Ferrari has lifted the lid on the most powerful road-going supercar it has ever built, packing the carbon-fiber-laden F80 with a three-liter twin-turbo six-cylinder engine that develops 900 horsepower on its own.
The combustion engine is then coupled to three electric motors (all developed in-house) that add another 300 hp. That’s a total of 1,200 horses with a drive system that’s essentially derived from the 499P Le Mans race car, but is just as happy to pop into the shops for a pint of milk.
Far from being an attempt to reduce Ferrari’s overall CO2 emissions, this is an exercise in achieving maximum performance. For example, the small 800V/2.3kWh battery stowed behind the seats uses F1 technology to ensure it can be charged and discharged in the fastest and most efficient way possible.
That means customers won’t be able to drive the F80 all-electrically, but instead can rocket from a standstill to 60 mph in 2.15 seconds, hit 124 mph in just 5.75 seconds and reach a maximum speed of 350 km/h can be reached. Mind blowing stuff.
The F80 is designed for raw performance, using a carbon fiber chassis that is as narrow as engineers can get away with to ensure less aerodynamic drag. Inside there is just enough room for the driver and a very small passenger.
Ferrari calls it a “1+” vehicle, as the second seat is slightly offset to allow the controls to envelope the driver. To emphasize that this is not a romantic grand tourer, the driver’s seat is bright red, while the poor passenger has to make do with black… and racing belts.
There’s so much engineering trickery going on beneath the spaceship-style bodywork and butterfly-wing doors that Maranello engineers could easily fill an entire Netflix documentary series with content. For example, the engine-controlled active suspension system eliminates the need for anti-roll bars and allows the vehicle to transform from a track-crouched monster to a smooth road-tripper with ease.
Ferrari has used 3D printing technology to create the suspension control arms, has also used large amounts of carbon fiber for its five-spoke alloy wheels and has also introduced some serious software tricks to get the most out of lap times on the race track.
Boost Optimization, which race fans can access in the two high-performance riding modes (Performance and Qualify), maps warm-up laps of a favorite track and then automatically delivers extra horsepower in the section they deem most needed, such as when accelerating down a straight .
A technological powerhouse
The Ferrari F80 will not actually go into production until 2025. From then on, the 799 lucky customers selected to receive one will have to wait until 2027 to experience it. Conveniently enough, that’s Ferrari’s 80th anniversary, hence the name.
It will cost around €3.6 million, which is over US$4 million and almost AU$6 million, by far the most expensive Ferrari road car ever built and one of the most expensive production supercars of all time.
But it ups the ante for the Italian automaker, not just in the raw numbers compared to the LaFerrari it appropriates, but also in the active aerodynamic technology, track-focused features and extensive use of e-motors in everything from the turbochargers to the suspension system.
The proof is in the pudding, as the brand claims the F80 has set a new lap record on its Fiorano test track of 1 minute and 15.3 seconds – that’s 4.4 seconds faster than the LaFerrari.
This may sound like marginal gains, but the numbers are huge in the cutthroat world of small but hideously expensive supercars.