Ferrari F8 Spider or the fight of the spiders

I have expressed my love for cars from Maranello many times and it will be no different this time. Therefore – even though several months have passed since the premiere of the Ferrari F8 Spider – I decided to devote a few sentences to it on the blog. And although some people will complain that Ferrari is still one step behind McLaren (more on that in a moment), I know that my heart always beats faster at the sight of cars with a bouncing horse.

Ferrari F8 Spider: don’t change good patterns

The Ferrari F8 Spider is basically the F8 Tributo (more about it here) with a folding roof. Yes, there are some differences, but let’s face it: under the hood again we have a double-supercharged 3.9-liter V8 gasoline engine with 720 bhp. It is a unit that won the International Engine of the Year for the last three years in a row. The performance is also similar, despite a slightly higher weight: 2.9 seconds to reach 100 km/h, 8.2 seconds to reach 200 km/h and the maximum speed is 340 km/h.

Basically, we are talking about the same car in two variants. Both the F8 Tributo and the F8 Spider are a “cool” sports car for the road. Athletic, light (approx. 1400 kg) with advanced safety systems, perfect aerodynamics and looks like a million dollars.

Why “the fight of the spiders”?

There is a reason why I titled my entry “spider fight” – there is one more Spider that I must refer to in the context of Ferrari. I am talking about a direct competitor, the McLaren 720S Spider. This rivalry of brands has been going on for some time and so far the cars from Woking are winning by a hair, at least in terms of performance.

It takes 2.8 seconds for the 720S to reach the “one hundred” while 200 km/h appear on the meter after 7.9 seconds, and the maximum speed is 341 km/h. Apparently minimal differences, but still … Folding and unfolding the roof is also in favour of McLaren – it takes 11 seconds (Ferrari – 14 seconds) and can be done at a higher maximum speed (50 km/h vs. 45 km/h ).

One might say that the bouncing horse is short of breath and no longer running in the forehead. But I do not agree with it – as a fan of the brand, I am convinced that in the next models, engineers and designers from Maranello will show what they can do. Sometimes it’s easier to win from second position than to stay ahead all the time while looking back for the chase.