di Richard Milne


Screaming down the home straight of Ferrari's test track at 200kmph an hour in a classic red 458 Italia, I suddenly don't feel like lunch. The Fiorano track near Bologna in central Italy is, at 3 km, not long. But, partly in an attempt to impress the test driver next to me with some fast cornering, I feel as if I have left part of my stomach on one of its hairpin bends. Matters fail to improve as, in heavy fog untypical of early summer, I take the car off the track and, rather more slowly, on to the winding roads of the Apennines, heading for Ferrari HQ in nearby Maranello.

I am still spinning slightly when we pull into the car park just before the company's elegant and aristocratic chairman, Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, who somewhat incongruously arrived in a small Fiat. He explains that his journey from Rome has been a nightmare as fog diverted his helicopter and forced him to take trains and cars - hence the Fiat.

Nevertheless he appears in characteristically enthusiastic mood. "I've just been to a conference at the Vatican (on the financial crisis). "Fantastic" he explains. "Fantastic" is a word Montezemolo uses a lot.

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