Top Gear drives the fastest Ferrari ever

The world tilts. The warm dawn sun, so peachy and recently risen, sinks back below the parapet; the trees slant, the horizon angles and nothing is the same any more. This twisted perspective isn't a commentary on the impact the new Ferrari F12 Berlinetta has had on the planet itself, so much as the fact I've just driven one, gently, carefully onto the historic banked circuit at Monza.

This is not a place to drive fast. Not because it's early and the extensive parkland within which Monza sits currently echoes to the sound of nothing more than the footfalls of joggers and squirrels, nor because a heavy forest of green is slowly reclaiming this place, tendrils of ivy creeping inexorably down the steep concrete. I don't doubt that the orchestral V12 would find favour amongst all who heard its 8,700rpm dawn chorus - be they man or beast - nor that the F12's technologically advanced underpinnings could cope with running at speed high on these mossy slopes.

Words: Ollie Marriage

Photos: Joe Windsor-Williams

This feature first appeared in the September 2012 issue of Top Gear magazine