McLaren Senna vs. LaFerrari vs. Corvette Z06 vs. Ferrari 458 Is the Drag Race of the Year

A decade after its introduction, the Ferrari The Ferrari – this is not a typing hiccup, that’s the car’s name: LaFerrari in Italian is TheFerrari – is barely noticed among the myriad of impossibly fast machines. The trumpet of the age of outrageous speed was a brief call, and it is lost in history.

As such, the venerable machine isn’t a regular at social gatherings that end up in high-revving waltzes across a quarter-mile dance battle. But when it honors such a party, it stars, and the event becomes a “LaFerrari and some other cars” type.

This is one of those blue moons when one of the 499 LaFerrari hypercars existing on Planet Piston revs up its V12 and goes head-to-head against the best sportscar ever to come from America. A Corvette Z06 of the latest generation, the magnificent machine that owns so much to Ferrari.

Isn’t it ironic that the best American sportscar became a supercar in its own right after receiving a Ferrari transplant? The 5.5-liter V8 that can spin 143 times every second when pushed to the limit is a Detroit interpretation of Italian flat plane crankshaft magic.

Brooks Weisblat from the YouTube channel Drag Times visited the Triple F Collection gang, and they staged several out-of-this-world races between a La Ferrari, a C8 Z06, a Ferrari 458, and a McLaren Senna.

For the warm-up, the 458 – the model that served as the V8 muse of speed for Chevrolet’s greatest Corvette to date – gets a taste of American speed. While the Ferrari is a bit dated – the Italia came out in 2009 – the Z06 is so fresh it barely shed its break-in skin. Brooks Weisblat took delivery of his Z06 Corvette 500 miles before this drag racing shoot-out, so his new car is ready to rock.

However, this drag strip doesn’t have a tree or a speed trap, so the runs are judged by who gets across the finish line first. And the age difference is immediately apparent – the Corvette leaves the 458 for dead. Even when the Ferrari gets the hit, it still can’t give the Chevy a run for its money – the beautifully-engineered American is too much.

Little surprise here: the European has a smaller engine (4.5 liters versus 5.5 in the Corvette), less power, less torque, and one less gear in the transmission. Its 562-hp output is more than 100 hp short of what the ‘Vette has in hand (670 hp), and 398 lb-ft (540 Nm) isn’t impressing anyone in 2023. Particularly not a 460-lb-ft (624 Nm) Z06 equipped with a dual-clutch eight-speed automatic.

Things take a turn for the Ferrari worse when the naturally aspirated, all-combustion Chevy manages a jaw-dropping draw against the 950-hybrid-horsepower (963 PS) hypercar. However, something must have gone terribly wrong in the driver’s compartment because the LaFerrari launched catastrophically slow, despite its 664 lb-ft (900 Nm) total torque.

The assumption becomes a certainty in the following two rounds when the LaFerrari destroys the Corvette like there’s no second coming of a combustion-redeeming lord and savior. But, because there is a nemesis for everyone in this world, Brooks and the Triple F Collection also held a duel between the fastest Ferrari ever and one of the most iconic McLarens ever made: the Senna, the Ultimate Series archangel.

The two cars weigh the same – 3.020 lbs (1,373 kg) – but the Senna only has a four-liter twin-turbo V8, sending 789 hp (800 PS) to the rear wheels. Watch the second video to see what happened to the overly confident Prancing Horse. I'll just say this: the British car bearing the Brazilian legendary name came second to last.