Comparing 0-60mph times isn’t enough to fully assess a car’s performance, as there’s more to the story than just straight-line acceleration. Still, it’s a quick and easy way to get a feel for how it stacks up against rivals in the segment. If you needed more proof, the Ferrari SF90 Stradale is fast, Brooks Weisblat of DragTimes made a few hard launches using different sets of tires with his $556,000 machine.
Running on the original, year-old Pirelli Pilot Sport Cup 2, the hybrid supercar needed around 2.5 seconds to complete the 0-60 mph race or 2.3 seconds with the deployment of one foot. However, the tires were already starting to show their age, so Brooks decided to replace the rear tires with a new pair of Toyo Proxes R888R rubbers. The differences were day and night as the sprint time dropped to 2.33 seconds or 2.16 seconds with deployment.
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Chances are it wouldn’t have made much difference to put Toyos on the front axle as well, as it’s the rear wheels that struggle to pull due to the immense power delivered by the V8 engine 4.0-liter biturbo. It should be noted that the new rubber weighs 32 pounds (14.5 kilograms), which makes it slightly heavier despite being exactly the same size as the Pirelli, at 315/30/20.
Brooks also took her Ferrari to the drag strip where it completed the quarter mile in 9.62 seconds at 145.4 mph (234 km/h). The SF90 Stradale is therefore one of the fastest accelerating cars on sale today to still have a combustion engine. In reality, Car and driver managed a 2.0-second sprint late last year and a 9.5-second quarter-mile at 148 mph (238 km/h) on stock tires, but with that one-foot deployment that we mentioned earlier.
As you may recall, Mat Watson of Carwow rode the Rimac Nevera in a drag race against the SF90 Stradale last year to a quarter mile in 8.62 seconds. A few months later, Brooks lowered the time to 8.58 seconds with a trap speed of 167.5 mph (269 km/h).
The man behind the DragTimes The chain also happens to have a Tesla Model S Plaid, which reigns supreme with a 0-60mph time of 1.99 seconds on road-legal tires with a rollout and 2.16 seconds without.
