Ferrari F8 Spider | Test Drive | Auto Class Magazine

Ferrari F8 Spider | Test Drive

30 November 2020 Redazione News, Stories, Tested

Ferrari celebrates its award-winning V8 with a model that maintains and puts at disposal the absurd performance of the 488 Pista for those who need a berlinetta that doesn’t necessarily mean war. The F8 Spider assures us to upset our hairstyle, so we took it to the Passo della Raticosa and Passo della Futa.

Words by Alessandro Marrone / Photos by Jay Tomei

Just a moment before it all begins, time seems to stand still. It is as crystallized in a bubble, where sounds are muffled and thoughts run frantically, bringing with them a mess of emotions that as soon as you understand how to process they must necessarily make room for the fateful opening of the curtain. Everything lights up, the silence becomes even more deafening and no longer protected by thoughts and from how we imagined the instant vanished into thin air like snow in the sun, it’s time to get involved and create something worthwhile to be remembered. Today’s show is a special celebration of the award-winning V8 from Maranello, the undisputed champion of the “engine of the year” category in recent years, declined in its most recent version.

This particular evolution of the 3.9 Ferrari is the same one we recently tested with the incredibly violent 488 Pista, in this case lightened by 18 kg, maintaining the ferocity and power that distinguishes it, however refined in such a way as to allow a use that is not necessarily brutal. Special and glorious enough to baptize the new berlinetta from Modena and make it known to the world as the F8 Tributo, paying homage to that image of a dream car that has studded the dreams of all children with absurd performance and a project that imbues the deepest Ferrari know-how able to connect the dots that divide street-legal cars from the world of racing. The need to celebrate properly and the desire to exalt it in the wild make me find myself sitting behind the wheel of a cabrio version in Giallo Modena, more simply called F8 Spider and with the combination of Passo della Futa and Passo della Raticosa as our ultimate destinations.

Personally, especially when talking about supercars, I have always preferred the coupe variant to the convertible one, but the F8 is the heir to the 488 GTB, not the 488 Pista and this means that despite the frightening performance at hand, it still remains a car addressed to customers that do not solely look at performances figures and technical sheet that confirms the immense attention to every detail. I’m talking about mechanics, but also aerodynamics, with even the door handles that have a very specific function, not to mention the front headlights that are interrupted to allow the air flows to creep over the wheel arches, or the S-duct that channels air from the lower portion of the nose and slides it over the windshield and roof, allowing the F8 to cut through the air like a hot knife through butter. Compared to the 488 – whether coupe or spider – we have more marked side-skirts, a large rear diffuser and a double exhaust in mid-air to make the tail even more aggressive, thanks also to the new design of the round lights that distinguishes it from the previous model. In the F8 Spider we have, as usual, the engine compartment no longer in sight, but the possibility of amplifying the sound of the V8 in just 14 seconds, the time it takes to fold the solid top behind your head.

Comfortably seated in the extraordinary containing seats in blue leather which together with the yellow of the exterior recall the colors of the city of Modena, I find a cabin almost totally borrowed from the 488, but finding improved connectivity and the option of the dual cockpit, the display that allows the passenger to realize what is happening. Yes, because as soon as we leave the motorway, devoured in the most complete comfort offered by the more relaxed driving mode, we are immediately greeted by the first curves that guide us towards the Passo della Futa, the first one for today. Despite being a purely hilly road, this succession of bends presents the ideal way to get a first taste of the performance qualities of the F8 Spider, an aspect that no one had any doubts about given that we are talking about 720 horsepower and 770 Nm of torque displaced to the ground courtesy of the rear wheels. These numbers are not for the faint of heart, especially if we think that where possible they translate into a 0-100 kph in just 2.9 seconds and a 0-200 in 8.2 seconds.

I move the manettino to Race mode, trying to get around the acoustic cap which involves the presence of a particulate filter, but as soon as you press firmly on the throttle what happens is comparable to the largest fireworks ever seen that explode inside your stomach. Without the slightest uncertainty, the twin-turbo V8 increases revs in a shocking way, immediately noticing how the F8 however transmits a constant feeling of control throughout the acceleration phase. Too bad the Futa doesn’t let such power be delivered freely, barely getting you halfway up the tachometer that you already have to launch yourself on the carbon-ceramic brakes with 398 mm front discs and 360 mm rear ones, and then move the steering wheel with surgeon-like precision, brush the line figured in your mind the moment before and pinch the huge carbon fiber paddles behind the steering wheel. With the roof closed over your head you begin to notice that the aluminum frame favors more a frenetic driving, leaving a few decibels out of the cockpit, but throwing yourself from one corner to another always with the rear glued to the ground and with an incredibly traction squeezed out of the colossal rear tires.

Roof up, roof down, it doesn’t matter. The top concentration levels that a 488 Pista requires seems even more prerogative of an experienced driver, while the F8 seems to have managed to evolve a certain sense of security and confidence that is transmitted from the moment the tires skid in a desperate search for grip and then make you splash towards a red line that at 8,000 rpm makes the V8 of wonders the turbocharged engine more similar to a naturally aspirated one. Lag in delivery? No way. Brute power? Exaggerated, but never exasperated and this is how we start to accept that this sensual yellow object is able to move with a speed that seems possible only in George Lucas’ mind, pushing the risk bar a little further and keeping the gas down through those corners that force a group of motorcyclists to abandon all hope of keeping the pace. In that moment the road widens and we enter the belly of Passo della Raticosa, we drive it up and down a handful of times and then we turn towards Sassoleone, a deserted section that welcomes the F8 Spider, the most powerful non-hardcore mid-rear-engined Ferrari ever.

The howling to which the 360 Modena, the F430 Scuderia or the 458 Speciale had accustomed us is no longer the soundtrack emitted at the back, not since these eight cylinders have become turbocharged, but how much does sound really matter if what happens is made even more extreme and if these same incredible and crazy performances manage at the same time, simply with the relative inputs imposed by the driver, to offer a total, visceral and frenetic driving experience like a dive into the center of the end of the world and turn it all into a gentle, comfortable shift as it would be with any sedan. There is that sense of occasion offered by the prancing horse that dominates in the middle of the steering wheel, the extraordinary tool that connects the ground to your muscular system, transmitting the disconnections of the Raticosa and making you face them with surprising ease, but there is also that technological baggage offered by the two digital screens that embrace the analog speedometer, the last true bastion of those increasingly distant epic times.

It’s as beautiful as a supercar worth over 260,000 Euro capable of reaching 340 per hour has to be with the wind in your hair and your Spotify playlist ready to loop once you’re stuck in traffic, but the F8 Spider is not an object which should be relegated to a simplistic disquisition on the clean lines designed by the Centro Stile Ferrari or on the ballistic performance at everyone’s reach. This Ferrari transfers the compression potential of the 488 Pista’s kph ratio into a more road-based environment. Let me explain. If tackling a mountain pass with the Pista implies arriving at your destination soaked in your sweat, having faced every bend with the doubt of not having exaggerated in pretending to emulate Leclerc and thanking in most cases the sumptuous effort put in place by the brain that avoided a terrible crash at the first corner, with the F8 you have a less hectic experience on your hands and this is where the fun part comes.

With almost equal performance, the F8 compensates for a less racetrack setting with targeted updates that refine the dynamic qualities of this berlinetta in a less intrusive way. In other words, you will go very fast, but with less effort than on a 488 Pista. And now comes a huge “but” that gives meaning to both models. In fact, one does not preclude the other, since the beauty of the Pista is precisely the fact that you have to get involved and get dizzyingly close to your limits to start being truly in symbiosis with the car. On the other hand, the F8 may at least in appearance seem more tamed, but in reality it takes the more ferocious nature of the other and places it at the bottom of the scale of its soul, or at least not on top of its list. Until then you will have in your hands a Ferrari suitable for any type of movement, even those that do not involve going down hard on the throttle or hanging at the wheel in the middle of those curves that refresh your memory regarding the laws of dynamics and the basic principles of physics.

Where the 488 Pista does not let the curtain fall, because it literally shreds it, the F8 closes the roof and lets out the cool evening breeze and thunderous applause addressed to a masterpiece in the form of an engine, a perfect gearbox and a chassis tailored to civilian, but still ready to be in the forefront. As the lights go down, the roar of a V8 embracing the inexorable need to evolve to its advantage points towards the horizon and swallowing the centerline puts into practice what cars of this kind were created for, which it is not just going fast, but carving emotions in the heart of those who drive them. The curtain is falling, but it cannot break the intensity of a resounding standing ovation that wants the show to go on. And with the F8 Spider you can rest assured that it will go ahead at full speed.