THE MIDDLE LANE

A peregrine falcon faster than a Ferrari 812 Superfast? Pull the other one, says Sam Philip

It is official. Britain is a nation of dimwits, of dunderheads, of dunces. This revelation comes courtesy of a recent survey from a ‘leading car care brand’ (no idea), which discovered – and announced with no small measure of glee – that the majority of Britons did not know a peregrine falcon was quicker than a Ferrari 812 Superfast.

Yes, of those surveyed, 51 per cent believed Maranello’s 789bhp front-engined supercar to have a higher top speed than noted avian speedster Falco peregrinus... 51 per cent! A clear majority, in the wrong. And not even a bit wrong – 31mph wrong. As the survey scoffingly noted, the 812 Superfast tops out at a paltry 211mph, while peregrine falcons have been clocked by National Geographic at speeds of 242mph.

Hang your head in shame, Britain. Though just before you do – and far be it from me to question the scientific rigour of a leading car care brand – it’s utter bobbins, isn’t it? The whole ‘falcon quicker than a Ferrari’ thing. It’s comparing apples and pears. More specifically, it’s comparing apples that go very fast on the horizontal with pears that go very fast in a downward direction. Declaring falcons to be faster than Ferraris is like declaring turnips to be tastier than bacon: yeah, OK, there’s

“PUT AN 812 SUPERFAST AND A FALCON HEAD-TO-HEAD, I KNOW WHICH ONE I’M BACKING”

a scenario in which it could be true, but you’re going to have to do a whole load of extra work to make it so.

Because, while the 812’s top speed was (we must presume) attained on some sort of vaguely level surface, the peregrine falcon banged into its limiter – as you may already have guessed – during what ornithologists describe as its ‘hunting stoop’, and the rest of us describe as ‘falling’. Look, I don’t want to take anything away from the big lad, but I’d argue that what he’s demonstrating is less ‘peregrine falcons are really fast’ and more ‘gravity’s really powerful’.

In other words, put an 812 Superfast and a peregrine falcon head-to-head on, say, the Santa Pod drag strip, I know which one I’m backing, even if there is a tasty mouse waiting at the finish line. No disrespect to the bird, but look at that contact patch. He’s going to struggle for purchase off the line.

Arguably the more interesting question here is: could the 812 go quicker than a peregrine falcon with the aid of a great deal of gravity? Turns out that it’s surprisingly difficult to get a definitive answer to this one, especially since Ferrari weirdly refused to let us drop an 812 Superfast from a weather balloon for scientific purposes.

I’ve done my best to crunch the numbers (which included the discovery that, yes, scientists have indeed calculated the drag coefficient of a peregrine falcon: 0.09) and I believe that the answer is, yes, given a long enough drop and a generous enough Ferrari owner, the heavier 812 should – as a majority of Brits asserted – out-accelerate the falcon, and show the birds who’s boss. Right up until it’s time to land, at least.