FERRARI SF90 SPIDER

TESTED 9.6.22, SARTHE, FRANCE ON SALE NOW | Staggeringly powerful plug-in hybrid is now available with a retractable hard top

- MARK TISSHAW

The Ferrari SF90 Stradale claimed a number of Autocar honours when we attached our timing gear to it at MIRA for a road test - a new lap record on our dry handling circuit and a new acceleration record among them. Yet it didn't receive a five-star verdict.

Those incredible performance gains from this 1000 horsepower (986bhp) car over its mid-engined V8 stablemates came from the addition of hybrid technology for the first time on a series-produced Ferrari. It added plenty of good things (remarkable performance, mind-boggling responses) but at a cost (added weight, electronically manipulated handling). We therefore came away full of admiration for a new performance benchmark and technological showpiece but also a little concerned that the sweet, delicate, free-flowing nature of mid-engined Ferraris would evolve into something a bit less fun in the coming hybrid world.

Then we went and drove the grin-inducing 296 GTB, the F8 Tributo's replacement and itself a hybrid, built around a V6, and stopped worrying.

With such an incredible and alive-feeling mid-engined hybrid supercar in the same line-up for considerably less money, where does that leave the SF90 Stradale? It's a question that a customer who doesn't only want the most expensive or most powerful (or, less cynically, the most advanced) Ferrari may well pose.

We'll leave that to them to mull over and turn to the latest addition to the Ferrari range, the SF90 Spider. You guessed it: it's a convertible version of the SF90 Stradale, the two sharing a chassis and powertrain but the new entrant gaining a retractable hard top that can be opened or closed in just 14 seconds at driving speeds of up to 30mph, to allow you to experience everything from silent electric-only running around town to 200mphplus all with the wind in your hair.