During the development of its latest supercar, the F12 Berlinetta, Ferrari employed the help of its Formula 1 drivers Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa by getting them to hop behind the wheel of a prototype.

As you may have already surmised, they almost immediately fell in love with the car after taking it for a quick spin.

As Alonso points out during this short video clip of the F12 drive event, Ferraris are famous for their performance, design and noise, none of which this supercar appears to be lacking.

Yes, Ferrari’s new F12 Berlinetta is the fastest and most powerful road car ever launched by the team in Maranello, and it has already cemented its status by posting a Fiorano circuit lap time of just 1:23. To put that into perspective, that’s a whole second faster than the already insane Ferrari 599 GTO and roughly two seconds faster than the 458 Italia and Enzo.

Its motivation comes from a brilliant 6.3-liter V-12 engine, which develops a peak output of 729 horsepower and 508 pound-feet of torque. Sending drive strictly to the rear wheels is the latest F1 seven-speed dual-clutch transmission, which has closer gear ratios developed specifically for this car’s performance.

The F12 certainly has all the performance attributes nailed, but whether the design is unanimously loved remains to be seen. The second video gives us a good look at the car from most angles, though we’ll reserve final judgement until it makes its official world debut at the 2012 Geneva Motor Show next week.