Video Test! The Ferrari SF90 Spider Is Absolute Magic

Automakers and Formula 1 teams have a … complicated relationship. Some operate like hand and glove, sharing leadership, premises, and technology. For others, the relationship is decidedly more fractured; race cars which belong to the brand in name only and share more DNA with a garden variety lettuce than they do with their roadgoing step-siblings.

Above all others though, one company has consistently excelled at linking its road cars to its race cars, and in several instances have used that sharing of information and technology to create some of the most idolized performance road machines ever made. I am of course talking about Williams, and its spectacular F1 special edition 1999 Renault Clio.

Oh, and Ferrari.

What Ferrari have done to greater effect and more acclaim than any road/race company past or present is offer road cars with unfettered F1 technology baked inside. Does it make fiscal or logical sense? Absolutely not, and yet by bolting a carbon fiber tub to an F1-derived V12 and hanging some wheels off it we got the F50—big brother to the ballsy 200-mph upstart F40, and one of the most phenomenal looking, sounding, and driving cars ever made. That's just one example—the same goes for the rear-mounted radiators on the Testarossa, the F355 GTS's use of ground-effect aerodynamics, the F430's e-diff and aluminum frame—the list goes on!

Alas, Formula 1 has stepped away from the high-displacement era, gradually weaning itself from pure-cut-narcotic V-12s down to modern day, over-the-counter-cough-medicine-like 1.6-liter turbocharged four-cylinders (all while weaning themselves via raucous V-10s and punchy V-8s). In doing so, the effect of implementing F1 tech into road vehicles has somewhat waned, with practical implementation shifting from barely detuned engine and transmissions with rocketship-like tolerances being shoehorned into supercars to more mellow applications—Mercedes' use of the electric exhaust gas turbocharger in its latest C43, as well as the implementation of KERS-like systems in hybrids and EVs, to name a couple.

That's great and all, but while the accountants may disagree with me on this, from a performance and dynamics perspective, the past decade-plus of F1 has been disastrous for lovers of performance road cars.

That is, until now.

The Ferrari SF90 Stradale is, in no uncertain terms, the most F1 tech you can buy for the road today. Well, it was, when it came out in 2019; since then we've had the stunning Mercedes-AMG ONE and Aston Martin Valkyrie, but let's ignore those for the moment.

Like the Terminator, The SF90 Stradale is quicker than you, stronger than you, and—thankfully for me—smarter than you. Never in a vehicle have I felt so willingly out of control and yet so firmly in control. So ready to give myself over to a machine, and push it well beyond my own skill and comfort level. To trust that the hybrid system, in conjunction with the spectacular suite of driver aids, will not only keep me from meeting an untimely end but indeed have me exiting the corner feeling the kind of chemical high usually felt only by those who race professionally. The power delivery, downforce, grip, and steering are each more impressive and confidence-inspiring than the last. The SF90 Stradale Spider truly is a pleasure to push hard, and is in fact the quickest gas-powered car we've ever tested at MotorTrend.

The video footage here represents one of the single greatest driving experiences of my life.

As somebody who came into this First Test film—sit down for this one—having never driven a modern-era Ferrari before, I cannot think of a better experience than the one I had in the SF90.

The Stradale Spider is nothing like an old Ferrari, a stripped out, wanton death trap painted in the same red paint lying around for decades. And yet it is everything you expect from a Ferrari; a company whose entire DNA is rooted in being the most efficient and effervescent team in the F1 paddock. It's absolute magic.