The Italian Navy plans to put an F-35B fighter jet on the same runway as a Ferrari SF90 on Oct. 11 at its air base in Grottaglie, southern Italy, in a test of acceleration between a high-performance car and a short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing aircraft. A Navy spokesman confirmed that the race will go ahead, Defense News reported.
The first contest will cover 500 meters on an aluminum runway used by the Navy’s F-35Bs for landing. The aircraft will take off at the end of the course, while the Ferrari remains on the ground. The format is designed to test the two machines over the portion of the event where the car’s launch and the fighter’s acceleration can be compared directly.
Fabio Barone will drive the Ferrari SF90. Barone, who has claimed seven speed records in a Ferrari, said the car normally accelerates from zero to 100 kilometers per hour in 2.8 seconds. With special engine tuning for the event, he expects that figure to fall to 2.6 seconds. He said the car should reach 330 kilometers per hour during the 500-meter run and complete it in about eight to nine seconds.
The aircraft is expected to start more slowly but has greater power, Barone said. He also described the car’s acceleration as producing a force of 2.2g, or about 140 kilograms of pressure. The comparison will therefore focus on a short ground sprint rather than the aircraft’s ability to climb, hover or operate from a short runway, capabilities associated with the F-35B’s design.
A second race will extend the course to 2.8 kilometers and combine ground and flight segments. The Ferrari and F-35B will run together for the first 500 meters before the aircraft takes over in flight at an altitude of about 20 meters. The course will use asphalt and aluminum, and both machines will share a runway 35 meters wide. Barone said that would leave 15 meters between them during the parallel run and that driving over the aluminum plates would create significant vibration.
The event follows an earlier Italian military demonstration involving a Ferrari and a fighter aircraft. In 2003, Formula One driver Michael Schumacher raced a Ferrari Formula One car against an Italian Air Force Eurofighter at Grosseto. The Eurofighter won 900-meter and 1,200-meter races without taking off, while Schumacher won a 600-meter race after reaching 294 kilometers per hour, finishing in 9.6 seconds and beating the aircraft by two-tenths of a second.
Barone also previously drove a Ferrari along the flight deck of the Italian Navy’s Trieste carrier. The car reached 164 kilometers per hour over roughly 200 meters before he braked to avoid leaving the end of the ship. At Grottaglie, the Navy’s planned two-stage event will instead place the car beside an F-35B first on the ground and then alongside the aircraft’s low-altitude flight path.