Joanne Marshall gets paddled in Ferrari's F355 F1. Photography by Roberto Carrer.
For decades, automotive journalists have gone all blurry-eyed and waxed lyrical when describing the more intimate meshings of Ferrari's wand-like chrome gear lever around its shiny gate. It was the appeal of the sound of metal upon metal: the very physical effort needed to balance force and delicacy to extract a slick shift. Even on more recent incarnations of Ferrari's six-speed gearbox, excessive gentleness with the gear knob combined with cold gearbox oil could occasionally result in desultory resistance to change, rather like Victorian England. However, liven up the pace of your right wrist, and you'd soon be wringing those changes with immensely satisfying metallic clacks.
It doesn't take long to master a modern Ferrari gearbox, and far less of the technique and mechanical empathy required of yore. But the days of skillful coordination of right hand and left foot to glean outright seamless speed from a 550 Maranello, 456 GT or F355 are virtually over. It may seem improbable to the hardened enthusiast, but for six percent more than list price of a standard F355 Berlinetta (or GTS or Spider) Ferrari will remove both the traditional gear lever and clutch in exchange for a pair of paddles that stick up like Batman's ears behind the steering wheel. Ergo the F355 F1. While Ferrari President Luca di Montezemolo has pledged undying allegiance to the gear lever and gate, he predicts that soon 75 percent of F355 sales will fall to the paddle-equipped version, and hints that the new shift will eventually find its way onto other models.
Thus deprived of a recognizable gear shift, what happens to the F355 now? Well, a fingertip-light tug on the left-hand paddle will drop you down a cog in the gearbox. Pull the right-hand paddle back towards you and you can shimmy up the 'box at will. Yank on them simultaneously and-hey presto!-you're in neutral. It's dead simple, and not far off the system Ferrari were the first to introduce into F1 racing back in 1989, the difference being that the F355's gearshift is not truly sequential, because you can skip intermediate gears by tugging the paddle twice when you're really desperate to wipe off speed and downshift rapidly.
The beauty of the F355's F1 shift is that it's based on the existing six-speed manual transmission, unlike Porsche's Tiptronic which is basically an automatic with manual override. On Ferrari's system, there's none of the additional weight and complexity of a torque converter and, consequently, none of the power loss or the feeling of a rubber band stretching interminably before the car's motive force meets your right foot's expectations.
What you get is a very clever black box of tricks. The shift management program commands a series of electro-hydraulic actuators which, once you select a gear, intervene to release the clutch, engage the gear and then re-engage the clutch. All in about 0.2 of a second which, if you really want to feel inadequate, is 0.15 of a second faster than any human can manage. Just to remove all further mutterings, there's a Sport mode which will shave a further 50 milliseconds off that shift time, jerking your head back against the seat in the process.
The shift software dialogues at all times with the engine management so that it'll sense a full-throttle getaway start as well as an uphill start and juggle the clutch accordingly. From a standstill, tug the right-hand paddle to get first gear and thrust the throttle down as far as it will go. The F1 will drop the clutch at 7000 rpm and then everything happens. The F355 catapults away and slithers down the road, wisps of smoke fanning outwards from tortured tires. Feather the throttle on a hill, and the clutch will bite gently from low revs and stop the car from rolling backwards.
Once out on the road, changes up through the 'box are fed in with absolutely zero inertia, and you don't even have to lift off the throttle when selecting a higher gear-the system automatically cuts power to the engine for that fraction of a second before reapplying it the moment the gear is engaged. Ferrari's engineers really have thought of everything. You can't even fool the gearbox into trundling around in the wrong gear, if that's what makes you happy. Interactive as the engine and shift management systems are, if revs are too low for the V8 to pull happily, the 'box will downshift for you, and if you're screaming along on the red line for no apparent reason, it'll curb your mechanical insensitivity and swap up to a higher ratio.
And if all the paddling is too much for you, there's even an auto option, snuggled up alongside the T-shaped lever for reverse where the gear lever gate used to reside. Forget your average autobox, though. What Ferrari have come up with is a no-nonsense powerhouse auto-it changes, and you feel it. Not that it does anything so untoward as clunk into gear, it just doesn't go about it terribly smoothly, that's all. Especially when you're slowing from speed to a standstill the downshifts tend to jolt one another into action like toppling dominoes.
Select the Sport mode and there's a further surprise waiting in store. For starters, the shift system doesn't intervene to select a higher gear as you take the 3.5-liter DOHC to its 8500 limiter. It lets you get on with the business of squeezing every last drop of power out of Ferrari's ever-eager flat crankshaft V8. But if you swap down in the range between 7000 and 8500 rpm, there's an automatic blip on the throttle before the clutch re-engages, as if you'd heeled-and-toed without realizing it. The first time it happens, you're left astonished, but the real icing on the cake comes when you cotton on to the fact that you can kick in the throttle in downshifts yourself to make turning into corners even more satisfyingly smooth. All with your hands exactly where God designed them to be: at ten and two on the steering wheel.
Let's get one thing straight from the outset-the F355 equipped with the F1 shift performs exactly like the manual lever-shifting car when driven by lunatic Ferrari test drivers around Fiorano. They live in the things, after all, and neither tire wear nor fuel consumption get docked from their monthly pay packet. Not a bad job, that. But out in the real world, where your average keen expert driver can be let run riot, there's a big difference. In confidence, for starters. Just the fact that you don't have to coordinate feet and hand movements lets you concentrate a lot more on placing the car precisely on the apex in a corner. Limiting your movement and your thoughts allows you to feel the chassis working, and the communication feeding back at you through every tensed nerve tells you it's working for you. Naturally, almost without realizing it, you want to brake later and later, and the car becomes a massive cohesive force, allowing you to balance it on the very limits of adhesion as you feed in power and slingshot out of corners.
There's more balance through sweeping high-speed bends-if you're still on lock and need to shift up, all it takes is a smooth, unhurried three-inch motion of your right wrist across the rim of the wheel. There's no unsettling jiggle as you jab for a gear lever somewhere between you and a terrified passenger. And, apart from the economy of motion, the paddles are just blindingly good fun and demand full, unrelenting use. Up and down the 'box you go-OK, there's no more clink-clack, but the newfound urge to the blip-blip, crackle-crackle more than makes up for it. And you're even more aware of the thundering acceleration as the engine's demented scream curdles your blood.
The Ferrari F355 F1 is sheer driving sensation taken to new heights. Take one of these out for a short thrash, and you'll wonder why no one thought of such a simple, straightforward solution to shifting gears before. Get back into a normal manual 'box car, and it feels slovenly, vague almost. If, like me, there's no room in your concept of a sports car for a slushbox and you need the personal involvement (even if it means only tugging away at a couple of paddles), go and line up outside your local Ferrari dealer. It's the right place to be.
Thus deprived of a recognizable gear shift, what happens to the F355 now? Well, a fingertip-light tug on the left-hand paddle will drop you down a cog in the gearbox. Pull the right-hand paddle back towards you and you can shimmy up the 'box at will. Yank on them simultaneously and-hey presto!-you're in neutral. It's dead simple, and not far off the system Ferrari were the first to introduce into F1 racing back in 1989, the difference being that the F355's gearshift is not truly sequential, because you can skip intermediate gears by tugging the paddle twice when you're really desperate to wipe off speed and downshift rapidly.
Once out on the road, changes up through the 'box are fed in with absolutely zero inertia, and you don't even have to lift off the throttle when selecting a higher gear-the system automatically cuts power to the engine for that fraction of a second before reapplying it the moment the gear is engaged. Ferrari's engineers really have thought of everything. You can't even fool the gearbox into trundling around in the wrong gear, if that's what makes you happy. Interactive as the engine and shift management systems are, if revs are too low for the V8 to pull happily, the 'box will downshift for you, and if you're screaming along on the red line for no apparent reason, it'll curb your mechanical insensitivity and swap up to a higher ratio. 