As the years go by, the ultimate editions of Ferrari’s road-going mid-engined models, from the 488 Pista to the SF90 XX Stradale, become even more extreme and depart even further in terms of character and style from the cars they’re based on. In this context, what should we expect from the 296 Speciale?
To answer this question, we should start from saying where the 296 GTB is positioned on our model chart, especially in relation to the new 849 Testarossa. The latter is about performance; if you’re looking for pure performance, that’s the car. The 296 GTB was born as a quite high-performance car, but its main target was to bring driving pleasure to the next level. Combining the power and the challenge of managing that power creates a thrill, but not a scary moment—and there’s a slight difference between the two.
The target of the Speciale is to deliver the ultimate driving experience while still maintaining the winning formula of the 296, which means providing great power—which is always an important aspect for Ferrari—as well as usability and the functionality of all-electric driving.
Of course, increasing power, reducing weight, and increasing downforce also brings an improvement in performance, but, in the end, our main goal was not performance in itself. Just think about the trunk space of the SF90 or the Testarossa, which is almost nothing. This is because, in order to add a front-wheel-drive system, you need to remove some space which is usually used for luggage.
This project required from us a jump in terms of pure performance, but we saw it as a continuous path starting from the 296 GTB. There are already owners who know how good their 296 GTBs and 296 GTSs are, and, I’m not saying that they’re getting bored, but they’re asking us to extract something more from the same formula. They expect a car which offers some new challenging things to learn, more power, an improvement in terms of sound and gear-shift strategies, but which still continues in the same direction, a car in which they’ll feel at home. Basically, they’re asking for more driving treats from the same car.
I need to stress that we didn’t see this project as a track car. Our main target was to increase the driving traits mostly on the road. Of course, the car offers much more performance—just to give you a number, the Speciale is two seconds faster here on Fiorano than the 296 GTB [and 2.5 seconds quicker than the 488 Pista]—but our main goal was to create something that brings these racing driving emotions to the road.
At which parts of the Fiorano track does the Speciale gain this advantage, and by what means?
It got an advantage basically everywhere. For me, the ABS Evo strategy is something that I enjoy a lot, in order to attack the last meter, and not only on the straights. With the combination of the aerodynamic shift to the front compared to the 296 GTB, ABS Evo allows the driver to attack and carry more speed into the corner, and to keep braking and turning at the same time.
We also have this extra [electric] boost, which gives you a kick on the exit of each corner without the need to push an additional button. The power is delivered automatically, according to the pedal positioning, immediately after the apex; this is the best moment from an efficiency standpoint to deliver the extra power. It’s just like Formula 1 strategy, delivering the boost when the car gets just out of the bend.
Ferrari claims the 296 Speciale benefits from a direct technological transfer from the 296 GT3 race car. How are these two cars the same, and how do they differ?
Developing a car like the 296 Speciale is far more complicated, as it’s a car aimed at a wider range of drivers with different skill levels. When you develop a racing car, you consider only a limited number of users of a very specific profile. A road car always creates a greater challenge.
Take aerodynamics, for example. You need to take into account far bigger body movements, so in practice we take what we can to obtain the same performance benefit—and, at the same time, we try to adapt it for a smoother effect. On a track car, we can obviously rely on massive wings, but that is not something our customers want on their road-going Ferraris. They prefer a more understated form of elegance and more refined forms. So instead, we’re looking for extra downforce from other areas of the car. To sum up, we take inspiration [from the race car] but we deliver something that drivers who are not professional racers are capable of understanding and able to handle.
The electronics follow the same logic. Just like in a race car, in the Speciale we don’t use them to vary the setup; in all Ferrari road cars, the manettino position doesn’t affect the steering or the brake pedal feel. We believe that once you get to grips with the car’s setup, we shouldn’t change it just because the electronics give us the ability to do so. Their tuning remains constant, just as in a racing car, and it’s here we take out some of the rough edges of the software management and make them more polished. We use the electronics as a tool to better control some of the sharp movements and edgy reactions that make the car very agile from an architectural point of view.
The 296’s wheelbase measures 2,600 mm, so it’s considered a short wheelbase, which makes it even more challenging to put all of the 880 horsepower through the rear wheels. Electronics are used to control this output more effectively, and this is one area where we spent a lot more time on the 296 Speciale compared to the 296 GT3.
The track car also has traction control, but it doesn’t need to conduct a dialogue with other electronic systems like the Speciale does: for instance, the electronic differential and semi-active magnetorheological dampers. In the 296 GT3, we use the manettino to tune the input of electronics according to tire degradation, answering the question of what level of wheel slip we want at this specific stage of the race and what’s our strategy for it. In the end, we use technology developed in racing and for racing, but in a different way and to address different needs.
You can also order the Speciale with passive dampers [from Multimatic]. They don’t participate in the same electronic information flow as the other systems installed in our cars, which is usually managed on a central level. Here, we have just one setup, which we find optimal for drivers who want to spend most of their time with the car on track. This way, they can count on consistent and, let me put it this way, sincere reactions coming from the car. With this, we give the driver the taste of a true GT3-class car; this is pure race car technology.
GT3 regulations permit only internal combustion power, which meant eliminating the 296’s hybrid powertrain. Did you consider making the Speciale a purely internal combustion car like its competition counterpart?
One of the targets of the 296 Speciale was to remove as much weight as we could, because this is one of the two aspects of the Special Series’ cars—the other is more power. So, yes, we thought about it. But, in the end, the concept of a Special Series car is more than that; it’s about exploiting everything that is already included in the architecture of the donor car, taking it to the extreme in order to achieve the feeling of a race car in a road car. Thus, we decided to keep the hybrid system, because otherwise it would be a different car than a Special Series version of the 296 GTB.
Just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should. Ferrari’s philosophy of developing cars prioritizes the feeling we want to deliver, and if this is the correct architecture to pursue that goal. Sometimes, we had to make important decisions about what not to include in the car.
Take rear-wheel steering as an example. It has been developed and used by Ferrari in order to reduce the delay time between the input on the steering wheel and the response of the rear axle. It’s a solution to counterbalance the fact that a mid-engined chassis normally has a long wheelbase. It’s a means to reduce it, which is why we call it a Virtual Short Wheelbase. The 296 already has a short wheelbase, so it would be a waste of weight to include an additional system that would give the result already present in the car.
It’s the same story with the active suspension system that debuted on the Purosangue. It offers some advantages, but also other qualities that we didn’t want to accept in this model.
You mentioned earlier the challenge of delivering 880 horsepower only through the rear wheels. As a test driver, do you think there’s a limit to how much power you can pack in a rear-drive car?
We decide on a certain level of power only when we give you the tools to manage it. With the 296 Speciale, I think we are pretty much on the limit. We could manage a little bit more, up to 100-120 hp, and we could shift the weight distribution to the rear, up to 64 or 65 percent [from the current 60 percent]. It would create an advantage in longitudinal performance, but also seriously affect the polar inertia of the car in the corners at the same time. There’s a reason why our 1,000-hp car, the 849 Testarossa, has all-wheel drive. Like we say, “Different Ferraris for different Ferraristi.”
The 296 Speciale offers the best combination for the time being, that is until another technological breakthrough comes in. This is something we keep working on. [De Simone calls over to Ferrari’s nearby press officer: “Please cover your ears!”] We did an SUV just three years ago. There was a market potential to make it ten years ago, but it would not have been a Ferrari. We could make a true Ferrari SUV only after the new active suspension system was invented. [The press officer yells back: “It’s not an SUV!”] You’re right, it’s not an SUV, and it’s not an SUV thanks to the system which unlocked new opportunities for us. If we find similar opportunities to unlock more power, traction, stability, and fun for a future mid-engined rear-wheel-drive car, we’ll be able to make a new Speciale version of the 296 successor.
It seems like it would have been relatively easy to extract more power from the electric side of the 296’s powertrain. Weren’t you tempted to add more than just 13 horsepower?
It wasn’t easy; we were near the limits of the e-motors, especially with the battery output. You can imagine that, over a certain current, your battery will start to fail. In general, it’s easy to add power if you have margins, but on the 296 GTB we were already quite at the limit, because having margins on the powertrain means that you are putting in more weight than you need. We had to explore some grey areas that we didn’t look into in the GTB.
Thirteen horsepower may not sound like much, but you perceive the extra boost; this is something you immediately feel. If you play with the eManettino, you’ll see the massive change in Performance and Quali modes. This is something you feel much more than just the horsepower value, which is just a number. We’re doing cars where every single horsepower and every single kilogram is there to give a direct advantage that you can feel.
