Claude Lelouch’s Short Film Features Ferrari SF90 Stradale Hybrid And Charles Leclerc

The Monaco Grand Prix was supposed to be held last weekend, 21 – 24 May, 2020. However, that had been cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic. This is the first time since 1954 that a Formula 1 race was called off in the city of Monte Carlo. But it is under this most difficult of circumstances that some seek to transform crisis into an opportunity, and to create something truly unique and memorable. With this in mind, in the morning of the supposed race Sunday, French writer, director, producer, Claude Lelouch shot a new short film – “Le Grand Rendez-Vous”, with Scuderia Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc. This short film is inspired by Claude’s famous “C’était Un Rendez-Vous” filmed in 1976.

The protagonists this time was the SF90 Stradale, the Prancing Horse’s first series production hybrid model, and the Monegasque talent, who took the Ferrari on a first breathtaking drive through the Principality’s winding streets and roads. The new short evokes both the atmosphere of the beloved Grand Prix and the roar of the Ferrari 275 GTB that provided the instantly recognisable soundtrack to the 1976 film shot in Paris.

Royal Appearance

HRH Prince Albert II of Monaco also made a brief appearance in the film. The Ferrari Chairman John Elkann, the Princess Andrea Casiraghi and Pierre Casiraghi with his wife, Princess Beatrice Borromeo, also visited the set. Thanks to a progressive lifting of the lockdown in France and Monaco, the shoot was also watched by a group of excited onlookers from the balconies and the streets carefully supervised by the local authorities.

On the city circuit the SF90 Stradale measured its unmatched performance for a Ferrari production car: 1,000cv, a weight-to-power ratio of 1.57kg/cv, and 390kg of downforce at 250km/h. The car’s name, a reference to the 90th anniversary of Scuderia Ferrari celebrated last year, exemplifies the symbiosis of transferred technology between Ferrari road and track cars, of which this recent model is the maximum expression.

This first post lockdown French shoot also symbolically marked the start of a gradual return to the ‘new normal’ after the pandemic and the restart for the film industry, impacted significantly by recent restrictions.

Spreading Positive Vibes

Ferrari welcomed partnership in the film as a way of demonstrating support for its tifosi, clients and supporters as an expression of  hope that the world will gradually be able to absorb the painful and complex health crisis which has affected everyone, allowing us to begin to look positively towards the future, also in anticipation of the expected restart of the F1 season in July.

In the same spirit, over the past months, the Maranello marque has continued to demonstrate its commitment to fighting the Covid-19 crisis through concrete support ranging from fundraisers, to the distribution of healthcare equipment to hospitals, to the production of respiratory conversion valves at the Maranello factory, to  the most recent expression of transfer technology represented in the design of a new pulmonary ventilator, FI5, offered in open source production at global level.