Highlight of the opening of the Frankfurt IAA was the introduction of the breathtaking new Ferrari 430 Scuderia - which was introduced at the German show by the country's biggest star, Michael Schumacher, who played a leading role in developing the new sports car.

He presented the new car along with Ferrari President Luca di Montezemolo. And unsurprisingly the German media descended en masse on the Ferrari stand to witness proceedings, leading to a big delay as staff tried to cope with the rush. Two of the sparking new 430 Scuderia machines were arrayed on the stand, a red one was positioned centre-stage alongside an F2007, both of these mounted on contra-rotating turntables; while a second one finished in a vivid metallic blue and featuring full-length over body stripes available for detailed close-up inspection.

Schumacher, looking fresh and relaxed, seems to have made the transition from Grand Prix winning superstar driver to road division development driver, with relative ease. It is a new role that keeps him firmly at the heart of activities in Maranello where he has now been part of the scene for nearly a decade and a half.

"One of the reasons we developed this car was that we had quite a lot of interest from clients who said the 430 is a fabulous car but we would like to have something more extreme," Schumacher told the media about the background to the 430 Scuderia development programme, and adding his own personal input was fundamental in the project: "Our spirit of racing is known to everybody and my involvement is probably ideal, so that's what came about."
 

"We ran at several race tracks in order to try the car in different positions," the seven times F1 World Champion, who retired at the end of last season, then told the press. Explaining some of the new technical details of the sports car he said: "What we developed with racing with the team is a new form of traction control which allows for a different feature of traction control, the e-diff, and a new form of F1 traction control including a new form of Superfast shift which allows simply to increase performance in terms of driveability but also in terms of horsepower point of view, weight point of view."

Even lighter and faster than the already-impressive F430 Coupé, the 430 Scuderia uses much of the latest F1 technology to make the gear changing operation even faster. The blur between Ferrari's F1 and road car technology is rapidly reducing with each new model. "This allows you to control the car in the style that we control our Formula One cars," enthused Schumacher. "If you just think about the figure that an Enzo, which was developed some years ago, does a lap time around Fiorano in around one twenty five we were able to manage with the [430] Scuderia exactly the same lap time."

"So in terms of how we enjoy the car there is a lot of performance background involved in this development and we hope you enjoy it," added Schumacher as the well-attended presentation was wrapped up.