Unadulterated Elemental Forces

Part 1 Adelaide, South Australia, 1995

Behind us were four weeks of Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. We had now made the acquaintance of pretty much every Buddhist temple in the region. The ubiquitous aroma of incense seemed to have deadened our sense of smell forever. Sitting on the terrace of the Hotel Oriental in Bangkok overlooking the brownly oozing, filthy Chao Phraya, we enjoyed another extended lunch before heading back to Vienna via Dubai.

Harry was leafing through an English-language daily newspaper over dessert. I think it was the International Herald Tribune, but I’m not sure, because it was eons ago. He started reading an article reporting on the upcoming Formula 1 season finale in Australia. The key take-aways: Two Ferraris equipped with twelve-cylinder engines would be on the grid for the last time piloted by Jean Alesi and Gerhard Berger. The Frenchman and the Austrian were slated to be replaced next year by Eddie Irvine and Michael Schumacher, with just ten cylinders under the hood.

Harry put the newspaper down next to his plate and deadpanned matter-of-factly, “We’re flying there now. We’re practically next door. We’d be fools not to. We’ll see everything: Free practice on Friday, qualifying on Saturday, the race on Sunday. Anyway, today’s Wednesday, so it’ll be easy. Our Gerhard in the V12 Ferrari for the last time. He needs support from his fellow Austrians!”

Bertl looked at me. I looked back at Bertl. We both looked at Harry. And Bertl, the ad copywriter, said, “Great idea, but I have to be back at the agency the day after tomorrow for an important presentation. Besides, I’m running out of cash.”

The author of these lines then one-upped Bertl: “I have to be in the editorial office in Munich the day after tomorrow. And I’ve already run out of cash.”

Harry, a son by profession (to this day he can’t even spell the word “work”) and, what’s more, the master of any situation, replied, “You pansies! What do I have a gold Amex for? I’ll pay for everything! As for your jobs, we’ll have a doctor called to the hotel. He can officially proclaim you unfit to travel home.”

Sure enough, an hour later a doctor -walked into our swanky hotel suite. He wore a gray, easy-iron Mao suit-style shirt. He was skinny like Lucky Luke and came across as extremely shy. In English, Harry launched into his monologue, getting right to the point: His two best buddies were in fact in perfect health, any blind man could see that, but they urgently needed two health certificates for their employers in Germany and Austria attesting to some kind of serious illness and inability to travel. Mr. Moneybags held a hundred-dollar bill in front of the doc’s nose – and his shyness vanished instantly. He winked at us, reached for the money, quickly put it in his pocket, opened his medical case, took out a notepad and a stamp, pulled out another ballpoint pen and asked me for my name first. Without even a second thought, as if he gave out falsified health certificates on a daily basis, he then wrote: “Mr. Kurt Molzer was bitten by a rabid dog, and he now has rabies himself. His condition is critical.” He wrote the same thing for Bertl, and his stamp transformed the lie into the official truth. Harry patted the doc appreciatively on the shoulder as he said goodbye (“You are the best doctor on earth. You are our man!”). Afterwards he called Bertl’s agency and my publishing house, putting on a horrified voice and saying that he feared for the lives of his friends and that that damned mutt was probably still on the loose. We faxed the certificates back home from the hotel reception. Check.   

We stayed at the Oriental for one more night. The next day Harry and us two rabies patients were on a plane to Melbourne. Admittedly, “in the neighborhood” is very relative; our flight took more than eight hours. We stayed in an airport hotel and jumped on our connecting flight to Adelaide, capital of the state of South Australia, the next day.  

It was Friday, November 10, 1995.

Tickets were only available on the black market and cost an arm and a leg. No matter, Harry was footing the bill after all. He also bought a Ferrari flag and a Gerhard Berger T-shirt for each of us. Dressed very smartly and fittingly for the occasion, we took our seats on the grandstand behind Brewery Bend, a fast right turn that leads directly into the long Brabham Straight. Free practice was already underway, and the three of us were now extremely keen on the race. We were insanely happy that we could watch Gerhard at work so far from home.

We could hear our fellow Austrian in the 412 T2 with the starting number 28 as he accelerated out of Stag Corner into Jones Straight. Heavens to Betsy, that was an angry roar! It taught you the meaning of humility! The closer it got, the more dramatic the change in timbre and decibel level. Of course, we didn’t use earplugs since none of us wanted to look like a sissy. The Ferrari was now about 150 yards from the entry to Brewery Bend, you could already feel its timbre in your guts. Your one thought: Holy Guacamole, if they could get all the hearing-impaired people from the greater Adelaide area here now, they would be deaf no more. (Or was that a gross error in reasoning and the deaf would actually end up even deafer?) When Gerhard had the Brewery Bend in his rearview mirror and was gunning it hair-on-fire down the long straight – Are you out of your freakin’ mind! – our eyes rolled back in our heads and our mouths dropped open, and we forgot all about waving our flags because we were so awed. We proudly displayed our forearms covered in goose bumps and were unanimous in our opinion that the Ferrari’s competition sounded like a bunch of pimply-faced pubescent youngsters whose voices were still breaking. 

A few laps later, this sport, which we loved at least as much as our wives waiting for us at home, reared its ugly head: Häkkinen’s McLaren sustained tire damage and came flying directly towards us at 200 km/h, a half a meter above the ground. After crashing into the track barrier Mika was trapped in the cockpit with a fractured skull base, a bloodied face and his tongue lodged in his throat. He was about to suffocate, and at the last second race doctor Sid Watkins rushed over and performed a tracheotomy.

We quickly learned that he was not in any mortal danger, so we were free to enjoy Saturday and Sunday reasonably worry--free. Berger put the Ferrari in fourth place on the grid in final practice. In the race he pulled into second after thirty laps. Four laps later, if I remember correctly, curtains: engine failure, of all things. This was the final chapter for the last twelve-cylinder in Formula 1. Alesi was already done for on lap 23 after colliding with Schumacher.

Ferrari stuck with its twelve cylinders in racing’s premier division for two years longer than all the other teams. Because the twelve-cylinder is to Ferrari what the Mafia is to Sicily or what Wagner is to Bayreuth. Moreover, the twelve-cylinder engine is also every Ferrari’s “sex organ”, as Luca di Montezemolo, Maranello’s long-time patriarch, always used to emphasize. All well and good, but Ferrari wasn’t winning any more titles with it. Its torque was too low, and its fuel consumption much too high. Anyway, as Gerhard Berger later said about his last laps in the 412 T2, “I said to myself, you’ll never hear a sound like that again.” The three of us – Harry, Bertl and myself – all had the exact same thought.

Part 2
Fiorano, Emilia-Romagna, 2021

It’s late autumn. Dark clouds are gathering over the Pista di Fiorano, Ferrari’s test track. The weather resembles my mood, melancholy as far as the eye can see. But shouldn’t we really be triumphantly humming Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks? Aren’t you one of the chosen few in the world about to put on a crash helmet, like something straight out of an overly dramatic movie scene, climb into the cockpit of a hypercar, pull the four-point harness over both your shoulders like a starfighter pilot and then thunder off into the blue? We’re talking about the Ferrari 812 Competizione, a car that was only built 1,598 times for the most illustrious of illustrious customers (999 coupes, 599 targas, all of which sold out even before the unveiling).  

Roughly speaking, we’re talking about a clientele that takes the F40 to buy their fresh baguette for brunch, parks the California on the yacht (in order to reach the golf course in the hinterland from the next harbor without too much trouble), and has a used, ready-to-drive 1970s F1 posing in front of the Picasso in the living room and makes a pilgrimage to the Festival of Speed in Goodwood once a year. But we’re also talking about people who – as they have done in the past with other Ferrari models – are snatching up the Competizione as an investment. They lock it away in their subterranean, nuclear-bomb-proof James Bond garages, where they sit cooling their heels for years, dreaming of fast S-curves, like the imprisoned Count of Monte Cristo ­dreamed of a bath and clean clothes. At some point its liberators will knock on the door, perhaps an eighteen-year-old Internet millionaire with a baby-cheeked face, or perhaps a black-bearded oil sheikh who has finally gotten fed up with the capriciousness of his racing camel. It doesn’t matter who comes along with their money bags, the owner of the Competizione will give a big toothy grin, rub his hands in glee and say, “Two million dollars, please!” I think I read somewhere that Ferrari wanted to stop such speculation this time around to make sure that the Competizione would actually see some drive time. If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that’ll surely interest you.    

But what’s actually going on with our author now? He gets to playact the rich man for eight rounds. Why now this tiresome moaning of gloom and dark clouds?  

Because again, like back in Australia, it’s goodbye. One last time. The Competizione, the radical and uncompromising culmination of the 812 Superfast (no longer in production), is the last Ferrari with a non-electric V12 front engine. This has not been officially announced yet, but everybody knows it. In fact, you can bet your bottom dollar. It’s also long been common knowledge that the first all-electric Ferrari is coming in 2025. An electric Ferrari! The very idea makes my toenails curl. The only thing that keeps me going is Heraclitus’s famous quote: “The only constant in the universe is change.”

One last time, then, let’s awaken those unadulterated elemental forces. Suction. Condense. Burn. Expel. Once more and then never again. And never hear that sound again! It’s so unimaginable, and so sad too, you almost can’t get it through your head. My thoughts go back to Adelaide more than a quarter of a century ago. But this time it’s far worse. Because, firstly, the road Ferrari is closer to you than the F1. And because, secondly, when a serially produced Ferrari is gradually reduced to using more and more battery power it weighs much more heavily on you than when F1 switched from twelve cylinders to ten. I ask myself: When was the last time I was in such a bad mood? And I think of all the former F1 drivers who now drive Formula E. They say they think Formula E is cool. I don’t believe a word they say. They are flat out lying. Because if they didn’t say that, they’d lose their job. It’s hard for them to say that in reality their face is falling asleep. I feel sorry for them.

But you have to pull yourself together now. Mustn’t ruin the mood here. The lovely and fun-loving Frau Drescher from Ferrari Germany is also here. “And, every-thing is all right? Are you looking forward to it?” she asks. I lie to her face and give her the thumbs up like the worst actor in a cheaply made series broadcast on early evening television: “Everything’s great! I deliberately skipped breakfast so that I wouldn’t bring too much of my own weight onto the track. Would be bad for my lap times.” – “Well, good thinking! Although I’m sure a spot of coffee wouldn’t have hurt.” (But Frau Drescher responds as if she was also starring in our cheap TV series!) “Not even a spot, Frau Drescher, not even a spot!” Actually, I inhaled scrambled eggs with sausage, plus mustard and ketchup, then two cheese sandwiches, yogurt with fruit and honey, and three cups of cocoa with half a kilo of sugar. I ate like it was going out of style tomorrow, out of frustration. It must have been a really unappetizing sight. Now my belt is tight.

Flip the switch. Blank out the dreary future. Focus on the here and now. We owe it to this breathtakingly beautiful last of the Mohicans with its long snout and immensely powerful rear end. The sparsely grooved Michelin Cup 2R tires, which experts call “super glue”, are a clue that this is something very special. The aluminum cover with vortex generators, sitting in place of the rear window, is also an expression of the highest extravagance. Together with the diffuser and a number of other ingenious air control systems, it is designed to generate immense downforce. It is said that this Ferrari even demonstrates the ground effects that you only ever commonly see in motorsports. Experiencing this personally, in the literal sense, will remain forever out of reach. The ground effects begin where my talent ends. This is a fact that is as unbearable as it is highly depressing, one of the great tragedies of my life. I even once thought of killing myself over it, wanting to be run over by a silver Maserati Merak that I was driving myself.

To make saying goodbye even harder for us, the most powerful V12 Maranello ever made has been implanted under the skin of this super sports car. So now we’re at 830 horses of power! I can already hear the objections from our learned readers: “But the Ferrari SF90 Stradale has 1,000 hp!” True. However, those are generated from a “mere” 780-hp V8 twin-turbo and three electric motors totaling 220 hp. And while we’re comparing notes: The 6.5-liter 812 Competizione has 130 more horsepower than the 1995 Berger F1, and you don’t need a racing license to drive it.

That’s exactly the crazy part. As if 830 hp and 692 Nm of torque weren’t enough of a declaration of war, when you add the rear-wheel drive things start to get really out of hand. You don’t need to have won the Nobel Prize in physics to know that. You’d have to be Verstappen to process this demonic concoction without a filter (read: “ESC off”). After a test lap the flying Dutchman and probably future King of the Netherlands would say, probably just a touch bored, “Is gud, yes, but a beet too soft. I mean ze rear, when I full throttle out of ze corner, yes, then is too soft ze rear. It could be for me, how do you say, I think angrier, yes, no, a beet more aggressive, then would be gud.” For those NOT remotely named Verstappen and hanging on for dear life, you should know that no one will tell you that you can’t deactivate the electronic stability program. However, keep in mind that if you do, it might very well be your last ride. And then you would wake up in a place where only angel carriages silently float about, and you will die of boredom a second time. The Italian Ministry of Transport should require Ferrari by law to have these words printed on marbled paper and enclosed with the owner’s manual.

You’d be all set to go, off to Shakespearean dimensions! “Hell is empty; all the devils are in this car!” The Ferrari sports tailpipes that are as round as your arm from which it roars an inferno into the atmosphere. The driver wonders, “How can something so beautiful be so evil?” (Didn’t Johnny Depp have the same thought about his ex-wife Amber Heard?) You immediately jack it up to just about the limit of what it can take, to about nine thousand rotations of the crankshaft. The big yellow speedometer stares back at you with its cyclops eyeball. You push the paddle on the steering wheel towards you with the fingers of your right hand and shift into second gear. Your gaze lingers for a second on the manettino dial, that little device for setting the suspension settings, traction control, etc. Like the serpent in the Garden of Eden, “ESC off” flashes temptingly at you (“Press me! Come on, you wimp!”), but it was quite recently that you saw that old Italian black-and-white movie with the tightrope walker balancing at a dizzying height over a large square without a safety net, only to plummet to his death. You don’t want to be that tightrope walker. Your safety net is “race” mode, which sounds like more than it is. You’d always be saved in time by the electronics. Even a trained monkey – to quote a three-time Alpine Formula One world champion – could manage on that setting. No, let’s be sensible. Let’s not let the story drift off completely into the morbid. Let’s ignore the snake, which is even more evil than the car itself. Instead, let’s get high on every second and every meter we put behind us. Let’s get high on the perforated aluminum pedals and the lavish use of carbon. Let’s get high on the camera image that replaces the rear-view mirror and shows what’s happening behind us as if it were using time-lapse photography. (On the other hand, I regret the lack of a rearview mirror because, when I’m behind the wheel of cars with 600 hp or more, I like to whisper to my reflection, “You’re the greatest stud since Genghis Khan.”) And finally, as we speed down the track, let’s take a conscious breath. Then we realize just how much this Ferrari stinks – like an awful lot of money. Oh yes, you can also get high on the smell of money. I certainly can.

I feel the turmoil gaining strength inside me. The faster I drive, the faster this last time here comes to an end. But driving slowly is impossible. Driving a Ferrari slowly is almost unthinkable, like going to a sports stadium blindfolded. I would have preferred to do this test drive on public roads. Then I would have had more time. I would have sped off towards Mezzogiorno only returning to Maranello at night or the next morning: “Mi dispiace. I took a wrong turn.”

So let’s slowly up the speed. We then notice in the curves that the rear wheels steer individually, each separately, up to 1.5 degrees in each direction, depending on the driving situation and steering angle input. Wow, we can feel those 1.5 degrees quite precisely, as they are almost directly conveyed to my palms. On the outer narrow side of my hands – also called the edge of the hand sometimes used in executing karate chops – I feel how the outer wheel turns in more at an angle in order to ensure the correct radius of each tire. The fact that we at ramp magazine can sense something like this – 1.5 degrees of separate rear wheel angle, hello!? – is really unique. This is once again what sets us apart. This is what separates the men from the boys. And this also shows once again (apart from the unattainability of the ground effect) what divinely gifted test drivers we are. I even think . . . the best in the world. What do you think now, dear reader? Has he gone completely off his rocker? I wouldn’t be surprised. I was just making a little joke: Anyone who claims that their hands can sense 1.5 degrees of rear-wheel angle etc. should obviously be examined by a medical professional. I simply copied the facts about all-wheel steering from the website and aligned them with my supposed awareness of how the car handles. My apologies. What I actually felt, though, was how enormously precise this steering is and how much it tempts you to take every corner even faster.

Seriously again: Basically, I prefer a sports car with the engine in the back, and only two wheels and my legs sticking out in front. The engine propels me forward, and I steer. Added to this is your extreme proximity to the road. Here, on the other hand, I feel like I’m driving a monster of an engine in front of me. And the long front end puts me at a distance from the road. In the 812 Competizione, such thoughts don’t even bubble up to the surface. On the contrary, it pulls you along so brutally that you stop breathing, and the road couldn’t be far away enough. Zero to 100 km/h in 2.9 seconds. Zero to 200 in 7.7 seconds. And then on to 340. Power-to-weight ratio: 1.79 kilos per hp.

Round four, half time. Transfixed down to the tips of my hair by this sound, I’ve now entered a state of flow and am ready for more risk. So far it’s been like running on rails, not even remotely peevish, my yellow Ferrari. There’s this right-hand corner, past the big skid pad where Ferrari does its tire testing. This corner is not easy to take, somewhat fast. It requires a really clean line and a sensitive foot on the gas. This corner has thwarted me many times over the past twenty years. And I’ve called it many names – “cursed bastard” was still the most affectionate (you don’t want to know the others). Of course, this is where it had to happen. I jump on the gas too early. The rear wheels lose their grip and I lose control. It happens so fast, it leaves you breathless. The Ferrari starts to snake from side to side and only rights itself near the curb. But at least it does. Without ESC, I’d have been toast.

On the last lap, I suddenly notice a vibration when braking. Cool, I think, because the half-million-euro car has just 1,500 kilometers on the odometer. I pull into the pit like Sainz or Leclerc, roll down the window and report the problem: “It vibrates when I brake.” One of the Ferrari test drivers nods his head briefly. As I get out, he inspects the front tires. “Look here,” he says, “You’ve got about two kilos of marbles on the front left one alone.” He says “two kilos”, which is clearly an exaggeration. Anyway, he means: Way too much. Marbles are the rubber particles next to the racing line left behind by tire wear. I wasn’t the first to do laps here in the Competizione. “That means,” the test driver explains to me, “You weren’t necessarily driving the racing line.” –
“I think I was most of the time.” – “Mostly not, I think.” – “Mmm, okay.”

On the drive to the Bologna airport, I still have the sound of the twelve-cylinder in my ear. I will preserve its roar in my meatus acusticus internus, my inner auditory canal. My mind once again drifts to the impending death of true sports cars and the words of Ferdinand Porsche: “The last car to be built will be a sports car.” I don’t know how he came up with that or what exactly he meant by it, but there’s something comforting about it now. Then I call Harry and tell him where I just was. He is not amused, “You call yourself a friend. Why didn’t you take me with you?” – “Only experts are allowed on the Pista di Fiorano, you know that. You’d have learned something, you good-for-nothing.” But calling Bertl was out of the question. Five years after our trip to Australia, our favorite globetrotter was riding a Royal Enfield through India. He didn’t stand a chance when a bus came at him straight on. This story is dedicated to him.