Adam Driver Recalls ‘Terrifying’ Experience Driving Old School Racecar for ‘Ferrari’: ‘If You Turn the Wrong Way, You’re Dead’

variety.com:

Michaela Zee Although Adam Driver portrays legendary sports-car magnate Enzo Ferrari in Michael Mann‘s biographical drama, the actor didn’t get to drive one of the 1950s-era replicas for “Ferrari.” Instead, he drove an “open-wheel single seater” that was modified to connect a camera to it.

Asked how it was getting behind the wheel of that particular vintage sports car, Driver simply replied, “Terrifying.” “It teleports you back to the time and you realize if you turn left or right the wrong way, then you’re dead,” Driver told Variety at the “Ferrari” North American premiere at the New York Film Festival Friday night. “There’s at least seatbelts in the newer cars.” Driver described the single seater as a “moving coffin” at a New York Film Festival press conference earlier on Friday.

The driving occurred at “an abandoned airstrip in Modena, Italy,” he recalled. “And you can really feel how dangerous they are obviously, versus a contemporary Ferrari.

The goal was to get thrown from the car because that was considered more safe than to be locked in this moving coffin.” Mann then clarified Driver’s description, saying, “The idea was you’d rather be thrown from the car than dragged by the car, so that’s why they didn’t wear seatbelts.” To prepare the team for the racing sequences in “Ferrari,” Mann had several actors, including Driver, test drive contemporary Ferraris in pre-production. “I wanted everybody to have an experience of driving these cars on a racetrack,” Mann told the audience at the morning press conference, calling it “racecar driving 101.” “Ferrari” follows the life of automotive mogul Enzo in 1957 as his company prepares to enter the Mille Miglia, a 1000-mile, open-road motorsport race.