Ferrari F8 Tributo 2020 review - 710bhp V8 supercar on road and track

The Ferrari F8 Tributo is the replacement for the 488 GTB. Featuring an almost all-new aerodynamically enhanced body and an even more powerful 710bhp twin turbocharged V8, it aims to meld the everyday civility of the GTB with the poise and ferocious pace of the Pista. Could this be the best of all worlds? And does the Tributo name hint at the F8’s possible status as the last of the line for this type of Ferrari and its pure internal combustion engine? James Disdale finds out on Ferrari’s very own Fiorano test track, then heads out in the hills around Modena to find out. Subscribe now:

This is the new ferrari fa tributo ferraris replacement for the 488 gtb now we’re going to do three things with it in this film we’ll show you everything that’s new about this car and drive it on the road but first early in the morning we’ve been given two or three laps around ferraris own fiorano circuit remember to subscribe to load if you like this video

Here we are on the burano test track in the new ferrari f8 tributo essentially this is the car with the pista engine but an evolution of the 488 gtb chassis and about 10% extra downforce which maybe we’ll find out about now so we’ve got 710 brake horsepower 568 pounds for the talk at it race mode the traction control is just phenomenal the first edition of the

Fa tributo that you need to know about is the new ferrari dynamic enhancer plus to simplify ferraris very technical explanation there were a lot of graphs in the presentation this is a tweaked version of the existing ferrari dynamic enhancer that now works across the full gamut of driver modes subtly breaking each individual wheel to control your making the

Car faster still out of corners a whole six percent faster out of corners at a 488 gtb no less which is um not a lot but in this sector no performance gain goes unheralded and it’s fast so you can really get on the throttle early and the thing just goes there’s that very slightest sensation that it’s helping you but on the whole it’s just freakishly agile and

This engine so to tell no charge we’re on maybe the third generation of turbocharged engine now there is no lag it just falls and pulls they say they made it sound better as well it does although it’s hard to tell inside the helmet but i’m like saying mclaren engine where you get this big rush of talk after nothing happening in this thing doesn’t matter what

The gear put your foot down and it just goes there is so much performance right we’re going to switch to ct off now which is where the new slight slip control we’re now on to 6.1 comes in and this should give us a bit of my father was sticking on the limit it’s still there you can still feel it working away in the background but it is very very intuitive you

Can just feed the throttle in and the car starts to rotate and as long as you are on top of the steering and the throttle it just gives you quite a lot to play with turn in third gear and just rolling the throttle out it’s very very clever and it inspires confidence you could really start to work the car in the corners pretty much safe in the knowledge and the

Electronic guardians have got your back oh my word now around fiorano here it’s not quite as quick as the pista but frankly when you’re talking half a second good luck to you as you can notice oh dearie me this is a fantastic piece of kit they say it’s to ball for the road and we’ll find out about that in a minute but if you’re doing it occasional track days

In your ferrari i think you’re gonna have quite a lot of fun okay so we’ve mucked around in the fa tributo on the track but ferrari claimed that most of the owners of this car will be using it on the road and that’s where it’s been developed to be best suited so yes it’s got pista bits of aerodynamic and engine but it’s a road car first and foremost and you

Can tell that for this first moment you sit in here now the interior is recognizably 488 but there’s been some jiggling around so we’ve got some eight one two superfast style air vents here some nice leather trim soft carpets the steering wheels a bit smaller which makes it easier to navigate on these tight corners but it feels like a more grown-up comfortable

Luxurious place to spend time and i don’t know why you’d bring this out on high days and holidays because if you just put the auto transmission in his auto mode so the 7-speed dual-clutch just let it do its own devices and it just shifts up seamlessly and early stick the dampers in their bumpy road setting and the car i mean it’s quite a freaky how it deals with

Bumps there’s some brittleness there over really rough stuff but it just sails over most stuff there’s a real suppleness that’s its everyday usable and the engine yin always conscious so is there but you know in sport it’ll settle back on a cruise and you can just sort of you could use it every day it’s not a call that gets on your nerves it’s really usable but

Obviously it’s a ferrari so we don’t want to know about it being usable or practical i want to know what it’s really like to drive and well with a 488 gtb as a base in them the pista bits this car is pretty sensational obviously the engine dominate so this twin-turbocharged unit we’re getting used to it now this variable torque delivery that sort of ramps up

The amount of torque you get so you get this instant throttle response i mean it is so fast that you could leave it in sixth or seventh gear and on most roads he would rinse a hard driven hot hatch but you don’t want to do that you want to use breads and it is rapidly fast and he just spins up to 8,000 in the blink of an eye and it’s oh it’s really really well

Fast i mean it’s so so quick you begin to ask yourself how much faster do i need to go on the road and because that throttle response is so instantaneous i mean there is there is the merest hint of a delay as the turbo spool up but we’re talking barely noticeable you just put your foot down this thing goes so what is new here well apart from the f8 tributo name

That main structure of the car is 488 gtb which means it carries that cars roof and doors however the rest of the bodywork is entirely new and that has been done in the name of aerodynamics now ferrari claim that the aerodynamic efficiency of this car is about 10% better so that means 10% more downforce now a lot of that comes from the front here where we’ve

Got an s duct which is a development of the one first seen on the 488 pista there’s also air vents above the headlamps which feed across the front wheels now on our car we have the alloy wheels there is now a carbon fiber wheel option which saves a total of 40 kilograms over the 488 gtb with the standard wheels the saving is 30 kilograms of the whole car moving

Further down we have this new air intake here now previously on the 488 gtb this fed the intercooler and the engine on the f8 the engine is now fed from the back here with a shorter inlet meaning a much better combustion process and it leaves all this vent open for the intercooler which means overall inlet temperature is now down by 15 degrees so moving around to

The back we’ve got the most obvious change here we’ve got a lexan rear window which is a lightweight material and it’s got some slats cut in it which we’re told is influenced by the ferrari f40 speaking of influences these four lights that’s meant to be f355 and 288 gto which i think you can pretty much see it’s in there in terms the aerodynamics so we’ve got

A blown rear wing which we saw on the pista now this is a carbon-fiber unit on this one and it generates about 25% of the extra 10% of downforce and 20% of the extra down force comes from underneath here the new rear diffuser which has the three adaptive flaps that open and close to either increased downforce or reduced drag now let’s have a look at the engine

Okay so what we have here is essentially the same 3.9 liter twin turbocharged v8 as in the pista so that means the same titanium comrads flywheel to reduce the inertia of the engine makes it rev more freely for the tributo we’ve also got shorter intake trumpets for better response and this natty crackle red finish here for the the intake plenum now obviously you

Can have that in carbon-fiber what else have we got well the power figures are pretty impressive it’s pretty much pista so it’s 710 brake horsepower at 8,000 rpm and torque is 560 eight pounds foot at 3,250 now like the gt b and the pista it’s got this torque management system so you only get full torque in 7th gear the engine ramping up the talk gradually so

You get this naturally aspirated feel also new to meet the ever stricter emissions regulations is a petrol particulate filter now where that is in the exhaust system it cuts some of the engine note noise so to counter that ferrari have created what they call and i kid you not this is what it’s called the hot tube and that runs from just the other side of the

Turbo up the c pillar here and over the drivers left shoulder and that pipes the noise the resonances into the cabin to create a more dramatic sound it’s all totally natural there’s no artificial augmentation nothing through the speakers and as we’ll find out it works pretty well the sound we’ve got this hot tube running through the c-pillar up over my left

Shoulder here and it does help this us there’s a more mechanical feel to the engine note now it’s grittier it’s still not four five eight we’re never going to get that naturally aspirated sound back and that’s just the way it is but this works putting it so close to the turbo means you get a little bit of turbo whistle there and i’m sure some people will find that

A little off-putting but it all adds to the drama of the sound it’s a different multi-layered sound now at this gearbox just pull a paddle bang next gear pull a paddle bang next gear it’s so fast in here you get these lovely little downshift blips of the throttle it’s such a good thing to drive good god i mean i don’t know how long i’d spend in prison if i was

Gone opening it up in 34th gear for prolonged periods it is so rapid now the steering is that typical ferrari pin sharp quick turn in and the nose just bites and with the improved the side slip control now the quick steering just loads up the whole chassis just so and you can just see it feel over the rear axle and then you can feed in the throttle and steer the

Car just on the edge of grip on the throttle knowing that the systems are going to keep an eye on you it’s really intuitive and the smoother you are with it the more it gives you special mention has to go to the brakes which are being tuned for better feel of response and you can really lean on them in the braking zones there is so much stopping parent they’re

Getting close now to porsche levels of progression and a feel you can almost just sense the point of lockup even in these ones that just got the which have got the carbon ceramic options it’s a car that you can drive with a confidence you just wouldn’t expect over 710 brake horsepower mid-engined ferrari it goads you into driving quicker into leaning on the

Grip and again the engine has its part to play there because you can meet out the power so precisely you can lead on the grip in a way that maybe say a mclaren with its more explosive delivery just has you second-guessing a bit more i mean oh my word you couldn’t drive it like this in the uk only in italy in italy you feel that you can drive a ferrari with quite

So much finn the scary thing is each generation gets better and better and faster than faster we’re talking degrees over the 488 gtb but it’s noticeable the pista bloodline dna is only lightly sprinkled birth it’s enough genuinely i don’t think there are other cars of this type that you would want to drive so quickly over these roads is the damping control the

Suspension these are pretty lumpy ripped and torn roads and yet in other cars where you’ve been waiting for that sickening crashes it bottoms out the ferrari just sort of glides over at this the occasional getting near the end of suspension travel but it just checks takes it in stride and again you just can cover ground at an astonishing rate oh my word yeah

I mean this car is frankly crackers but in a good way so should you buy one well if you’re in the market for a 700 horsepower mid-engine two-seater coupe eh then the answer has to be oh yes it’s arguably the best car of its type it allows you to exploit its performance like no other particularly on the road it’s just so engaging so confidence-inspiring but what

I would say is if you do don’t just take it out on high days and holidays use it everyday use it whenever you can because cars like this need to be driven and enjoyed because i suspect we’re not going to be able to do it for as long as we’d like to think now this car is called the f8 tributo because it’s meant to celebrate 40 odd years of mid-engine v8 ferraris

And it’s also a celebration fact this engine this twin turbocharged engine has won the multitude of a war of saved 15 i think in the last five years but i suspect it’s also called tributo because it’s celebrating the last of a line the last type of car like this i don’t think there’ll be another one i think this is going to be the last pure internally combustion

Engine mid-engine v8 ferrari there is the next one will probably have hybridization and will be even faster and maybe even better but it won’t have this car sold i suspect so get it while you still can water crackers awesome thanks for watching if you want to watch one of several to car videos on the 488 then click on the screen now and to make sure you never

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Ferrari F8 Tributo 2020 review – 710bhp V8 supercar on road and track | Autocar By Autocar