RAISING THE BAR


 

To test the new 458 Speciale's capabilities to the full, we asked the team behind this pioneering model to take it up into the hills surrounding Maranello. Certainly no simulation would have generated such an enthusiastic response.

It's a difficult call, but perhaps Marco Ribigini has, on balance, the best job. Difficult, because none of the five men we've gathered on this hillside above Maranello with the new Ferrari 458 Speciale is lacking in professional satisfaction. These are some of the key architects of this amazing new car, a car for which the brief was essentially, "take the 458 Italia and make it even better." That's a hell of a way to make a living.

Ribigini, though, is the vehicle engineer, the man who devises the development plan for a new Ferrari, and then has to validate everything before reporting his findings. So, how much of his time is spent driving a desk, and how much getting his hands dirty on the car? 'Oh, I'm probably in the office 60 or 70 per cent of the time,' he laughs. 'The rest of the time I'm in the workshop or on the track. If we're developing a new solution to a problem or working on a new component, we have to test it and, if it breaks, I report back. Why did we reach the set target? We keep going until it's fixed. I guess I'm the one who has the relationship that spans my colleagues and the test drivers.' Every car-loving (man)child must have dreamt at one time or another of being a Ferrari test driver. But imagine being one of the guys who creates the car in the first place. Now narrow the focus further still, and think about working in what amounts to Ferrari's skunkworks. With the 458 Speciale, this team has to follow 2004's 360 Challenge Stradale and 2008's 430 Scuderia, two of Ferrari's more leftfield hits in the modern era, cars that featured a defiantly track-oriented focus while doubling up as test beds for thrilling new philosophies in vehicle dynamics. The Challenge Stradale and Scuderia were harder, faster, stronger and, if not better in the objective sense, then certainly deeply satisfying for a certain type of Ferrari client.

The 430 Scuderia, in particular, pioneered a new integrated electronic chassis architecture that paved the way for the 458 Italia. I recall test driver Marc Gen� insisting that the car would lap Fiorano faster with all of its systems switched firmly on. Not counter-intuitive, but certainly requiring a leap of faith, the feeling of traction optimisation as we accelerated out of the circuit's slower corners, where you might expect some under or oversteer depending on the driver's inputs, defied all expectations. How could you possibly top that? Time to meet the team whose job it is to do so.

Autumn is cloaking the tumbling hills of this part of Emilia-Romagna, but to a man they're thrilled to be up here to experience the fruits of their labours. Federico Ghirardi is the project leader, an affable man with sparkling eyes. Veniero Pizzagalli laughs when I refer to him as "Mr Chassis", but agrees that that's accurate enough. Enrico Cardile is the aerospace and aeronautics graduate who has never actually worked in that sector, preferring to translate his love of aerodynamics to Ferrari. Gaetano Cecchinelli is the engine man, charged with wringing as much horsepower as the materials in the 458's normally aspirated V8 will allow. Finally, Marco Ribigini, the man through whom all their findings will ultimately flow. 'The 458 Italia is a phenomenal starting point,' Marco agrees. 'The first question I asked myself was, "wow, what a challenge! How can we possibly do a car more extreme than that?" So we decided to push on the emotional side. Generate more lateral acceleration, create more sound so that it really envelops you... every single step we took, it seemed to work. So then we thought, "let's go further..."'

'It's similar to the 430 Scuderia, but... even more so,' he adds, a little mysteriously. 'It follows more or less the same road map, but with more focus on weight reduction. We increased engine power and aero, there's greater emphasis on dynamics.' Reducing weight is one of the black arts of contemporary automotive engineering. The 458 Speciale is 90kg lighter than the Italia, which is as much as a well-fed grown adult but perhaps still doesn't sound like a huge amount. Trust us, in this context it's hellishly difficult to achieve. Ferrari has changed around 20 per cent of the 458's chassis in pursuit of this goal. The firewall now measures 1mm in thickness rather than 2mm, and the central tunnel is a new casting. To actually alter the thickness of some of the aluminium in the car's structure is proof of how serious these men really are.

'We studied how the material in the chassis behaved, and removed the bits that didn't contribute to the overall stiffness,' chassis guru Pizzagalli says. 'We use high strength aluminium. If in the past the minimum thickness of a casting was 3.5mm, now we are making some components that are 2mm. That is enough. We carry out numerical analyses to determine where we can reduce the thickness without compromising it.' And that's not even the best example. The front bonnet, which features new ducts, has an external skin, with another layer beneath. That's a mere 0.9mm thick; a level, says Pizzagalli, that no other company has even got close to. The design of the outer layer, meanwhile, is such that the panel would actually rupture if normal production techniques were used. Instead, a process called super plastic forming (SPF) is employed, by a company based in England. (The inner bit is made in Bergamo, another illustration of how obsessive Ferrari is.) The rear engine cover of the 458 Spider is created in the same way. Equally challenging is managing the airflow around the car's body. This is one area where Ferrari's racing expertise pays boundless dividends on its road cars. The 458 Speciale, like everything else in science and nature, is subject to the law of unintended consequences.

With people like Cardile around, however, most of them can be dealt with. They might be unintended, but they're not always unexpected. 'We wanted to increase performance, increase downforce, and improve overall efficiency. What is important is that, when you increase performance you increase not only the global amount of downforce but also maintain the correct aero balance.' In other words, it's not enough just to ramp up a car's power output and performance if you don't evolve its aero package to compensate. The aerodynamicist must increase downforce, without adding excessive drag, to create a package that delivers consistent dynamic behaviour right across the car's performance spectrum. 'The biggest innovation at the front are the moveable flaps,' Cardile adds. 'These are moved by air pressure, not mechanical actuators. It helps us manage the aero balance and guarantees the driver the right feeling. The car has consistent behaviour in any driving conditions.' More dramatic still, Cardile's work on the rear diffuser necessitated a wholesale redesign of the 458's exhaust system. 'The whole exhaust system has been reconfigured, including the mufflers. We didn't just change the exhaust's positioning in the bodywork, we changed the internal layout completely for the aerodynamics.' Those bonnet ducts channel air out and away from the radiators in a carefully managed centre line, so it doesn't interfere with the engine and transmission cooling paths. Then there are those distinctive side vanes, redolent of late naughtiest era F1 cars. 'They slow down airflow and increase pressure. They generate downforce with no impact on drag because it's a horizontal surface.' 'There is usually a good correlation between computational fluid dynamics simulations and the wind tunnel,' says Cardile. But when you start to play with the vorticities under the car it gets more complicated. It's hard to say where reality is.

That's when you have to start testing the car.' Which is exactly what he and his colleagues are doing today. It's possible that those aero changes might go unnoticed at normal road speeds, but the Speciale's engine is omnipresent and even more omnipotent than before. It's genuinely difficult to think of a car whose engine needed less in the way of technical amelioration than the 458 Italia but, as with its chassis and aero package, the changes are substantial nevertheless. It now produces 605hp, and 520nm of torque. Cecchinelli is our guide: 'The big difference comes after 6,000rpm. There is more torque and power at higher revs, because this is something that is appreciated on a circuit. We have changed a lot of components and materials, without increasing the weight. The engine oil is different. There are new lubrication ducts in the crankshaft. The intake manifold has been modified, the intake ducts are hand polished, and even the intake pipe is 10mm shorter so it's less vulnerable to the pressure waves that can develop inside.

'The compression ratio has been increased to 13.1,' he continues. 'This has a big influence on the reliability of various components, because the pressure in the combustion chamber has also increased. So we have new pistons, too. These are 14g heavier, but really, we are at the limit of what we can do in a normally aspirated engine, in terms of the reliability of components.' It all translates into a driver's car like none other to have emerged from Maranello. This is high technology in the service of pure hedonism. Cecchinelli smiles. 'One of the Speciale's key requirements was that it should sound unique. Now I can personally confirm that it really does have the most amazing sound...'

There is even a new software algorithm called Sideways Slip Control that measures the tyres' purchase on the road to the most infinitesimal degree, and allows the driver to get unbelievably close to the limit before the system intervenes. The latest generation Michelin Sport Cup Pilot 2 tyres mean that the four bits of rubber on each corner are no longer the limiting factor they once were. The Speciale is capable of generating lateral acceleration of 1.33 g, close to LaFerrari levels. 'It's not easy with a normally aspirated engine to increase power,' says Ghirardi. 'Power by itself isn't everything. It's more important to do something different. We have the highest specific power input of any production engine. We had to do some special things to achieve that. But how it feels in your hands, that's what we were searching for.'

Massa's Williams team-mate Valtteri Bottas agreed the challenge of the corner would be altered slightly by the new run-off.

"I really think that last year was a bit more challenging," he said.

"In the exit the wheels were just on the white line and you knew if there were a few centimetres off you would be off [the track].

"Now it doesn't matter, you only need to keep two wheels on the track and that is it."

MORE DRIVERS' VIEWS

Kimi Raikkonen

"It doesn't change a lot unless we start getting complaints about four wheels over the white line and gaining [an advantage]. It's the way every circuit is going - putting Tarmac around."

Kevin Magnussen

"I don't think we are making the track more unsafe by having gravel, but it is still an awesome circuit for sure and I will enjoy driving here."

Lewis Hamilton

"The FIA are very conscious of safety and that is nothing to shy away from, but I am old-school so I would like the old circuits back like in the '90s with no Tarmac."

Nico Rosberg

"It was one of the more risky corners we had on the calendar. It definitely makes things a lot safer so that is the right direction to go in."