One of the headline acts at Ferrari Racing Days was an appearance by the 'FXX Programme', with nine of these sensational 800 bhp 'track day' machines taking to the Silverstone circuit and wowing the enthralled onlookers. This was the only scheduled UK appearance of 2007 for this exclusive programme which sees the Enzo-based FXX supercar driven on leading race tracks around the world by customers who become 'test drivers'.

The 'FXX Programme' guarantees exclusivity, just 29 were of the cars were built plus a further one for Michael Schumacher, and each driver was handpicked by Ferrari before being invited to join the programme, for a 1.5 million euro fee. The 'FXX Programme' has its own branded hospitality units, garages and large dedicated support team.

One of the FXX drivers' at Silverstone was Larry Kinch and he explained the fundamentals of the car and programme to Italiaspeed: "the FXX is basically a 'super' enzo," he says, "where it differs from the standard car is that its about 150 kilos lighter, it has an aerodynamic package that gives 40 percent more downforce, and of course the engine is taken from 650 horsepower to 800 horsepower. It has a much faster gear change, it's changing gear in less than one hundred milliseconds." Not only this, but the project's development test driver was none other than Michael Schumacher, while Bridgestone developed its dedicated 19-inch track tyre and Brembo created a special brake pad and cooling system for the huge 398 x 36 mm Composite Ceramic Material discs.

"It's a fun car, its not a racing car, it has road suspension, but for things like this its pretty quick, its not as quick as the challenge cars, as its not a racing car," Larry Kinch says after the Sunday afternoon demonstration laps around the Grand Prix track which were held in very hot and sunny conditions. "The best times around here with it are around a 1.58 whereas the best of the Challenge cars are going to lap in a high 56 or a 57. As a pure experience it's fantastic. The track was pretty greasy this morning, we were out at 9.30 and it was still misty but the track is quick now."
 

"I have backed off with this car now as we're shipping it to china tomorrow so I don't want to do any damage, then it goes from China to Japan," he adds. Shanghai will be the next stop on the FXX Programme's 2007 calendar, and the first time the series will have visited China. Along with the Ferrari road range, the Challenge series, and the historic Grand Prix cars of the "F1 Clienti" operation, the FXX will be demonstrated at the inaugural "Ferrari Festival" to be held at the Shanghai International Circuit in a fortnight's time. Three weeks later and the dramatic FXX Programme will entertain even more fans when it hits Japan.

A large team of 'FXX Programme' technicians provide a complete assistance and back-up service to the drivers at the track, providing a unique way for Ferrari's factory engineers to gain invaluable feedback for future use on its road car development programme. A sophisticated telemetry system developed by Magneti Marelli for the FXX collates all the information gathered and this seamless setup could be seen in operation at the end of each session as an engineer hooked his laptop into the cars as they came back into the garage one-by-one, downloading the all data collected during the runs within seconds.

At the end of the weekend's activities the cars and equipment were crated up for the journey to China; however one of these fantastic machines wasn't destined to make the long trip halfway round the world and it sported the most evocative 'delivery label' a car could carry, slapped on its windscreen it read: 'Ferrari Spa, Gestione Sportive, Via Ascari No 55/57, Maranello (MO), Italy'.