A Ferrari SF90 on display in Barcelona, Spain, in June 2022. Italian race car driver Fabio Barone plans to pit a modified SF90 against an Italian Navy F-35 fighter jet in an improvised drag race next month. (Shutterstock/Roman Belogorodov)

Italy Is Racing a Ferrari Against an F-35—Because of Course It Is

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Fabio Barone, the driver of the Ferrari, also made headlines last year after he set a new speed record from the deck of an Italian aircraft carrier.

Is the F-35 Lightning II fighter jet faster than a racecar? The answer is a resounding and obvious yes. An F-35 has a top speed of Mach 1.6, or roughly 1,200 miles per hour (1,930 km/h) at high altitude. Near the ground, it has a maximum low-altitude structural speed limit of 700 knots calibrated air speed (KCAS), or roughly 805 mph (1,296 km/h). That’s still considerably faster than the absolute fastest race cars on the ground, which can exceed 330 mph (531 km/h) in less than four seconds in a straight-line drag race.

To date, the F-35 hasn’t raced a Top Fuel dragster, but next month it could go all out with a Ferrari SF90, a competition that only our Italian allies could dream up. The race will occur on a Marina Militare (Italian Navy) runway at........

© The National Interest