Ferrari F8 Tributo (2020) review

Ferrari pays tribute to its V8 supercars with the magnificent F8 Tributo. We drive it on home turf in Italy.

Ferrari F8 Tributo

Often, we pay tribute to someone after they have died. The F8 Tributo is a tribute to a still-beating heart: Ferrari’s turbocharged V8 – voted the finest engine of the past 20 years. Nonetheless, I’ve a nagging feeling this car could represent the end of an era.

If so, the ‘junior’ Ferrari supercar is leaving with cylinder heads held high. With its predecessor, the 488 GTB, Ferrari built upon the acclaimed 458 Italia with an entirely new turbocharged engine. The Tifosi fretted that something might have been lost – until they drove it.

Sure enough, the 488 GTB was the real deal, and the awards started piling up. The F8 Tributo needs to be even better.

‘Divine to drive’

Ferrari F8 Tributo

On the road, it delivers. This is a divine car to drive. With 720hp, it is eye-poppingly fast, and new acoustics in the engine bay mean it sounds rich and increasingly glorious as the revs rise.

It will do 0-62 mph in 2.9 seconds and reach 211 mph flat-out. But the depth of feel, feedback, precision and confidence it delivers makes it a brilliantly natural, organic supercar to drive.

No matter what speed you want to travel, it is a treat, not a terror.

Ferrari F8 Tributo

This is all the more remarkable because the engine is the most powerful V8 Ferrari has ever built. Pound for pound, there is not a series production V8 on the planet that gives a bigger bang for buck than this 3.9-litre V8. And, despite being turbocharged, the response to the accelerator is virtually instantaneous.

It is deeply satisfying, and a testament to a mind-boggling degree of engineering development by Ferrari boffins.

Yes, a non-turbo V8 will ultimately be that bit sharper and more visceral, but it simply can’t serve up such breadth of power as this turbo. Nor its sheer peak output, nor its charming ease of use. Overall, it’s simply better, period.

Inspired by F1

Ferrari F8 Tributo

You shouldn’t mistake it for a 488 GTB on the road. The curvaceous lines have crisper details, plus there are slimmer headlights (air is now channelled above them) and a bold central ‘S-duct’ air intake inspired by F1 aerodynamics.

The side air intakes are bigger; the engine now ingests its air from new ducts built into the full-width rear wing. It is an organic classic, in contrast to edgier and more aggressive rivals.

At the rear, there’s an added treat: the engine cover is now plastic, with three open slats, modelled to mimic the famous Ferrari F40. It’s a cool retro touch and the perfect way of showcasing the engine in all its glory.

Ferrari F8 Tributo

And the heart of it is the mid-mounted eight-cylinder engine. Ferrari built an extreme version of the 488 GTB, called the 488 Pista: 50 percent of the internal components were new.

The F8 Tributo engine has even more new parts, including many derived from the 488 Challenge racing car, not only to produce colossal power, but also deliver it in a linear way that builds in intensity as revs increase.

It is even more efficient when you reach the rev limiter: a new ‘wall effect’ strategy means it cuts off right at the 8,000rpm red line, rather than gently fading as it is reached. This is ridiculously pleasurable.

The appliance of science

Ferrari F8 Tributo

You even have a choice of picking the top plenum covers in classic crackle-finish red, or smooth carbon fibre. Red for us, please.

In the future, cars like this might be hybrids, with downsized V6 turbo engines or similar. This model is still the cleanest Ferrari ever, though: it meets the latest exhaust emissions regulations that stipulate it produces 90 percent fewer pollutants than the 488 Pista.

It even has an exhaust particulate filter to almost fully filter all pollutants. But don’t worry, a redesigned exhaust means it is up to 5dB louder than the 488 GTB inside the cabin. It sounds magnificent.

Ferrari F8 Tributo

And now for the science bit. What makes it so good to drive? Here is the acronym every F8 Tributo fan needs to know.

FDE+. It’s pivotal to the F8 Tributo’s talents. In cornering, Ferrari Dynamic Enhancer Plus works by carefully managing brake pressure to balance the car and give confidence-boosting control. Sounds simple, but is actually ferociously complex. It was first used on the 488 Pista for extreme sporty driving with many of the car’s safety assist systems disabled. On the F8 Tributo, it has been extended, to the fast-road ‘Race’ setting on the steering wheel Manettino dial.

It essentially acts as a dynamic stabiliser: it gives ordinary drives the sense of having car control like F1 winner Charles Leclerc. Whatever your level of talent, it enhances it, and gives you the confidence to press further: it’s so effective, it makes even a pro driver six percent faster coming out of bends, according to Ferrari’s own figures – with 30 percent less steering activity, or ‘fighting at the wheel’.

Rather brilliantly, Ferrari’s own official technical literature says FDE+ will make drivers more skilled and ‘more confident in lengthy oversteer manoeuvres’. A day’s testing of the new F8 Tributo in Italy included some laps at Ferrari’s famous Fiorano test track. The sighting laps with a pro driver terrified me: it is a fast place. But within half a lap, I was up to speed, and within two laps, tweaking the car’s rear end out of corners.

This is proof of how effective the FDE+ tech really is.

Super on the strada

Ferrari F8 Tributo

But what about on the road? Here’s where Ferrari’s many other developments come to the fore. Counterintuitively, it has more downforce, but is 10 percent more aerodynamically efficient: it’s slipperier through the air, but more planted onto the road.

The technical details of all the work done to the F8 Tributo’s aerodynamics are mind-boggling, but the confidence you immediately feel on the road is proof it all works.

Ferrari F8 Tributo

Patented technology features at the rear – the blown spoiler. First seen on the 488 GTB, and made more extreme for the 488 Pista, it is further developed here to give a 25 percent boost in downforce – where it matters, at the rear end.

Also note the extreme visuals of that F40-inspired engine cover, plus the quad round tail lamps, which are there in reference to a Ferrari great of the 1990s: the F355.

Inside the F8 Tributo

Ferrari F8 Tributo

Inside, there’s been lots of work on housekeeping aspects: freeing up more stowage space for smartphones, making it appear more luxurious, building in more aluminium and optional carbon fibre elements.

There is a new steering wheel, with revised controls. Sounds a simple update – but, as a Ferrari engineer explained, the steering wheel is actually the key connection between driver and car: designing it is part of the suspension development process itself, to ensure the messages and feedback to the driver are perfected.

I had no idea: that’s the higher level on which Ferrari works.

Ferrari F8 Tributo

F8 Tributo passengers have a little gadget as well: an optional 7-inch touchscreen that displays the rev counter, Manettino settings, sat-nav directions and other key pieces of information. Yes, it can show them how fast they’re going…

Ferrari says its V8 sports car customers are particularly passionate owners. They mainly use the cars on the road, at weekends or during free time, but will occasionally venture onto the racetrack.

For more than half the time they’re in the car, they drive with a passenger, and while 40 percent of them are new to the Ferrari brand, another 40 percent are serial Ferrari V8 buyers, who will only buy this type of car.

Paying tribute

Ferrari F8 Tributo

The Ferrari V8 sport Berlinetta line began with the 1975 308 GTB, we were told. This F8 Tributo is the latest and greatest in that sequence.

But the last in the line? We shall see. If it is, though, the ‘Tributo’ name will be justified.

This is the finest imaginable tribute to a remarkable run of mid-engined Ferrari V8 sports cars.   

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Richard Aucock
Richard Aucockhttps://www.richardaucock.co.uk/
Richard is director at Motoring Research. He has been with us since 2001, and has been a motoring journalist even longer. He won the IMCO Motoring Writer of the Future Award in 1996 and the acclaimed Sir William Lyons Award in 1998. Both awards are run by the Guild of Motoring Writers and Richard is currently vice chair of the world's largest organisation for automotive media professionals. Richard is also a juror and Steering Committee director for World Car Awards and the UK juror for the AUTOBEST awards.

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