Actual Driving Impressions/Thoughts

Correct. Youtubers all seem to talk the same talk. Visceral is indeed a sliding scale and not a reference point to which all fast cars should be measured by.
A great car can also be a great and fast car just the way it is.

 

Different strokes for different folks!

Can't wait to get my spider!

 

How did you end up speccing it - color, af etc...

 

https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/ordered-my-sf90-spider.650011/

 

This video captures the emotions and feelings of the reviewer. Not in English but has subtitles. Enjoy!

 

IMO, I have loved the performance of driving the SF90 in the 700+ miles, but hard to believe he has any race experience at all. When one is racing, (at least me), having a lot of distraction on the dash is not good. The point about traditional Ferrari drivers and yellow speedo needles being an issue misses the point. He doesn’t get that simplicity is key for driving experience and racing experience, not in creating an iPhone experience.

 

I just tracked my sf90 and all you look at is the heads up display, the rest is paddles and feel. I didn’t find anything distracting, tire pressure, race mode, qualifying and your good to go.

 

How was the car on the track? How different is it from your pista in terms of driving dynamics and braking performance? I know it will be much faster speed wise, but interested in hearing thoughts given the higher weight and hybrid impacting the dynamics. Thanks!

 

You don’t feel the weight at all. Corners is where it’s most impressive, much higher exit speeds and you pair that with brutal acceleration and unimaginable steering control and it feels like a track monster. The pista is great but it can get a bit dicey here and there accelerating out of the apex, you feel your self modulating throttle as you open the wheel, with the sf you can floor it.

 

UK Autocar did their Britain’s Best Drivers Car feature last week and SF90 obliterated every other car by some distance - lap times, exit speeds etc. I dare anyone to say the SF90 doesn’t feel fast.


Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat

 

Thanks for sharing your perspective. Its great to hear feedback from the owners directly. The press overall has good feedback on acceleration, steering and brake feel. What was interesting was to hear what Chris harris said about the car driving dynamics being different from other Ferraris after turning off all the nannies. Not sure if that was a pre-production unit with software not updated.

 

I wouldn’t turn the stability assist features off. It’s too much power and that intervention becomes a necessity to manage it.

 

Agree on your comparison on the performance. The vectoring of the car is incredible and the brakes on the track are much stronger and fade resistant than the Pista.

 

Spending a lot of time in a Challenge car, this is what I want most ( in the link). Gives the most relevant information to me to get performance. It is highly probable that I am not in the main of the customer base and it could be the customer base is broader now.

https://pictures.topspeed.com/IMG/crop_webp/201910/ferrari-488-challeng-3_1600x0.webp

 

Yep. And beware cold tyres…. I just had a very unexpected incident outside my home, very familiar road, dry but autumnal weather, part throttle, suddenly snapped sideways with absolutely no warning. About 9 or 10 degrees. Modes were race and qualifying and tyre pressures were 0.1 to 0.2 bar below recommended due to recent temperature drop and I often drive these cars at that level but not more. It was very shocking and really quite confusing how it could have happened given the slow speeds and relatively small throttle pressure. I ended up on the other side of the road. Thankfully nothing coming the other way otherwise it could have been so different. A very good reminder for me (and anyone reading) that these cars never demand less than full respect. Drifting journalistic reviews with dynamic photography are exactly that and not a good way to judge these cars, which need the modes on the road. Even then you need to know what you’re doing and even then, you can be caught out.

 

What tires are you using?

 

MPSC2 - very familiar with them, have them on Speciale (currently 2nd set, 13k+ miles), Pista (4K miles) and GT3 RS (x2 cars) plus GT2 RS, about 4K miles total including numerous track days. Used them down to 2 degrees in the past without issue.

 

Yep, I know you are the master with them. I am curious because it is damper and chillier here in Northern California (well not that chilly). I have not had them out in damp weather at all (meaning the C2). It is very good to hear your experience going down to 2 degrees. I have them on all my cars with the exception of the TdF where I put MPS4S for several reasons.

On a random note, do you happen to know what Pirelli tires are coming as stock OEM on the Competizione? As well as the "high performance"? In the past when I ordered 'high performance," I always received MPSC2.

Also, what bar (cold and/or hot) are you running on your Pista with the C2? Thank you!

 

I guess the Comp will come with MPSC2 since they were tested with 2R recently by the press at Fiorano. I use standard recommended settings for the Pista, around 2 to 2.1 bar cold from memory, goes to 2.3/4 hot. GT2 RS, same tyre (but actually is a bit different) is best at much higher pressures, say 2.5 to 2.8 cold. I don’t think I could be called a ‘master’, certainly didn’t feel much like that yesterday…!

 

Sounds scary. We are all glad that nothing worse happened to you. Do you reckon that Race and Quali are a bit too much for city driving then?

The standard road-biased Pirelli is the P Zero 4 Corsa. Optionally one can get the Cup 2 R track-biased tyre. I am not sure whether they also offer a road-biased Michelin (like the PS4S of the PSC2).

 

I could have swore the sf w af was going to come with cup 2 r. I’m

I feel like it’s less about city and more about road temps. When it’s hot out I never lost it in race / quali. When it’s 60s it gets scary

 

Yes, I think that’s it. City driving is fine but greasy autumn roads and cold tyre temps need care. Even knowing that I didn’t expect what happened. When the tyres are warm though, it really holds on well.

 

When I first got the car on the dash i could see tire heat info. Now it’s gone. Checked on a buddy’s sf and it’s there. Don’t suppose you know how to get that back.

 

Nope, and now you mention it, mine only has blue tyres for cold (I assume) which only appears on the fronts. The old system was more straight forward. It’s a bit confusing so if you find out, please share!

 

Is there any indication of temp there cold/ready. His has it, mine had it and have no idea how to get it back no matter how much I screw with it