I Wanna Be Like Mike; Ferrari's flagship road car gets even more of the racing good stuff.(News)

Byline: NATALIE NEFF

When simply driving like a Formula One car isn't enough, now you can stop like one, too.

Ferrari has made its Ceramic Composite Material (CCM) brakes available on its flagship front-engine V12 car, the 575M Maranello. The massive brakes make up part of what the Italian maker calls the 575 Handling GTC package, which also includes an even more performance-oriented suspension setup, a sport-tuned exhaust system and unique 19-inch wheels and tires.

The massive brakes-15.7-inch discs in front with six-piston calipers,14.2-inch discs with four pots in back-pull the big car to a stop in amazing fashion. Final figures will have to wait for our own testing.

More impressive is that during testing, a 575M with CCM brakes will lap Ferrari's famed Fiorano test track 290 times with no degradation in performance and little fade.

The brakes also feature substantially improved wet efficiency with little thermal deformation or disc wear. We particularly enjoy the fact that the CCM brakes produce no untoward noise, unlike a similar system on Porsche cars that commonly squeal during application.

As expected, the CCM brakes do provide a bit less unsprung weight than their steel counterparts-approximately 11 pounds per car-but that weight savings is virtually eliminated through the addition of cooling ...