Ferrari. A name synonymous with supercar. The ultimate supercar (Sorry Lamborghini, but for me, as breathtaking as you are, you were always playing catch up with Ferrari. Just like Audi has with BMW). Their cars are always flirting with our imagination and Ferrari is popular enough to be known by everyone (and I mean everyone), but rare and exclusive enough to be just an object of dreams for most of us, out of reach icon which associated with the luckiest and the richest, with the best thing you can get.
Seeing one of them on the street, no matter how old or young you are, or actually how old or young the Ferrari you just saw is, it will always catch your attention, it will make you turn you head to get a better look and if you are as big petrol head as I am, your heart will start beating quicker! That is especially true when you hear that engine roaring! Seeing two of them together almost never happens. Seeing three next two each other on the street and you should probably buy a Lotto ticket because this is your very lucky day! So … what about seeing 1000 Ferrari’s in one place? Does this mean you died and went straight to heaven? I decided to find out.
When I got an opportunity to go to the Silverstone racetrack to experience Ferrari North Europe attempting to beat a Guinness world record of the biggest parade of Ferrari cars I just couldn’t say no! Alright. Spoiler alert. You don’t die and go straight to heaven (but you spend an amazing day experiencing one of the most spectacular events that you’ll ever see). Spoiler alert no. 2. It actually wasn’t 1000 cars. The official number is 964 to be correct. That basically means they absolutely smashed a previous record of 490 cars set in 2008 at Fuji Speedway Circuit in Japan. No one saw that coming. Don’t get me wrong, the record was expected to be broken, but not by twice as much as the previous one!
The parade was led by a pearl white Ferrari 458 as a safety car closely followed by no other than Felipe Massa in a black 458 spider (who started with a little burnout off the start – yay!). What I saw right behind them was mind blowing!
Ten F40’s (yes – 10!) and five Enzo’s ( yes – 5!). The rest of them weren’t pushovers by any standards at all! I probably saw all of the Ferrari’s I ever knew about plus quite a few I never knew existed, including what I think was nothing else but the Zagato 575 GTZ (I had to check that). It was a spectacular moment watching all of them passing the famous Wing at Silverstone one by one in three lanes one next to another …
When I say “moment” I actually mean 19 minutes. This is how long it took nearly 1000 cars to do a lap at Silverstone circuit (probably the longest one ever – here’s another record for you!). And that sound! The roar of hundreds and hundreds of Ferraris … I was there in the car park just before the parade.
I was rushing to a viewing point through the car park when all of them almost at once started their engines. The funny part of that moment was when the alarms started going off on the cars which were still sitting unlocked amongst all of those shouting engines. It was like hearing a bunch of Ferrari’s crying out loud to their owners to let them go and play with the rest!
So there I was, running through a huge car park surrounded by a thousand Ferrari’s roaring and raging to go and show off. And that was the scary part of that moment! Suddenly I realized I’m surrounded by a thousand Ferrari’s shouting and waiting to go! Everywhere I looked around me there was a car (mostly red ones) going right past me or in fact at me! Luckily the mature Ferrari owners let me out to safety where I could catch my breath and overcome the dizziness from all that redness. Happy days!
That was an amazing day which started with quite a few laps of older F1 cars (oh the noise!) and some racing from Ferrari Pirelli Challenge cars and 599XXs and FXXs programme. A look into the Wing to see brand new F12 Berlinetta (a stunning, stunning car!), followed by a visit to the pits to see some of the meanest looking cars I ever saw (I promise you Batman would not shy away from some of those XX cars!). All with a clear blue skies above (which is a huge bonus considering an unpredictable British weather) and I only wish the food stands were a little bit better.
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