Review of our AF SF90 - is this car what people say it is?

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It’s now two years since I first saw the SF90. Well, a bit before that as Ferrarichat’s resident posse of artistic guessers gave a characteristically good preview of what it would look like. When I saw it at the Fiorano launch, if first impressions were anything to go by, my instant reaction was “this will stop Manzoni’s detractors in their steps”, it was so convincingly well proportioned and good to look at, I thought there would be a similar outpouring of praise as with the Pista. Of course, we all now know that not to be true, on fchat at least.


I ordered our SF90 soon after and after a reasonable wait, it’s now arrived with us. I know others have given their thoughts so to add some grist to the mill, I thought I might do the same. I’ve noticed some details about the car that prospective owners or even those thinking of ordering one, may be interested in. This is not an easy car to deal with in short text. I’ll try to keep it concise but there is a lot going on with this new Ferrari. In fact, it is probably the ‘newest’ new Ferrari I have ever experienced. With all the others, there are usually some things that are familiar from previous models, but here so much is new and different.


I have shared some iPhone pics below for a reference to some of the things I want to talk about with this car. I’ll try (but will probably fail) to deal with the main points in some sort of logical order.


Appearance.


We have a Pista Spider. What a great car to look at. You could argue it’s not quite as nice as the coupe but top-down it’s such a pleasure to drive and be in. I took a photo of the two cars together in (nearly) side profile. I think it demonstrates what I felt when I first saw the SF90 at the Fiorano launch. The lines and curves are breathtaking to me. Much nicer than the rightly acclaimed Pista. The integration of the side venting, which sits higher in the SF90, the line from the bottom of the door sweeping up towards the vent but disappearing before it gets there, echoing the upswept B pillar but with the sill line falling away in the opposite direction to emphasise the powerful rear end, full of engine and other things that suggest this is a very powerful car. The curves over the rear wheels with the apex of the curve over the centre of the wheel, falling away into the upswept rear spoiler. It’s beautiful and looks magnificent in real life. The car seems ‘fuller’ and more resolved than the Pista Spider in profile. The look completely supports the added price and elevated status within Ferrari’s range the SF90 has. By the way, that line in the door at the front has a gap behind it, you don’t see it from the pictures but the panel actually sits proud of the door, a bit like the 720’s aerodynamic channel at the top of its door. There seems to be a whole lot of aero detailing on the SF90, too much to talk about here but unless you have been up close and spent some time with this car (washing it for example) you don’t really know it. I think we chose the right wheels for the colour scheme we went with. The colour is Rosso F1 2007. I think this colour was meant to look more like Rosso Corsa through a camera than Rosso Corsa does, a bit like Rosso Scuderia. From these iPhone pics it manages to do that but I think you can see it is something a little special. Both cars are dirty with some road film on them so it’s not easy to see the deep lustre both these paint jobs have. The Pista Spider is a rare TM colour called Ardilla Amarillo, a very rich, dark yellow triple layer with Grigio Isabel stripes and wheels. I know there are controversial elements to the SF90 like the front wings over the headlights (I have shown a picture that tries to demonstrate how flush the winglets are to the lights - I had thought they were floating but they really are very flush). Also the square rear lights and the buses rear deck lid. Granted, I wouldn’t say the rear is as classically beautiful as the side view but it looks beefy, muscular, powerful. Like the Aventador competitor that it is. I always liked the rear, the front was more of a challenge for me but on seeing how compact the styling is in real life, I feel it flows into the rest of the car really well. It might prove difficult to facelift this car because if you mess around too much with it I would guess you could unbalance it very easily. But for now, the appearance is a major plus for me.


Driving.


This is a really critical point for most of us. It certainly is for me. Here, there is good news, but with some cautionary tales. If you wanted a summary of what I feel about the SF90 it would be this; “the things that people like to criticise about the SF90 are, in fact, brilliant. The things nobody really speaks much of are where the challenges lie.” Not everything is great with the SF90 and it does have some serious demerits but we’ll get to those later.


The way it drives is not among them though. Except for the fact that this car, the AF SF90 wants some careful thinking about. The hybrid bits are brilliant, though in some ways illogical. But the ride quality and lack of front lifter might be a deal breaker for you. I love our GT2 RS. But on broken roads it is just too stiff. Great for the track but can be a bit of a pain on long road trips. We did a couple of thousand miles road trip in a 991.2 GT3 RS a couple of years back. It was manageable but by the end my wife had had enough. We won’t be doing another one in a Porsche GT without a lot of persuasion. The AF pack is not as severe as that…..but it’s not far off. When the spider was launched we wondered about swapping from the coupe to the spider. I figured that might be a mistake because I knew I wanted the AF car. An AF car with open roof might just be a bit of an issue?


Some would like to paint the SF90 as powerful but lardy, perhaps a cliche applied in the past to various big Lamborghinis or even cars like the Testarossa, which we have an example of. Compared to a 355 ‘powerful but lardy’ might be a reasonable, if perhaps slightly unfair, description. As for the SF90 AF pack, it in no way feels lardy. I haven’t yet driven it on track but its suspension is unyielding at low speed and needs velocity and energy to come alive. When it does, boy is it good. These new multimatic dampers feel like they rebound with more speed than the magnetorheological ones. Once you get them working though, they control the car with precision, feel, telepathy….what?! Well that’s what it feels like. The car just doesn’t feel heavy and feels intuitive like our Speciale does. A good way to describe the SF90 is like a cross between the Pista and the Speciale, perhaps taking the best of both. It has grip and power like the Pista but that “I can do anything I like with this car” feel of the Speciale. It is mobile at the rear, even in race mode - I will get around to CT off when it is fully run in (currently has 500 miles on it, a good enough effort for its first week). It also has the throttle response of the Speciale. Some consider all 458s a bit too ‘hair-trigger’ for their liking but I’ve always loved that. The SF90 is the same. It has quite an aggressive lift-off weight transfer to the front which is ideal for fast driving, just like the Speciale, and you can measure the throttle with precision. Is that the torque-fill hybrid assisting the torque-fill turbos? I guess so. Whatever, they have used the various assets of the drivetrain to great effect. The steering is fast and a return to the dynamics of the Speciale after the Pista moved definitively away. The Pista has more steering heft than the other two and is the one that feels as if it’s from a different chassis philosophy. It’s all business, grip, grunt, pace. The SF90 is more playful and as I’ve said before it just does not feel heavy, it feels agile and fun. And very fast. I doubt on track the MPSC2s will soon tell you exactly how heavy the car is and in the end, physics is physics. But this car pays for its added hybrid weight by utilising the hybrid engineering to make the car great to drive, fun and rewarding.


Let’s talk about that drivetrain. As a performance car it works brilliantly. As a hybrid, I must admit I find the logic a bit hard to understand. Hybrid mode strongly favours the e-drive - fine in itself - but even to the extent it will run you full out of battery before it switches the motor on. You can easily click ‘charge’ which forces it to charge but its own logic algorithm doesn’t do this. Only when you push the pedal so hard that it can’t meet demand with electricity alone does it introduce the engine. On a motorway run, hybrid is ok, and probably around town. Both of those applications would be at the bottom of my list for this car though. The next mode up, performance, would have been the one I expected to warm to most. Very fast but not stupid (about 850 hp or so) and charges the battery. Except it doesn’t. Well, hardly anyway. Performance mode doesn’t charge the battery but doesn’t much use the battery. Not sure what the point of that is really? Especially when you consider the big boy; qualifying mode. That gives you the full 1,000hp. If you listen to other reports, qualifying drains the battery fully, maximising performance. If you are fully on it, 1,000hp under your right foot, and said foot pushed into the carpet, then the hybrid assist indicator turns blue to tell you it is giving out power, instead of green when it is harvesting. But at all other times in qualifying mode it is collecting charge. In fact, it is the quickest way to keep the battery full, making this mode the one of choice for me, except on the motorway where I have this odd (stupid) urge to make sure I use up the 15 miles of quiet motoring on offer every now and then, for which you need hybrid mode. Qualifying mode is always 1,000hp, instant power almost any gear, at any point and very difficult to run the battery down on.


One of the things I love about my wife’s Taycan compared to her previous Panamera hybrid is the fact there is no messing around with which mode you should be in, just press and go…very quickly…wherever you like. I really disliked the Pan hybrid. It didn’t know what it was. Its hybrid system was smooth and logical, in a way that the Ferrari system isn’t, but it was also totally and unacceptably boring in a way that the Ferrari definitely isn’t. With the hybrid world, I guess logical is bad, illogical is very good!


It’s not all good news though. The sound of the car is great, way better than the Pista or in fact any other turbo supercar that I’ve driven. It’s a really fruity, raspy, engaging noise. But with the 8th gear (only a little over 2,500rpm at 100 mph) there is a really annoying boom at 2k revs, diminishing towards 3k revs where it mostly disappears. On the motorway it is really annoying. You end up changing down in the cruise when you hit any kind of incline. It just feels wrong. 1,000hp and changing down to get up a small hill to avoid early deafness. Some people really like that aggressive boom. On a track and when it makes you feel more in the mood to drive quickly, sure. But on the motorway in 8th gear, why is it there?


The SF90 is four-wheel-drive. I only know this because I have read lots about the car. 500 miles of driving has not really told me that. It’s very hard to feel it and if you believe the on-screen indicator, that’s because it’s hardly ever on. You get a momentary intervention early into a full-bore acceleration but other than that, it’s very hard to detect. Put it this way; if you do an overtake with little room, putting your foot hard down as you move out, be prepared for the back to move around like you would expect a 1,000hp rwd car to. Maybe that’s a slight exaggeration because it doesn’t feel uncontrollable doing this, just rather lairy. They have definitely tuned this car to feel like a fully alive, 1,000hp rocket. The 296 with its 2wd configuration will show what, if any, advantage there is to the SF90’s 4wd system. If they wanted to do a SF90 Pista, this would be a good theme. Drop 50kg or so by taking away the front motors and not much more would be needed. Perhaps I haven’t felt it working because it’s just that good. This could be true because I admit, there are times when the 4wd system might be coming in when the last place I want to look is the instrument binnacle!


Braking is mostly great news in the SF90. There is real power in the braking system. The slight caveat is the regen braking which is handled very very well. But it’s still a regen system. So there is still some inconsistency when the system moves from the regen brakes to the carbon ones. It doesn’t register as a demerit though because the system is pretty progressive and very reassuring. Handy in a machine that piles on speed like this thing. And it really does.


Bringing all that together, this is a car that works best when being driven fast and aggressively. The way the steering and chassis works generates a beautiful feeling of flow when you are putting some energy into it. Pootle around and it won’t connect with you in quite the same way. That’s not to say you need to be using the full 1,000hp for it to be fun. There is virtually nowhere you can really push this car on the road. But it’s still fun even much lower down in its performance register. It’s just that this is not really a good Boulevard cruiser. It’s too noisy, harsh and dismissive of your lack of enthusiasm for what it is really designed to do. Put even a bit of effort in though, and it rewards you. Put a lot of effort in and it rewards you a lot. I cant yet say that at track speeds this improvement in reward continues, maybe there will be a point at which the ‘enjoyment curve’ falls away and it gets ragged. If I were to guess though, I wouldn’t guess that way. I think it will be great and I think those multimatic dampers, with the problems they bring in liveability, will have had a lot to do with it. There is an energy and personality they bring to this car that I’m eager to discover more about them in the coming miles. As a package, it’s not perfect. But maybe they made it this way to remind us of those cars of old, where their imperfections worked to make us patient for those times when a car is brilliant in its operating sweet spot. On a fast, winding, twisting road, this car could be literally incredible. I had one moment on quite a long drive where the traffic cleared and I went over a slightly blind brow, road dipping and twisting with the front going light. There was no fear involved but a feeling of elation as the car told me exactly what was going on and telegraphically told me what to do about it. It felt like we were both connected, and I smiled the kind of smile that you can’t stop. That’s what I paid all that money for.


Interior and ergonomics


In case you’re someone who wants to feel down on this car and this new world of electronics inside and out, well, you might find something among my views to grab hold of here. Let’s deal with the looks first. The cabin is high quality, in fact very high quality, typically beautiful carbon fibre but some odd things. First, I again forgot to order a leather or alcantara roof lining. The synthetic one they give you is like a cheap Porsche. Fine on a cheap Porsche but not really here. Is there an advantage in terms of noise or something? If not, why not just make it leather as standard? I ordered the full carbon fibre package. When it arrived, half is matte and half is gloss. Very odd. I thought something had gone awry but apparently, there are some standard pieces that always remain gloss and if you order the extra package on the AF cars it comes as matte. Seems strange but I have to say, I quite like it. A bit like mixing leather and alcantara (which we have also done on this car). I didn’t know the carbon package was matte, and I wouldn’t have ordered it. I like it on our Pista Spider and was glad we did it once, but I probably prefer the gloss carbon on our Speciale. The matte carbon on the SF90 is much nicer. I think it’s because the door card design swoops and curves really attractively and the matte carbon suits it. Even when there is some gloss carbon around the door handle area. Oh, and that door handle? Electric. Press a button and out the door pops. I prefer it, at least while it works. Reliability is probably the only reason I could think of not to do it. If it proves reliable, I prefer it. Nice ‘n easy. The interior of this car is a cut above the Pista which seems bare and spartan in comparison. The SF90 is not luxurious but modern, focused, dripping in details and sculpted shapes. It’s an area where you feel you have bought something a bit more special.


The matte/gloss carbon mix thing is on other SF90’s I have seen too. One reason given to me is that gloss carbon on the dash gives a terrible reflection. I can see what they mean because it’s not so good with the matte carbon either. The very large dash top area (really very different to previous V8, mid-engined Ferraris) is highly stylised ahead of the instrument binnacle. Not sure why, although there is the surprise of HUD in the SF90 - the dealers were apparently not informed of this spec detail but they all have it, I certainly didn’t order it (but would have because it is good). Otherwise, I don’t really know why they made this area so detailed and intricate because it really does reflect. Not as bad as choosing white for the dashboard inserts on an 812 (guilty, m’Lord) whereupon two white stripes frame whatever you;re looking at through the windscreen. No, not as bad as that. But shadows and definition is still there for you to look through. You get used to it but should we have to? Maybe there is a good reason for it but if it is just styling, it’s a mistake.


By far the biggest gripe (well, maybe the 2k motorway boom is worse) is with the haptic switches in the steering wheel. HOTW and EOTR was what they said at the Fiorano launch. Hands on the wheel and eyes on the road. But it doesn’t work. The theory is that everything can be controlled from the wheel. To a degree it works. But satnav changes on the fly (ok, not recommended but what if you need directions quickly and unexpectedly and it is not safe to stop?) If that happens, best to just guess or get lost. Because it is unfathomably dangerous to try entering a destination through the haptic switch. There is a knack to it but that makes it very slow. Nah, I don’t like it. I fear these switches are with us for whatever brand of car we buy but they are not better. The ‘viewmax’ switch is infuriating for me. I keep pressing it with the base of my thumb as I turn the wheel in spirited driving. It happens very frequently. You then get a screen full of navigation and all the things you are used to glancing quickly at - rpm for example - are no longer there. Then you have to press the button twice to cycle back to the screen you were on. If driving is about flow (and either way it’s very enjoyable when it is) this is guaranteed to disrupt it. In any event EOTR disappears very quickly. Maybe I’ll get used to it. Maybe. In the meantime it’s a pain in the neck.


The screen ahead of you is huge and with the circular rpm gauge page selected, the amount of information is really quite incredible. It sounds like a nightmare but isn’t. You quickly get used to where you have to look for what you want. The logic of how you move around the various screens is easy to get to grips with too, as are the new information protocols for the hybrid drive and regen braking etc. I suppose you could say that the conversion to electric, haptic instrumentation is very nearly great. It’s just that when it’s not great, it disturbs your enjoyment to the degree that you forget the good bits.


Moving on to practicality and I already knew the storage and boot space was ‘spacially challenged’. We have already done an overnight in the car and if you plan, it is possible. A four-day trip would easily be doable if you think about it carefully. We have a full-size suit carrier soft bag which fits in the boot. There is also a rear shelf that could get three soft bags across it (two would be better to stop the middle one falling forward). You could also put a soft bag comfortably under the legs of the passenger because the foot well is long and fairly spacious. The interior definitely has more space and headroom than our Pista and the new seats hold you better than the familiar racing seats from 458/488/F8 and F12/812. They are a bit harder though, slightly less comfortable over a long journey but far from being uncomfortable. The area between the seats has a very practical deep trough where phones or whatever else are held more securely than in the Pista. That is really quite useful.


There are many other things to say but to save turning this into a book I’ll stop here. If you got this far you are either very interested in an SF90 or skipped most of it! I think my conclusion is solid though; what this car is usually criticised for is actually its strength. And what most people don’t think too much about (or at least haven’t said too much about) is where it’s problems lie. It’s not perfect but where it matters to me, the main things, are very good. You can’t reach a firm conclusion after 500 miles and there are definitely things that could get on my nerves - the haptics, the 2k boom and the lack of ‘bumpy road’ button being chief among them. I think our long term reaction to those things will determine how long we keep this car. But as the miles go by, another thing could happen. We could learn to love it because, despite it being a very modern car, it has the personality more associated with cars of the past - fast, responsive, beautiful, imperfect and sometimes frustrating. But touched with genius on those occasions that you really buy a car like this for.
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One other thing I forgot to mention that is important, at least to me. I think I’m in the early stages of cataracts - too much bright sun apparently. This has made it a bit more difficult to drive at night. Whenever I order a Porsche I always select their PDLS+ matrix beam headlamps. If you have never experienced them they are beyond brilliant. You leave the main beam on and the system notices other vehicles in front and coming towards you. It then switches off only that portion of the beam that would blind oncoming traffic or traffic in front of you, everywhere else you get the benefit of main beam. It’s brilliant. I noticed the SF90’s AFS system (that’s what it’s called, the same as other previous Ferraris) is matrix beam too. Same name, different system. I’m delighted about that. I don’t plan to drive this car at night but sometimes it just works out that way. The matrix beam lights are very reassuring given the cost and performance of this car. Interesting why there was no mention of this or the HUD.

 

Yes, easily done. Qualifying mode is best. Set and forget mode!

 

Ah, wait do you mean no electric assistance? Not sure what benefit there is in that. You already have the weight penalty, once there, electricity is a much more seamless way of delivering power than a turbo. The electric drive is what elevates this engine and drivetrain well above Pista. The only disadvantage is the weight, so not using the electricity is the worst of all worlds. You just cannot feel the electricity working to assist the petrol engine, it’s imperceptible.

 

I would say yes, it feels like a very stiff shell. The suspension is stiff so any weakness would be seen with creaking etc but there is none. Feels like a very solid drive.

 

The road noise is ok, maybe less than Pista although our PS doesn’t seem too bad either. The ride quality, a simple answer would be it’s closer to GT3 RS than Pista. Sometimes it feels much more supple than GT3 RS - such as when you’re driving over fast flowing, dipping and twisting roads and the suspension is compressing more slowly - but it’s never soft and so far body control has always been excellent. When the compression is fast, such as road imperfections and holes etc. it is not far off 3RS. That is to say not crashy but very busy with occupants being jiggled around very perceptibly. It might come as a shock to Ferrari owners accustomed to the bumpy road button. I’m up to the run-in mileage now and I might be noticing it getting a little easier in that regard, not sure. I went for a 15 mile blast last time out and didn’t think about the busy suspension. Maybe I was less conscious of it because my wife was not with me?

There was one other thing I noticed early doors with this car. I didn’t mention it in the write-up because I’m not sure what to make of it. The nose bobs, quite a bit in fact. Early 911s did that prodigiously - it’s not so strong as those but maybe like a 997. It doesn’t unsettle the car or the grip but I seem to notice the suspension wanting to move that way. Little vertical movement at the rear but regularly at the front. The HUD maybe has something to do with it because the display, which appears way out front helps you notice that the front of the car is moving in the vertical plane quite a lot - am I noticing it more because of the HUD? I don’t think that’s it. It’s not disconcerting or a negative so far, more like a personality trait. If anyone more technical than me could explain what might be going on or more specifically why? Any other AF owners noticed it?