It’s one thing to evaluate a car along the highways and byways of Canada, but I recently got to check out a sports supercar at one of the world epicenters of performance motoring - Maranello, home of legendary Italian manufacturer Ferrari.

Not only did I see the F430 being built at the spacious and ultra-modern Ferrari factory, but I also got to drive it on the company’s own race circuit - Fiorano. To serious car nuts the world over, Fiorano is a place of mystical fame - the track where just about every new Ferrari competition car gets to turn a wheel for the first time.

For decades, the world’s best racing drivers have lapped Fiorano at speed and anyone who gets the privilege of driving there feels a sense of awe that the likes of Michael Schumacher, Gilles Villeneuve, Niki Lauda, Felipe Massa, Kimi Raikkonen and many more fabled drivers were there before them. While VLM was at Fiorano, Ferrari even rolled out a Formula One car for a few quick demonstration laps with test driver - Spain’s Marc Gene - at the wheel.

Ferrari has had much to celebrate lately. Last year saw the company’s 60th anniversary and more recently, Ferrari has been marking an amazing 60 years of working with Shell almost continually as a fuel and lubricant supplier. There are probably very few corporate partnerships anywhere in the world of sport that have lasted as long as that between Ferrari and Shell. And Shell has made a significant contribution to Ferrari’s success, even though fuel formulations are quite restricted. When Marc Gene had his F1 car prepped for the track, it was topped up with standard Shell V-Power pump fuel, and he noted no significant performance loss over race-day fuel.

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