Extreme Close-up - A famous speed palace swings open its gates for the first test of the car that shares its name
Within the old farmouse next to the track, Enzo Ferrari's office remains just as he left it.
"Sorry, but only Italian cars are allowed at the Fiorano track." Photographer Mark Bramley and I looked at each other in dismay. But Davide Kluzer, our Ferrari host, was unbending. If we wanted to test the new 599 on the famous test track it's named for, we would have to transfer our cases into his Fiat Multipla and be ferried in. (And only when our empty rental Ford clicked locked, did the ice-faced guard finally nod us through.)
However, barely 100 meters further on-through a short tunnel beneath the track pavement that passes overhead-the silliness of this Italian-only rule evaporated. Two hundred miles north of Rome, Pista Di Fiorano (Pista meaning track; Fiorano being a tiny town encapsulated by Maranello) is the epicenter of Italy's runner-up religion. A place even Pope John Paul II visited in 1988 to celebrate mass. From an altar erected atop the pit structure, no less.
Upstairs is a modern gym for the drivers and the Formula 1 team's conference room.
And like John Paul's Vatican, Fiorano is sort of a working museum, with a swirling, St. Peter's-like mix of immediate human concerns and revered artifacts. By far Fiorano's most notable time capsule is Enzo's enshrined office, which sits as he left it and includes its most intriguing relic, Il Commendatore's Googiesque "Batphone" (as Bramley quietly cracked). Ferrari, who rarely went to races, relied on this contraption to interact with the world beyond Maranello. One wonders what passed through its wires: Drivers who disappointed, fired; a crazy-fast new kid with a promising lack of imagination, hired; qualifying times heard from every corner of the planet. You're tempted to press the phone's speaker against your ear to listen for a while. Although Fiorano was completed in 1972 (setting the stage for Niki Lauda's era), it's thick with the scuderia's entire history of conquering successes, drivers lost in tumbling automotive shrapnel, and mass firings of St. Valentine's day-proportions. Not your everyday test track.
But this day, Fiorano is relatively at ease because the Formula 1 team was practicing in Japan (where M. Schumacher's attempt to put a cherry on his monumental career would abruptly grenade two days later in a cloud of white smoke). Nevertheless, the team is never far away; nearby, a display screen was scrolling with practice times coming in from Suzuka. News from the front.
Enzo's phone.
Meanwhile, I was getting intimate with our 599 (with Rossa Corsa paint, by the way-blood red rather than the model's exclusive Rossa Monza metallic burgundy). And, well, guess I should explain. Primarily, I was here to bag acceleration, braking, and cornering data on the 599. Previously, Art St. Antoine has offered his driving impressions of the car ("Red Dragon," July 2006), and Frank Markus even piloted an example across Peru ("Inca Spots," December 2006). But my cherry-on-top was to hyper-instrument the car for another of our new Virtual Track Tests for motortrend.com, meaning lots of crawling around on hands and knees taping yards of wires to the Ferrari's flanks. Studying the master's canvas with nose right against the paint to put a positive spin on it.