GRR

The best known circuit that has never hosted a race | Thank Frankel it’s Friday

24th January 2025
andrew_frankel_headshot.jpg Andrew Frankel

Think of the most famous tracks in the world: Spa, the Nürburgring, Silverstone, Monaco, Le Mans... it’s fairly obvious that if a circuit is going to enter motor sporting legend it needs to be have two qualities. First, be an absolutely brilliant driver’s track and, second, to have held some pretty senior motor races over time.

Aeriel shot.jpg

Except for one. For there is another, barely any less well known track which has never hosted so much as a ten lap club race let alone a Grand Prix. A track on which only one make of car has ever been allowed to run. A track that wouldn’t feature in anyone’s top 20 great circuits from a driver’s perspective. And yet there Fiorano lies, up there among the most well-known of them all.

I can name quite a few tracks around the world that manufacturers use for testing their products but only because it’s part of my job. But to the outside world, I guess there’s NARDO which, while owned by Porsche, is used by most European manufacturers, and Weissach, the famed Porsche facility just outside Stuttgart. Lotus, of course, has Hethel too, but I bet no driver ever got the butterflies before their first lap at any of these like they did the first time they ever drove out of the tiny pits at Fiorano. Like Lewis Hamilton did this very week.

It’s not because Fiorano is a forboding place, overshadowed by tragedy, the kind of place you tell someone where to find your car keys just in case you’re not going to need them again. Not in the least. It’s the history. Opened in 1972, it’s where just about every Ferrari road and racing car have done their first laps.

True, as speeds have risen its tight confines have proven limiting which is why Ferrari bought Mugello in 1988, but it scarcely matters: think of all those Ferrari drivers of the last half century who first climbed into a scarlet right here: Lauda, Villeneuve, Mansell, Prost, Schumacher, Alonso, Vettel and, now, Lewis Hamilton. Think of all those legendary road cars that first turned a wheel in anger here: Boxer, GTO, F40, F50, Enzo, LaFerrari and so on and on and on.

Hamilton.jpg
Hamilton 2.jpg

But what’s it like to drive? I’ve been lucky enough to have driven it with reasonable frequency for over 30 years, my first outing in a 456GT in 1993, my most recent in an SF90. Goodness knows how many laps I’ve done, but certainly a number of hundreds. 

The track is laid out in a figure of eight configuration like Suzuka, so as best to make use of the available space. And it's one of those circuits that, if you get it right, can feel quite deliciously rewarding and, if you don’t, always feels awkward and unnatural.

There are some parts where you can let your inner hooligan loose – there’s a hairpin where we do all those smoky cornering shots, and a reasonable straight on which something quick might reach perhaps 150-160mph. But actually most of it is really technical.

SF90.jpg

Once you’ve negotiated turn one there’s a host of other corners all feeding into each other in such a way that a small mistake on turn in to the first is amplified all the way until it turns into a colossal error at the exit of the last. There’s a nasty compression as you’re on the brakes and wanting to turn right onto the bridge that forms the overpass and cheeky bump on the blind crest that takes you onto the top of the bridge that I’ve only recently started to notice as the cars I’ve been driving have hit it ever harder and faster. It’ll get your attention in a 740PS (544kW) F12, but in a 943PS (694kW) LaFerrari it feels like you’ve left the ground. 

There’s a blind entry to the corner that takes you off the bridge and down the hairpin, a big slide just to see how well the latest generation of Ferrari’s SSC (Side Slip Control) is working, then into a fourth gear left, the only genuinely quick corner on the track where you can be greedy with the kerb on the inside but need to watch overshooting on the exit. One more tight left turn and you’re hammering back down the straight towards turn one once more.

It is far from my favourite track, but there is still something about it that makes me love going there. Partly it’s because I know I have to be on top of my game: Ferrari rarely gives you more than five laps, including the out and in laps, so there’s no time to test out all the various modes, build up to the limit, try different lines and so on. It has to be max attack, traction control off from lap one because you’ll never find out how the car really handles on the ragged edge if you don’t.

Road car 2.jpg
Road car.jpg

But actually? It’s because this is the only place Enzo saw his beloved racing cars being driven in the latter part of his life. He’d long since stopped going to Grands Prix, but he’d sit in his office at Fiorano and hear and see his latest creations doing their thing. There is a magic about this place and called me a soppy old twit, but I love it. And you’ll have to say the same to Lewis because it was here this week that he drove a Ferrari F1 car for the first time, after which he said:

‘When I started the car up and drove through that garage door, I had the biggest smile on my face. It reminded me of the very first time I tested a Formula 1 car, it was such an exciting and special moment, and here I am, almost twenty years later, feeling those emotions all over again.’ It seems he’s got it bad, and I completely understand. Let’s just hope that, by the end of the year, it’s all turned out for the best.

  • Thanks Frankel its Friday

  • Fiorano

  • Ferrari

  • race

  • modern

  • ferrari_588_pista_frankel_08061807.jpg

    Andrew Frankel

    Thank Frankel it's Friday: I'd wear a tutu just to drive a Ferrari at Fiorano

  • ferrari-488-challenge-track-car-sidebar.jpg

    Modern

    Ignore hypercars, track cars are the best... track cars | Thank Frankel it’s Friday

  • jim-farley-ford-ceo-ac-cobra-75mm-chris-ison-main-goodwood-30102020.jpg

    Historic

    Racing CEOs make car companies better – Thank Frankel it’s Friday

Shop the Motorsport collection today

Shop Now
Goodwood image