2005 Ferrari 575 M Preview

Driving Ferrari's 575 M Maranello

You can go 202 mph in it--but it still takes two years to get one and costs nearly a quarter of a million dollars.

On The Track

Remember doing stoplight drag racing as a kid? Well, the 575 M lets you re-live those days with its Launch Control.

However, rather than at a light, we'd advise using this system at a track, like we did, since you're going to need plenty of room and no constables present to achieve guilt-free, rubber-burning propulsion. Luckily, we got to try it at Ferrari's amazing test track, Fiorano.

Or was it lucky?

See, Fiorano is merciless, with all its turns designed to emulate the toughest bends from all of the world's Formula 1 circuits. Turn One is a hard right-hander that eases, then bites again just as you think you're in the clear.

So, naturally, we used Launch Control for Turn One.

Here's what it was like. While idling, engage the system and turn off the ASR traction control, select the transmission's Sport mode, press the brake pedal with your left foot and the gas with your right. Depress the gas to, say, 4,000 rpm (to get the engine into its peak torque range) and release the brake. Here, the clutch is engaged carefully by the F1 gearbox (to avoid damage), but quickly enough to enjoy exactly what you'd expect from a Ferrari -- a clean, strong, glued-to-one's-seat takeoff. Be ready to shift to second gear quickly because redline will arrive about a second after launch (at 46mph). Also know that just after you hit second gear, you'll be right on top of 60mph, which arrives in 4.2 seconds.

And then, right after you've kissed redline in third (93mph), you're heading towards Turn One. Find the brake. Now.

It's exceedingly hard to set any car up just right for this corner and yet, again, it's the 575 M that forgives your misdeeds (at least ours). We're on the brakes too soft, then too hard, but no matter, you can correct easily enough with more gas, soft steering and just being more gentle than you'd ever expect possible.

The steering, especially, is the star in the tightest moments, always light but never twitchy, emulating what's going on at the pavement surface and instantly relaying inputs so that you never feel as if you have to force the issue or over-emphasize inputs.

The fifth turn at Fiorano also proves the mettle of the 575 M's extraordinary suspension, since this hairpin requires going in as deep as possible, getting off the brakes and sliding the car around to a straight line the other direction, then squeezing back on the throttle again just before the car slides too far and shaves precious speed.

We never got this just right (it's tough to get truly bold with a car that costs more than most of your worldly assets), but right enough to feel the 575 M's adaptive suspension prevent nosedive as we entered the turn under hard braking and also for it to offset right-hand chassis roll as we slid sideways through the bend. We then felt ASR (for this we had the car in Sport mode but with traction control on) keep the back end in tight for a razor-thin millisecond, but not so long that it blew our timing for accelerating toward the next kink in Fiorano.