Valentino Balboni: A ride with the legendary test driver

‘Alone’ is sitting next to him in the Drako. The last time I met Balboni, I was driving a slightly scuffed Diablo SV into the car park at Sant’Agata. It had been teeming with rain and I had been unable to make a mountain road corner in the non-ABS-equipped and summer-tyred Lamborghini.

“Ah, yes,” says Balboni. “A blue one with orange SV lettering on its side.” He remembers. He was fine about it at the time; he just wanted people to drive his cars with gusto and passion and expected the odd bit of collateral.

Balboni answered the questions in a matter-of-fact way, just as I would have done. Yes, EVs are the future, but don’t expect me to weep with joy at the prospect. The real Balboni comes out when I talk about the old days and his first love, the Miura, and mention that I had lunch with his old gaffer, Gian Paolo Dallara, last year.

We’re in a different world now. Last time I was his passenger, there was a loud V12 behind us and he was about to pull out of the factory gates and into the Emilian countryside with his foot flat to the floor. In the Drako, there are just odd whirring noises and the whining of cooling pumps.

Different environment, same old rolled-up sleeves, same talent. Balboni hammers the Drako around Thermal’s multiple corners with the accompaniment of more whirrings and a lot of tyre squeal. This car weighs 2.5 tonnes, and you can feel that even from the passenger seat.

The Lamborghinis that Balboni developed weren’t exactly light or easy to drive fast, so this is no great challenge for Il Maestro. There’s plenty of time to catch up and talk joyfully of old times, because the Drako has to spend quite a lot of time suckling from a large and very noisy diesel generator. Drive super-EVs on track and you get a lot of coffee time.

“We lived through a golden age of the sports car,” says Balboni, becoming more wistful by the moment, “with a freedom to drive and enjoy cars that no longer exists.”

Indeed: a period in which an Italian policeman would have been put on parking meter patrol if he had been stupid enough to give Balboni a speeding ticket in a Countach.

Riding shotgun in the Drako GTE

Shiv Sikand explained at length the advantages of having four electric motors and how an enormous amount of work has gone into the electronic control and software that vectors torque between them, front to back and laterally. Total control.

When you’re out on the track, you feel that all this electrickery is employed in keeping the Drako on the asphalt, controlling its weight and enabling the Michelin Sport Cup 2 tyres to last more than a couple of laps. The brakes are huge ceramic discs, which do the job, but they’re just one part of the system: it’s telling that the Drako has to have its brakes bled halfway through the event.