it didn't have as good a brake feel as the 296. The abs evo system is just one of the NASA grade bits of tech and acronyms aboard the sf90xx. The six-way chassis sensor measures acceleration and speed of rotation on x y and z axis. Ferrari dynamic enhancer 2.0 makes its debut on the car and the electronic side slip control is as flattering as ever to your driving. Now Ferrari being Ferrari they talk about how the lateral performance has been improved by nine percent and also how roll rates have been reduced by ten percent and that doesn't sound like much and actually it's interesting there is still a bit of roll on this car you can feel it it's not like it suddenly just becomes a missile like you might expect it but actually this car is on MagneRide dampers you can get both those and the Assetto Fiorano passive system and talking to Ferrari's chief test driver he reckons that around Fiorano the Assetto Fiorano back with the passive dampers is better but around most race circuits he prefers the MagneRide because they are bumpier and it gives you that bit better control and you move around you can feel the weight transfer and it's interesting because it definitely defaults to understeer before it goes into oversteer which is great for a lap time because it means that you can really push it and which is what Matt is doing in front of me now but it does mean that this car has a very narrow window of performance and you really have to be on top of your game to extract that because it feels like if you overstep it a bit it's not suddenly going to kill you but you will lose time and you will also lose that extra performance that it can deliver which kind of defeats the point of it a bit so you've got to be super super on it. As I'm sure you can hear from inside the cabin the soundtrack is noticeably different from the regular SF90 as Ferrari's optimized the hot tube system in order to amplify the twin turbo v8 howl. The tube from the intake plenum has been redesigned and repositioned closer to the cabin's bulkhead while the resonator is also now nearer the engine. No doubt the sound is memorable whether you're listening to it from the outside or the cabin not howling v12 like the 812 Competizione but still special and while the interior doesn't look quite as extreme as the exterior there's still a few changes over the regular SF90. Carbon fiber alcantara and other technical fabric surfaces are plentiful while the central tunnel is simpler and lighter and has the gear shift gate moved further forward plus there's a clever new racing seat design the lightest they've ever made that looks like one piece carbon but has an adjustable backrest and base to cater for all driving positions. With our brief time on track with the SF90XX now sadly over I was still buzzing off the speed and power of the thing and while an on-road drive would elude us this time round there was still just about enough time to try and make a verdict on Ferrari's most extreme road legal model. So Ferrari SF90XX verdict. Unsurprisingly it is ballistically quick in a straight line it's like sitting on a missile it is the fastest road legal car that I've ever driven no doubt about that. It's also clearly incredibly capable on the circuit it's set Ferrari's production car record around the Fiorano test track and it's not like it didn't have much to beat there's been some incredible cars that have gone around there and set lap times and that's just beaten it quite comfortably. But for me to get it to that point where it's showing you its additional performance over other Ferrari road cars such as the regular SF90 that window is so narrow that unless you are capable of driving it in that window or you have the time to build yourself up to doing that or you have the environment in which you can do that and it's got to be a track let's face it then it almost seems a little bit questionable as to why you would have that car over other more accessible Ferraris because let's be honest they're not slow if it's the SF90 or the 296. So is it Ferrari's quickest production car? Yes absolutely it is. Is it their best? No not for me.