Ferrari’s chief
technology officer
Michael Leiters with
the new F8 Tributo,
photographed
exclusively for CARor Ferrari, the enemy isn’t so much at the gates
as crashing through them with sheer weight
of numbers: fortress Maranello is under siege.
From McLaren, an endless stream of excep-
tional sports cars, with two of the best – the
outrageously talented 720S and ferocious 600LT- aimed squarely at Maranello’s mid-engined V8,
until now the 488 GTB. From Lamborghini, an
uprated Huracan with something of the Ferrari’s wondrous balance – and
a naturally-aspirated V10. And then there’s Aston Martin’s new Vanquish,
an unapologetically aggressive move before you consider that it’s being
engineered by a couple of brilliant ex-Ferrari minds...
What’s more, Ferrari has quite a bit on. Mercedes will once again require
keeping honest in Formula 1, and on the road-car side Ferrari’s new CEO,
Louis Camilleri, is furiously cranking the new product handle like a man
possessed. Chief technical officer Michael Leiters has everything from a
new supercar through a V6 hybrid powertrain to the Purosangue SUV on
his (presumably enormous) drawing board.
‘Ferrari is having a very important year – we are doing so many projects,’
confirms Leiters with a wry smile. ‘We have never done so many, and with
so many innovations on those projects. It’s very exciting. And for Ferrari it
was important to do a big step with this car.’
That car is the new F8 Tributo. It replaces the 488 GTB as Ferrari’s front-
line mid-engined sports car, and has been created with the sole purpose
of re-establishing Ferrari’s dominance in a space it created. For many the
mid-engined V8 is Ferrari; exotic, race-bred, intoxicating. It must remain
‘This is cost-intensive
technology but we wanted
the best engine for this car’
Michael Leitersthe definitive modern two-seat sports car. To ensure that it does, Leiters
and his team have turned to their secret weapon, the 488 Pista, and drawn
from it all the technical innovations and extreme performance thinking
that make that car special.
‘The F8 is a significant step forward,’ says Leiters. ‘The heart of the new
car is the new 710bhp engine, the same as the 488 Pista’s; the lighter engine
internals, the titanium conrods – everything. This is definitely the most
important part of the Tributo.’
He’s not kidding. Let’s ponder for a moment the wonder of a series-
production sports car with a race car’s heart and conrods in a metal so
light and expensive it normally rules itself out the second anyone pulls out
a calculator. On a special edition, yes, but on a series-production V8? Too
expensive, surely?
‘This is definitely cost-intensive technology but for this car we wanted
the best engine of the last 20 years [an award bestowed upon the Pista’s
twin-turbo V8 by the International Engine of the Year jury],’ says Leiters.
‘That’s why we decided to put the economic effort into this engine.’
Together with the 50bhp power increase, the Pista-derived V8 brings
with it an 18kg weight saving (the F8’s overall weight is down 40kg versus
the 488, to 1330kg dry): inconel exhaust manifolds cut 9.7kg, the conrods
1.7kg and the lightened flywheel and crankshaft 2.7kg. Peak torque is
568lb ft at 3250rpm and, as befits such a race-bred engine, blunder into
the rev limiter and you’ll simply hit it, rather than suffer a gradual loss
of power on the way to it, as you do in the 488 GTB. The power increase
puts the car on a par with McLaren’s 720S, and clear of the Huracan Evo. ⊲APRIL 2019 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 79F