I Drove Across Wales In A Ferrari With Britain’s Fastest Woman

British sprinter Amy Hunt might just be the perfect road trip partner. The 24-year-old shot to fame this summer when she hit quadruple gold at the European Games in Birmingham. And she might be the fastest woman in Europe, but as we set off on a journey across rural Wales, she’s behind the wheel of something even faster than her; the Ferrari 12Cilindri Spider, which can make it from 0 to 60mph in just 2.9 seconds. 

What am I doing in a Ferrari with an elite athlete? It’s the car brand’s media lifestyle tour, bringing together select media, content creators and sports personalities for a two-day adventure through some of the country’s most beautiful routes. Also on the trip are Instagram car experts, supercar enthusiasts, and Olympic gold medalists Tom Dean and Matty Lee. We’ve been teamed up with a co-driver, and Amy has ended up with me; neither accomplished driver nor world-class sprinter. But I can talk for Britain – and road trips were made for chatting. 

Amy Hunt & Rebecca Cox with the Ferrari Amalfi

The Route

Day One

Wales boasts some of the most beautiful scenic roads in the UK, so it’s the perfect place to open up a Ferrari and see what it can do. We set off from just outside the border near Bristol at Thornbury Castle, the only Tudor castle in England you can stay the night in. Building began in 1511 for Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, then the richest nobleman in the country, but he never saw it finished: Henry VIII had him executed for treason in 1521 and took the house for himself, later staying here with Anne Boleyn. Had Henry VIII been around in the era of the supercar, I imagine he would have enjoyed the vision of six Ferraris idling outside – before chopping off all our heads so he could procure them for his collection. 

© Photo Max Earey

Day one was 131 miles from Thornbury to the Cardigan Bay coast. We crossed the Severn into Wales, picked up the A449 to Raglan and swung west along the Heads of the Valleys road towards Merthyr Tydfil, before turning north onto the A470, which is regularly voted one of Britain’s great driving roads. We then climbed through Bannau Brycheiniog, the national park formerly known as the Brecon Beacons. From Brecon we headed west along the A40, then cut north-west on the A482 through Lampeter and the green folds of Ceredigion to Aberaeron. Founded in 1805 and laid out as a planned Georgian town, it’s all neat squares and harbourside houses painted in sugared-almond shades, and we stopped for lunch at Y Seler on Market Street.

The afternoon’s 71 miles were the most picturesque of the trip. The A487 hugs the coast north through Aberystwyth and around the Dyfi estuary to Machynlleth, where the Victorian clock tower marks the crossroads, before the road climbs to the Cross Foxes junction beneath the slopes of Cadair Idris. Then it was north past Dolgellau and through Eryri (Snowdonia) towards Trawsfynydd, before we dropped down towards the sea at Minffordd.

© Photo Max Earey

Portmeirion

Few places hold more whimsical charm in the UK than Portmeirion. The Italianate fantasy village was the creation of architect Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, built on a wooded peninsula above the Dwyryd estuary between 1925 and 1975, part homage to the Mediterranean, part architectural salvage yard. The Portmeirion Hotel opened in 1926 and has hosted everyone from Noël Coward, who wrote Blithe Spirit here, to The Beatles (George Harrison celebrated his 50th birthday in the village); it is also famously the set of the 1960s cult TV series The Prisoner. The hairiest moment of the trip came when I had to navigate the Amalfi through the tiny brick roads of Portmeirion Village right down to the waterfront, without my co-pilot who I’d dropped further up. Thankfully the Amalfi (and I) made it there unscathed, where I dropped the keys to Ferrari’s expert driver Ben (AKA Top Gear’s former Stig) for him to navigate the road back up. 

Navigate Portmeirion’s roads in a wide sports car at your peril.

Day Two

Day two took us 106 miles south on the A470, back through Eryri and down Wales’s spine via Dinas Mawddwy, Caersws, Llanidloes, Rhayader and Builth Wells, to lunch at the Old Barn Inn at Three Cocks on the edge of the Wye Valley. The final 70-mile leg ran down the A479 past the Black Mountains to Abergavenny, then along the A449 and back across the Severn to Thornbury: close to 380 miles in all.

The Cars

Amy and I drove two cars over the course of the journey, the Ferrari Amalfi and the 12Cilindri Spider. 

The Amalfi

The Amalfi is Ferrari’s new front-engined 2+2 grand tourer, unveiled in July 2025 as the successor to the Roma and named after the stretch of Italian coastline it was made to cruise. Under its long bonnet sits a 3.9-litre twin-turbocharged V8 producing 640cv and 760Nm of torque, enough for 0–100km/h in 3.3 seconds and a top speed of more than 320km/h. (Needless to say, I experienced neither of these on our Wales route.) Inside, there’s a 15.6-inch digital instrument cluster, a 10.25-inch central touchscreen and a separate display for the passenger. The car drives beautifully in fully automatic mode; though you can also shift manually using the carbon fibre paddle shifters behind the steering wheel. 

With the Ferrari Amalfi

The 12Cilindri Spider

The 12Cilindri Spider is the open-top version of Ferrari’s flagship grand tourer. Its naturally aspirated 6.5-litre V12 is mounted up front, a rarity in an age of turbos and hybrids. It produces 830cv and revs up to 9,250rpm, taking the car from 0–100km/h in 2.95 seconds and on to a top speed of 340km/h via an eight-speed dual-clutch gearbox. Again, not appropriate for Wales’ winding mountain roads, but exciting to know what’s possible as you’re cruising along with the Spice Girls blaring out into the hilltops. The styling, including the black band that wraps across the nose, nods to the 1960s 365 GTB/4 Daytona, and the folding hard top retracts in around 14 seconds, even on the move, for when the drizzle moves in. Inside, a symmetrical dual-cockpit layout gives the passenger their own screen – so I spent my stints with Amy at the wheel indulging in a full body massage with a heated seat. 

With the Ferrari 12Cilindri Spider

What Makes A Perfect Road Trip?

The three ingredients for a perfect road trip are the perfect car, the ideal road route, and a stellar passenger. The 12Cilindri Spider on an open (and traffic-free) stretch of Wales’ A470 tick two of the boxes, and Amy Hunt, who, beyond her talent on-track is a Cambridge English Literature graduate with outstanding taste in books and music completed the trio with her excellent conversation. 

The Last Word

Though I won’t divulge our in-car chats, I did ask Amy along the way if she thought making it as an Olympian was more down to talent or hard work. She said that it wouldn’t be possible without (lots of) both. Thankfully, neither is necessary to enjoy driving the Ferrari Amalfi or the 12Cilindri Spider, and I hand the keys back on our return like the baton of a very reluctant relay runner. If given the opportunity to get behind the wheel again, I won’t be waiting for the starting gun.