Ferrari SF90 Assetto Fiorano 2021 Review

The Ferrari SF90 Stradale is a lot of money – even for a Ferrari – at $846,888 plus on-road costs, but the SF90 Assetto Fiorano costs another $111,306, at $958,194 plus ORCs

On the flipside, it brings a lot of urge and a lot of tech, although there’s no change to the outputs (574kW of power and 800Nm of torque) of the mind-boggling three-motor V8 PHEV powertrain in the ‘standard’ SF90 Stradale coupe and the SF90 Spider convertible.

The Ferrari SF90 Assetto Fiorano quietly started trickling out to Australian buyers in April, but due to COVID there was no time to launch it to the public or to journalists.

Still, Ferrari reports a 40 per cent take-up of the go-faster Assetto Fiorano package, which brings a few significant differences and they’re all aimed at either speed or stability.

The simplest factor has been the move to grippier, more progressive Michelin Pilot SportCup2 R rubber, with 315/30 ZR20 tyres at the back and 255/35 ZR20s at the front.

Besides that, the Assetto Fiorano ditches the magnetically influenced dampers for a set of fixed-rate units and swaps out the springs for lighter titanium versions. It also gains a flicked-up active rear spoiler that looks a lot like a Gurney flap at rest.

As standard, there’s an electric motor sandwiched between the SF90’s V8 and its eight-speed dual-clutch rear transaxle, and another two at the front-end, plus a lithium-ion battery behind the cabin’s bulkhead.

The interior stuff seems almost an oversight, given the outrageous complexity of the powertrain, but there’s a curved, colour 16-inch digital instrument cluster, complete with multiple view options and touch-style controls on the steering wheel.

The technology involved in the Ferrari SF90 Assetto Fiorano feels like it’s all about teasing the barriers without touching them, because the hypercar dances so easily and cheerfully at or beyond its grip limits that it always seems there MUST be a crash. But there isn’t.

There is a 99kW electric motor for each front wheel and they deliver torque to the road for both speed and for torque vectoring. They deliver the exact amount of torque needed to keep the car on the driver’s chosen line, and can even turn one wheel backwards while the other one goes forwards.

The two front Marelli e-motors have other jobs as well. They form the dedicated reverse ‘gear’ for the hypercar (it saves about 3kg that way), as well as the dedicated energy-recuperation generators, and they drive the car in its EV mode at up to 135km/h, making the SF90 Assetto Fiorano a front-drive Ferrari.

An axial-flux, Yasa electric motor occupies just 72mm of space behind the V8, but adds in a full 266Nm of torque and 162kW of power.

All three motors sip from a 7.9kWh, 180kW battery brimming with SK Innovation cells and weighing just 72kg.

They can only charge on alternating current (AC) power, not the faster direct-current (DC) system, so the SF90 takes two hours to charge because it only swallows energy at 7.2kW. Ferrari says that’s because it wanted to keep the size and weight of the on-board charger to a minimum.

All that power from four sources adds up to 1000hp but the electric power and torque peaks are limited by how much energy the battery can discharge at any given moment, so that’s 162kW.

All three e-motors share their power electronics and inverters, too, and the entire hybrid system adds 270kg.

The astonishing V8 engine in the Ferrari SF90 Assetto Fiorano is unchanged from the Stradale, and also donates its combustion chamber design to the just-launched 296 GTB.

The F154 twin-turbo V8 was 80 per cent new compared to the F8 Tributo’s V8, with a switch to centrally located fuel-injectors that deliver multiple injections per combustion stroke, but only one spark.

Even by itself, the V8 thumps 800Nm of torque into the eight-speed transmission at 6000rpm, and 574kW of power at 7500rpm, though it revs to 8000rpm.

The SF90 chassis is a custom development of the F8 Tributo that now boasts a carbon-fibre bulkhead (you know, like a certain car from Sant’Agata) and a longer 2650mm wheelbase.

The result leaves Ferrari boasting that the SF90 has 20 per cent better bending stiffness and 40 per cent more torsional rigidity than the Tributo, with no weight cost.

But it is weighty. Even though the Assetto Fiorano strips around 40kg from the Stradale, it’s still around 1570kg.

There are also a bunch of modes for both the hybrid powertrain (which boasts up to 25km of EV range) and the suspension and skid-control systems. The steering wheel-mounted buttons can flick through wet, sport, track and qualifying modes for the powertrain, while the manettino runs the range from gentle to scary fast.

This is about speed, and how to harness it, and the Ferrari SF90 Assetto Fiorano does that even better than its road-going brethren.

It was astonishing at the Fiorano test track (where we tested the Stradale as well) and its straight-line speed is just one of the reasons.

There’s plenty of that, with the 100km/h marker disappearing in a genuine 2.5 seconds and the 200km/h barrier despatched just 4.2 seconds later. Yes, 4.2 seconds from 100 to 200km/h.

The top speed is considerably beyond 350km/h, but by then the point has been rather lost. We easily climbed into the upper reaches of sixth gear at Fiorano – and Fiorano is a pretty short track.

The V8 roar is loud and gruff, and combines with electric urgency you can never actually identify. The raw numbers cannot prepare you for the SF90 Assetto Fiorano’s insatiable appetite for gear changes and its subsequent demands for heavy braking.

It hates straights so much that it wants to be off them and back into the corners as fast as possible, yet it doesn’t seem to spend much time enjoying the bends, either.

The difference in lap speed at Fiorano is only about 0.5 seconds to the Stradale, but the feeling is completely different.

With its dancing shoes enhanced, it’s so placid to slide about from either end and it also loses the feeling of the front-end being dominated by the electric torque vectoring. Now you just feel one coherent car in search of constant pace.

It takes a lot of chutzpah to think of the Ferrari SF90 Stradale as not quite fast enough, but Ferrari has a long history of providing track versions of even its loveliest supercars.

It’s hard to say if it loses out in ride quality because we only drove the Assetto Fiorano on the circuit, but a plush ride is hardly the point here.

What it delivers instead of a bunch more speed is more manageable speed, and a lightness of spirit the ever-so-serious SF90 Stradale can’t replicate.

It dances through bends where the Stradale feels like it’s chastising you for sliding. It drifts gently on the throttle, where the Stradale wants you to stop being a naughty boy.

The Ferrari SF90 Assetto Fiorano wipes out any fear you might have of driving a hypercar with 1000 horsepower by instead making you smile. It’s a joyful genius, but it’s genius at a price.

How much does the 2021 Ferrari SF90 Assetto Fiorano cost?
Price: $958,194 plus on-road costs
Available: Now
Engine: 4.0-litre V8 turbo-petrol
Output: 574kW/800Nm
Transmission: Eight-speed dual-clutch automatic
Rear electric motor: 162kW
Front electric motor: 2 x 99kW
Fuel: TBC
CO2: TBC
Safety rating: TBC