Henry Catchpole gets behind the wheel of the new Ferrari 296 Speciale in the latest episode of The Driver’s Seat. With a name like that, it has a lot to live up to, because the 458 Speciale is one of the all-time great models from the Prancing Horse. With 868bhp going solely to the rear wheels it should be pretty exciting but has Ferrari given its latest £360,000 hybrid supercar too much to live up to?
As Max Verstappen has been racing a Ferrari 296 around a certain race track in Germany recently, it was appropriate that our 296 Speciale was painted a shade of green called Verde Nürburgring. We didn’t venture as far as the Nordschleife, but we did drive on the famous tarmac of Fiorano and also visited the track nearby that Ferrari used before it had it’s own circuit.
In order to put the 296 Speciale through a full test, we drove it on some treacherously wet and bumpy roads in the beautiful hills of Emilia-Romana as well. A 60kg lighter, more aggressive Speciale might not seem equipped to deal with such conditions, but it is still a remarkable road car and remains capable of driving up to 16miles on electric power alone. And if the thought of a silent Ferrari makes you shudder then know that the engineers have also worked hard to improve the sound of the Speciale when the V6 is running.
As an added bonus in this episode we look back at the time Gilles Villeneuve raced a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter. It might just be the coolest car versus plane race that has ever occurred!
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