When it comes to mid-engined supercars, Ferrari tends not to miss. And so to the Ferrari 296 GTB, reviewed here by Matt Prior.
Ferrari’s staple mid-engine supercar series has for as long as i’ve been testing cars been the best supercar of its class and they’ve all had something in common they’ve had quick steering fantastically adjustable handling and a brilliant soundtrack and tremendous response from a series of v8 award-winning engines whether that’s with turbos or without this is the
Latest of the line it’s the 296 gtb the engine is in the same place it still has a twin clutch automatic gearbox and is rear-wheel drive it’s even still red there’s just one thing it’s not a v8 and it’s a plug-in hybrid mounted low in the middle of the 296 gtb is a new three liter v6 engine with a 120 degree v angle and turbos mounted between the banks it makes 654
Brake horsepower on its own to which you can add 164 brake of electric motor sitting between that and an 8-speed dual clutch transmission so it’s a total of 819 horsepower the 296 gtb is rear-wheel drive via an electronically controlled limited slip differential and it’s ferrari’s second series production plug-in hybrid after the sf-90 here a 7.5 kilowatt-hour
Battery gives an electric only range of 15 miles it’s mounted just behind the driver and passenger the battery weighs 73 kilos and once you’ve added the inverter and motor and so on there’s a weight penalty of over 100 kilos for it being pluggable but the new v6 engine is lighter than the old v8 from this car’s predecessor the f8 tributa and this car is also 50
Millimeters shorter too so only ends up about 35 kilos heavier ferrari quotes a dry weight of 1470 kilos and with fluids and fully fueled i would reckon that is around 1600 kilos on our scales probably just under in the uk it’s 241 000 pounds before options and as you might expect there’s a lot of those okay so welcome to the inside of the 296 gtb in which you
Will hear the sound of silence because it is in hybrid mode now unlike the sf-90 it gets a digital display with two different sides on the steering wheel there is the traditional no drive mode that runs through the different sort of traction and handling control systems which goes all the way up to traction control off and you can push a little button that
Puts the dampers into a soft mode and then on the other side is this sort of newer system that i can put in e drive which stays in electric drive as long as it can through hybrid or through into performance and then into qualifying which gives you more amounts of engine power and that engine kicks in as you have just heard down here i can flick it back into
Manual mode and now i have control just like any other ferrari of this hp twin clutch gearbox then the electric motor is clutched out then there is the petrol engine too now there’s a what they call a hot tube and i want you to listen over the next few minutes to the sound of this engine and the hot tube basically runs from the exhaust all the way through
To the back of the cabin and it has a small resonator like a membrane at the exhaust end of it which is said to accentuate the third order harmonics of a v6 making it sound more like a v12 and you know what i think they might be right certainly uh to me this engine feels sounds as nice as a turbocharged eight i like it very much it’s quite a solderous sort
Of thing this being a hybrid there is a lot going on so as i mentioned in the sort of techie voice over a minute ago there’s the electric motor there’s the petrol engine there’s the e differential all of those have to integrate together in a driving experience then you can add electric power steering for the first time and a completely break by wire braking
System which doesn’t have a physical hydraulic link from the brake pedal through to the discs so all of it could feel if it wasn’t set up really well it could feel very digital and i think if you set it up badly if ferrari had set it up you could get a car that wasn’t necessarily engaging and rewarding to drive so let’s see we’ll go for a bit of a drive on
This road and then have a drive on track later which is a different way around to how we usually do things with ferrari usually we go to the factory have a quick drive at fiorano ferrari’s own test track and then head off onto the road the reasons we’ve not done that is because it’s february and the weather is not good enough in marinello particularly to get
Heat into the cup r tires which are optional which i’ll come to later when we have a drive on circuit so meantime this is a really lovely stretch of road engine sounds great driving position is good this car is 50 millimeters shorter overall and 50 millimeters shorter in the wheelbase than the f8 tributor it effectively replaces and when you speak to ferrari’s
Engineers they say yeah that gave us real worries 50 millimeters doesn’t sound like a lot to me but they said no no in terms of the feeling of agility and instability in the car we were very worried how hyperactive and hyper agile this car could feel well the good news is it doesn’t feel unstable at all when you turn with a steering system that is just under
1.9 turns between locks the steering ratio is apparently even quicker than it is in the f8 tribute but it doesn’t feel it sometimes ferraris can feel a little bit nervous just off of straight ahead because they’re so sharp so direct this doesn’t at all this has a really nice easy take up of weight and feel and the front goes and the back just follows it round
Really nicely it’s not doing anything weird it’s not doing anything peculiar and as you break the brake pedal modulation is really terrific i would not know that this was a break by wire system which i suppose is the point just has a really easy modulation steering has a really nice take up throttle response is good and it’s metering out what’s happening with
Both this engine and also the electric motor but in a really sort of linear way that you’re unaware largely that there’s anything going on other than those lovely mechanical systems that we’ve come to expect from a mid-engined entry spec ferrari so the system of the 70 odd kilo battery which is just behind me plus the motor plus the inverter and everything else
Has a weight penalty which is not entirely offset by losing two cylinders from the engine so the engine is about 35 kilograms lighter than the v8 this other gubbins puts on i think around 100 kilos and then plus some other weight saving elsewhere because this car is a bit shorter and a bit cleverer in the way that it’s made overall it weighs about 35 kilos more
Than an f8 tribute doesn’t necessarily feel any heavier and i would have to be digging a long way back into my memory to to think if this car feels heavier than mid-engined ferraris of old i want to say that something like a four five eight speciale is still just because of the way the engine screams just because of how light and wild it feels but that’s still
Kind of my benchmark pinnacle mid-engine ferrari but this is terrific this is this is really good it integrates a lot of tech which kind of ferrari has got to have and there will be towns and cities where you’ve just got to have it and legislation says you’ve just got to be able to drive in electric mode for a long time to integrate all of that into a car that
Is certainly on this feeling i’ll try it on track in a minute and know for sure at least as good if not better than an f8 tributeo it’s really special really special moves to eight and a half doesn’t really matter apparently if you don’t take it all the way out you can put just as quick a lap time they say if you short shift just because of the the nature of
The the turbocharged engine and electric motor together but it’s got a really nice balance it’s got really really consistent response you turn on the front and the back follows it supports it really well it feels like it’s got a lot of sort of lateral stiffness it braces itself really nicely it doesn’t feel short or nervous but it does feel responsive and agile
And having driven an sf90 which felt very much like a technical exercise but not necessarily the most engaging or rewarding mid-engine sports car i think the technical exercise that was the sf90 led to the creation of this and it this car is probably as good as it is because they experimented so much with the sf90 however let’s get off this road because i just
Want to drive it quicker and quicker and quicker and it just gets antisocial so let’s go away from this road go to the track and find out for sure right so welcome to the inside on a racetrack which is the circuit monte blanco which is in the south of spain and one of the reasons we’re in the south of spain not at fiorano is because the weather in that part
Of italy in winter is not warm enough to get the heat into the michelin pilot sport cup 2r tyres that are fitted to this vehicle they need to be at about 70 degrees to get them working which is a bit daft in it for a road guard can go on track that is i don’t know but i think owners like it that way they like to have something unbelievably grippy which this is
These cars here this yellow one is a different car to the road because it is fitted with what we call the fiorano package costs about 25 grand doesn’t save a huge amount of weight but on my little manatino here there is no bumpy road button and that’s because they come with multimatic dampers multimatic dampers for cars like ford gt and other race cars it’s a
Serious serious passive damper company so we can do a few laps and build up the speed it feels more agile on a circuit i’ve stuck it in qualifying mode on the powertrain mode buttons and then i through to ct off which is traction control off but it leaves some stability control for the hampick balance hey you know what i’ve done a couple of laps in this car
And it occurs to me i don’t think that i’ve maxed out the engine at all i don’t think i’ve run it into the limiter so i should do that it makes that much corrupt that apparently you do not need to no slower a lap time if you short shift i’m an eight and a half is not bad as rev limits go for a turbocharged engine it’s pretty high would have been pretty high
On the naturally aspirated gymnography still is pretty high and naturally aspirated but for a turbo i think that’s pretty good they do let those high harmonics through no question i’ve got a lid on and sort of speakers over my ear so i probably hear it no worse than you no better than you really punches through the up shifts feels like there’s a lot of mass
Behind it which i suppose as it’s disengaging both the motor and the engine together i suppose it is it turns really nicely and what happens in all recent mid-engine v8 ferraris and i think it happens in this v6 ipad one too when you turn it really turns quickly at the front but the rear is supported really well it doesn’t fall into a slide in the way that’s
Say a toyota gt86 to pick a motor opposite doesn’t and i very much like the way gt86 does that just he’s into a slide really quickly this does not do that it feels like it’s supported at the rear corner the rear three-quarter incredibly well really flat even though they’re getting back on the power and feeling it move around a bit the body stays there’s a little
Bit of roll just to just to lean against because if it was totally totally flat it would feel weird even so as i turn there it is nobody get back on the power it just supports it really beautifully and because i’ve got traction off the knot hold stability off just slides around up to a nice agreeable easy limit and you forget any of the extra weight you
Forget the hybrid system you forget the lock it’s just got a really soulful v6 engine really quick handling steering feels lighter on circuit which is weird but i think maybe it’s just because of all of the other everything else that’s going on is more physical and the steering is the same or whether it’s just because the tires are sort of skipping around and
Moving on the circuit board but it comes alive with road feel and response and you feel exactly what the back is up to when that moves it’s just this is still a world-class car i’m going to stick around to easy off yes so that’s everything off downshifts are still fantastic so now i’m on my own when it slides just meter out exactly what you need i mean it’s
So much power that you would think a car like this could feel nervous but it it does not it does not at all it just has that playability and the control ability it’s not alone here you know it’s its predecessor the fa had that and the 488 before that they nail the chassis of these cars they absolutely do you know what i think they’ve probably done it again
So thanks for joining me there are other ferrari vids on this channel there’s other reviews at autocad at comic and in the mag news etc but if you subscribe click the bell icon you will never miss one of our vids thanks for joining us and i’ll see you next time in summary this car’s fabulous as with the f8 before it and the 488 and the 458 before those it
Has a mix of being absurdly fast and enjoyable yet really easy and rewarding to drive at the same time and nothing else quite matches it we’ll do more with the 296 gtb later in the year too when we get it in the uk we’ll try alongside some rivals so stay tuned and until then thanks for joining us
Transcribed from video
Driven: 819bhp Ferrari 296 GTB. Ferrari's FANTASTIC new hybrid V6 supercar By Autocar
