The Ferrari F80’s scintillating performance on both road and track creates a sonic boom in the heart of every petrolhead
They say that the calmest place to be is in the eye of the storm, but this cannot be further from the truth, especially if the storm in question is the Ferrari F80.
We are at the Misano Circuit in Italy to put Ferrari’s latest supercar through its paces. If you’re wondering, in the Prancing Horse’s vernacular, “Supercar” is a category, and not just a noun, because the brand eschews the superlatives that some of its contemporaries use.
Besides, when cars are engineered the way Ferrari’s special edition models are, one never requires bombastic words to impress, because it’s just the simple matter of dropping the bass.
See also: Driving Ferrari's V12 coupe, the 12Cilindri or dodici cilindri
Limited to 799 units, the F80 is a track-ready beast with a bespoke chassis with cutting-edge electronic drive control systems, an active suspension mounted directly to the carbonfibre tub and a hybrid powertrain forged in the crucible of the brand’s motorsports programmes.
And yes, in spite of the F80’s race-car aesthetics, they can be road-registered by their owners – just like its predecessors!
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However, as with all the Ferrari special edition models, the biggest hurdle is getting an allocation for the car.
Don’t be fooled into thinking its road-going sensibilities point to any form of compromise though, because the challenge to Ferrari was in creating a super-sportscar that could be driven at 10/10ths on the race-track, and then driven home if so desired.
The F80 proved its mettle during the launch test-drive, which included a 190km road session that saw us traverse winding roads, knobbly small-town roads, as well as the Autostrada, in addition to the track drive.
A special car like the F80 comes along every decade or so, and is a snapshot of Ferrari’s motorsports zeitgeist. This also explains the 800V hybridised twin-turbo V6 powerplant at its heart – a nod to the engines employed in Ferrari’s Le Mans-winning 499P, as well as in its F1 cars.
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The F80 joins a stellar cast of past special edition luminaries, which began with the 288 GTO in 1984 all through to the F40, F50, Enzo and LaFerrari.
It is not a tit-for-tat supermodel for the brand to say, “I have one too!”. Rather, the F80 sets new technical and design benchmarks within and without the company, because its innovations will trickle-down into the coming generation of Ferraris.
Petrolheads will lament the absence of a charismatic V12 clout, especially since this was the engine of choice for the most recent three special editions – F50, Enzo and LaFerrari.
With the Prancing Horse adopting a holistic “Ferrari for every Ferrarista and for every occasion” approach to its product range today, there are alternatives for enthusiasts to enjoy their V12 fix, such as the Dodici Cilindri (12Cilindri) or if you’re lucky, one of the coveted Icona series.
Where the Icona models – a special edition homage to historical models – embody the emotional, the Supercars like the F80 represent the empirical, where the objective is to push the envelopes of technical, production and design excellence to go faster and harder than before.
Every design aspect of the F80 is functional to aid aerodynamics and cooling, because it is truly sculpted by the wind for speed.
The F80 may not be pretty in the traditional sense, but it is all about finding the beauty in this brutal beast. It isn’t difficult to appreciate the devil in the design details, including the discreet vents and NACA ducts working to channel air-flow to optimise cooling.
When the going gets fast, furious and frightening, the F80 generates downforce to the tune of 1050kg at 250km/h, thanks to the combined efforts of the active rear wing, a rear diffuser (measuring-in at a record-breaking 1800mm!), flat underbody, front triplane wing and S-Duct.
There’s an aura to the race-bred F80’s tense, futuristic design that makes it look fast, even when sitting pretty in the pit area. By now the Daytona-esque smoked horizontal “visor” strip across the width of the front is no longer an oddity, because it has been ingrained into our consciousness thanks to the 12Cilindri.
At rest, the active spoiler (it is both height- and angle-adjustable) imparts a different visual personality to the car than when it is fully deployed, yet the F80 is no less a bristly and belligerent character to both driver and NPC motorist.
The driver-oriented cabin is designed to impart the feel of a single-seater, but has been homologated for a “1+” (versus a full 2), with the reduced cockpit width and set-back position of the passenger’s “seat” (pictured above in black upholstery) aiding weight-savings and minimising drag.
From the driver’s “hot-seat”, secondary controls for the climate system, wing mirror adjustment, front lifter and so on, are grouped on a central face-plate, while essential drive controls are positioned around the steering wheel.
More crucially, Ferrari has brought back some physical controls on the steering wheel to replace the haptic controls. If anything, such deliberate, tactile feel to the dynamic controls serves to augment the fast driving vibe and is more intuitive to engage with racing gloves on.
The new steering wheel is smaller than before and features flattened top and bottom portions. It is chunky enough for the driver to grip snugly and never proves to be more than a handful. The new design provides the driver with perfect legibility of the digital instruments and will appear in future Ferrari models.
In true sportscar fashion, the hybrid motor is engineered to aid and abet your motoring mischief, as opposed to zero emissions zipping around.
The F80 features an electric front axle with dual motors, so it is effectively all-wheel driven, a configuration Ferrari feels is most appropriate to tame the super-sportscar’s prodigious performance.
It’s a good thing we had an orientation lap around the Misano circuit, because the moment we engaged “full send”, the 1200hp F80 went ballistic as it slingshot itself to the end of the front straight, with time only for a hastily gulped breath before further ultraviolence ensued.
There’s next to no turbo-lag too. Yep, the F80 is the first Ferrari to apply e-turbo technology, so coupled to the gobstopping hit from the electric motors, you’re looking at a hugely elastic powerband of monumental proportions!
The flexibility of the F80’s power delivery beggars belief, and there’s no risk you’ll ever fall out of the zone, because the super-sportscar pulls with the virile vigour of an athlete out for a night on the town.
Flat-out, the soundtrack is more thundering typhoon than Dyson duster from the outside, although regulatory killjoys are trying their best to diminish one of the best bits of a sportscar – the drive-by sound.
With a soul-stirring mechanical soundtrack, things are far more strident within the cabin, especially with every up/down-shift of the 8spd dual-clutch gearbox punctuated by an evocative shift shock that leaves the driver well and truly shooketh and stirred.
The choice of a relatively lighter V6 (compared to an 8- or 12-cylinder) contributes to the precise balance of the F80’s handling, while the steering wheel serves up organic, feelsome feedback that lets one drive it remarkably fluidly.
The F80 is agile and light on its feet and can be confidently manhandled to change its angle of attack on the fly. However, the dramatic aspect of the F80 is how its complex electronics, inboard Multimatic active suspension and aero seamlessly operate to create a flat and neutral driving experience, even as the ground effect glues it to the ground for stupefying cornering grip levels.
Regardless of whether you’re braking, accelerating, cornering or changing directions quickly, the F80 can be steered with great confidence at stupendous speeds, because the driver is always aware as to the grip levels of the sticky Michelin Pilot Cup Sport 2 R tyres.
CCM-R Plus carbon-ceramic brakes and carbon rims round-off the F80’s race-car package, the former of which delivers eye-watering stopping power with a pedal feel that allows for millimetre precise modulation.
The level of communication coming through the helm never threatens to overwhelm one with the nitty-gritty minutiae. Instead, it transmits only the important, meaty details so the proceedings never deteriorate into frantic, fidgety hacksawing, but remain sublimely composed with the driver always in control and right in the thick of action.
The F80 looks perfectly at home around the Misano World Circuit, so it is a decidedly surreal experience to take this otherworldly road-legal track beast onto the winding roads.
Even away from the smooth surfaces of the race-track and onto the patchy tarmac of real world roads, the F80’s chassis is more than capable of serving up that same confidence-inspiring performance.
However, this doesn’t mean the F80 is easy to drive, because its stratospheric limits force you to up your game exponentially to take full advantage of the car’s trick electronics, prodigious ground effect, downforce, as well as its hyper-elastic powerband.
Jaws drop, necks twist, eyeballs pop and naturally, phones and cameras are firing away in the wake of the F80’s passing, and to our minds, this is the appropriate emotional response to the F80’s visual theatre.
Even if its design isn’t instantly recognisable as a Ferrari, the F80 exudes a formidable road presence, and passers-by will certainly appreciate it as something special.
There may be a lot of magical numbers in its vital statistics, but the real magic is in how Ferrari has engineered the F80 to reduce the active suspension and aero’s complex computational machinations into an addictive serving of scintillating, yet satisfyingly organic driving pleasure.
Ferrari F80
Engine: 2992cc, V6, twin-turbo, electric motor, 800V
Power at rpm: 900hp at 8750rpm
Torque at rpm: 850Nm at 5500rpm
Front Axle Electric Motor: 105kW for each of the two electric motors; 121Nm (peak torque)
Rear Axle Electric Motor: 70kW (regenerative braking:); 60kW (ICE assist); 45Nm (peak torque)
System Power: 1200hp
Transmission: 8spd F1 DCT dual-clutch
0-100km/h: 2.15secs
Top Speed: 350km/h
Fuel Consumption: 13.5l/100km
CO2: 307g/km
