First Drive Review: Ferrari F8 Spider
Wednesday, 16 December 2020
FERRARI F8 SPIDER
Price range: $574,545
Powertrains: 3.9-litre petrol turbo V8 with 530kW/770Nm, 13.0L/100km, seven-speed dual clutch transmission, RWD.
Body style: Two-door convertible.
On sale: Now.
Are you a front-engined V12 Ferrari fan or a mid-engined V8 Ferrari fan? For me it was always the latter, so a chance to drive the latest incarnation of that successful formula at a race track was never going to be passed up
Make me an instant expert: what do I need to know?
The F8 Spider is the convertible version of the F8 Tributo that has been around since last year and was an extensive update on the 488.
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Although, in mid-engined Ferrari terms, the convertible looks all-but identical to the coupe, having a retractable hard top that, when up, leaves you none the wiser.
Like the Tributo, the Spider packs the same 3.9-litre twin turbo V8 that produces 530kW of power and 770Nm of torque (as previously seen in the track-oriented 488 Pista) hooked up to a seven-speed dual clutch transmission that, of course, drives the rear wheels.
At 1,400kg, the F8 Spider weighs 20kg less that the previous 488 Spider and 20kg more than the hotted-up 488 Pista that it inherits its powertrain from. Which, in case you weren’t paying attention, means it is very fast indeed.
How fast? Try a 0 to 100kmh sprint of 2.9 seconds, a 0 to 200kmh time of 8.2 seconds and a top speed of 340kmh. That is fast in anyone’s book.
Where did you drive it?
The best place to drive a Ferrari hard – a race track!
Continental Cars Ferrari had a range of its latest models on hand at Hampton Downs Motorsport Park and while customers were being filtered through all of them later in the day, the journalists present were oddly limited to just one car by factory decree. No, no-one there seemed to know whey that was the case either…
Still, I was happy, because that meant I had the F8 Spider all to myself…
The F8 is only the second mid-engined Ferrari to be turbo-charged since the legendary F40 (obviously the 488 was the first), but while the F40 was in possession of some fairly prodigious turbo lag, the F8’s superb twin-turbo V8 has literally no lag, spinning up in a ferociously linear fashion that makes you that if the F8 were a person it would wave a hand dismissively and say (in an Italian accent, of course) “I know nothing of these ‘turbos’ you speak of…”
While the power delivery is surprisingly linear, it is utterly unrelenting, particularly as you climb up in the revs where it just keeps coming in a seemingly endless wave as the F8 powers forwards.
There is one downside in slapping a pair of turbos on a Ferrari V8 however, and that is in terms of noise – there just isn’t as much of it as you would really like there to be. Sure, it still has a hair-raising howl that only intensifies as the revs increase, but it doesn’t quite raise the hairs as high as a shrieking naturally-aspirated Ferrari V8 does…
You can’t just blame the turbos for that though, more restrictive European noise regulations have also resulted in a quieter exhaust, but that is alright, because as soon as you seriously stomp on the brakes, those hairs raise the roof, because as angrily fast as the F8 Spider is, its carbon ceramic brakes deliver the most gob-smacking moments on a track.
Drive the F8 around Hampton Downs like a ‘normal’ fast car and it is fine, but once you warm those big brakes up and learn to have utter faith in both the stopping power and the insane levels of grip it possesses through corners and things suddenly – and gloriously – fall into place.
Jump on the stoppers with proper aggression and you can brake way later than you would think possible, while trust in the grip and you can also get off them way sooner as well, belting through corners in a fashion that a car that is still ostensibly for the road has no real right in doing.
The superb balance of the chassis and the utter confidence it inspires reminds you not only how far mid-engined cars have come, but also that Ferrari is the absolute master of them too.
What’s the pick of the range?
There’s only one, so it comes down to what options you would want, or maybe if you would rather go for the Tributo hard top instead. It is cheaper, after all.
Why would I buy it?
Because it’s a Ferrari, I mean, c’mon…
Why wouldn’t I buy it?
Because it’s a Ferrari? While the Lamborghini Huracan is the obvious competition, the McLaren 720S is arguably the Ferrari’s biggest competition in New Zealand, given its Kiwi link and the fact that it is something that isn’t a clichéd Italian mid-engined supercar. It’s a clichéd British mid-engined supercar instead.