After a long and secretly sojourn to the era of evolutionary automotive technology, the unnamed beast from Ferrari has thrown covers to the wind.
Christened the SF90 Stradale, which in Italian means road going, the car is Ferrari’s first plug-in hybrid making 986 hp from a 3.9-litre V8 and 3 electric motors. With bold performance figures, the SF90 is expected to cement Ferrari’s position in the hypercar territory that has eluded it, ever since the iconic LaFerrari.
The powertrain, as stated earlier, is a culmination of an 8-cylinder engine and 3 electric motors, two of which sit on the front axle, and the other, in series with the transmission. The engine is the same 3.9-litre setup as is found on the more docile (well, relatively) Tributo, except that it has been rebored to an effective net displacement of 4 litres. It makes 769 hp and 800 Nm of torque on its own, and an additional 217 horses from electric motors that are powered by a 7.9 kWh lithium-ion battery pack.
By themselves, the electric motors impart a measly 27 km of electric driving range but are capable of influencing yaw by torque vectoring. If not accelerating hard, the motors are capable of taking the car to 135 kmh. They also compensate for the absence of a dedicated reverse gear; the motors spin backwards when reverse is selected. However, operating in conjunction with the V8, they are capable of catapulting the car to a 100 in 2.5s, 200 in 6.7s and to a top speed of 340 kmh.
Form-wise, the SF90 makes use of aluminium and carbon-fibre body panels. Ferrari has drawn a lot of flak in the recent past for no radical changes in styling and carrying forward designs from previous models or previous associations with coachbuilders. The same extends to the SF90 as it heavily borrows from the Tributo, LaFerrari FXX K and Pininfarina Battista.
The car is however pleasing to the eye in its mid-engine hypercar body proportions, having a lot of air intake ducts, sleek headlamps and squared off circles for tail lamps. The spoiler at the rear, being referred to as ‘shut off Gurney’ generates 390 kg of downforce at 250kmh.
The interior is familiar Ferrari territory, with a 16-inch curved digital display for the driver and a second module for the passenger. The soft touch steering mounted controls, and the ‘eMannetino’ is what has been updated.
While Ferrari has been relatively quiet about the development stages of this car, not much information has been given out at the time of its global unveil either. How it stands up against the competition is for time to tell, but with such eyeball-grabbing numbers, one can be reasonably assured of exciting times ahead.
