Ferrari F8 Spider | PH Review

The Tributo was one of the best cars we drove last year; how does it fare with the top down?

'Flawless on the road' is how I described the F8 Tributo when I drove it on quiet public highways near Maranello last September. Maybe I got swept up in the romance of a Ferrari supercar in the Emilia-Romagna countryside and those last hazy days of summer. But I don't think so.

There was no one thing that it did conspicuously poorly, or even only acceptably well. It didn't have a brittle ride or numb steering or weak body control, for instance. Its twin-turbo V8 wasn't lazy in its responses and nor was its seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox ever hesitant. The F8 Tributo managed somehow to be razor sharp, darting this way and that like the silver sphere in a pinball machine - but it was also playful and easily controlled at the limit, and comfortable in town and civilised on the motorway as well.

It really was flawless, on the road at least. Ferrari had tickled and tuned its entry-level mid-engined Berlinetta to that point over three generations and a full decade, the F8 Tributo being an evolution of the 488 GTB, itself an evolution of the 458 Italia. But evolution can only take you so far. That's as true in the automotive world as anywhere - at some point, if you don't take a significant step forwards, you'll be left blinking and spluttering in the dust kicked up by your rivals as they take those steps themselves. The brilliant F8 Tributo isn't the car that proves that much to be true, but the flawed F8 Spider is.

Think back to 2009 and the arrival at the Frankfurt motor show that September of the 458 Italia. It didn't so much replace the F430 as make it seem woefully obsolete in a heartbeat. With clever chassis electronics and a dual-clutch transmission, it was state of the art. At least it was back then. Drive an F8 Spider today on a typical British B-road that twists and contorts itself as it crawls reluctantly over the landscape, and you'll not only feel the header rail and the structure around you shudder and shake, but actually see and hear it as well. The fixed-roof model doesn't want for any torsional rigidity whatsoever, but this decapitated version does.

That's when you realise just how far the game has moved on since 2009. There's no question about it - this platform's very best days are now behind it. A wobbly chassis might not have been out of the ordinary a decade or so ago, but it certainly is now. And it's not only cars like McLarens with carbon fibre tubs that are stiffer than this, either: drop-top Porsche 911s, Audi R8s and Lamborghini Huracans all feel more torsionally rigid, too.

Given that manufacturers develop new platforms not in a matter of weeks but years, it's reasonable to assume the underpinnings at the heart of the F8 Spider were in development when Tony Blair still had a key to No 10. Since then, we've had four different PMs, a once-in-a-lifetime financial crisis, Britain's departure from the EU, a global pandemic, the beginning of a second once-in-a-lifetime financial crisis and, littered in between, numerous leaps and bounds in convertible supercar technology as well.

So the F8 Spider shakes and rattles as you drive along. It perhaps isn't quite as flimsy as earlier models, but there's no escaping it. Even the interior trim creaks and groans as the structure deforms this way and that. The rear view mirror is a near constant blur, at least on bumpier roads. Does any of that actually make the F8 Spider less good to drive? Not really. The flex in the chassis only seems to manifest itself in those creaks and groans and rattles, because in the way the car actually rides along a road and handles in corners, it doesn't feel lacking in anything. In fact, perhaps the biggest pity of the shuddering structure is that it gives a false impression of the suspension thumping and thudding clumsily along the road.

Actually, the ride is very good indeed, particularly in Bumpy Road mode, which slackens the dampers by a noticeable degree. But that body shake? It could fool you into thinking the springs and dampers are much too firm. Like the F8 Tributo, the F8 Spider is essentially a heavily-facelifted 488 with a sharper and - if I'm being completely honest - fussier exterior design. There's also a mildly updated cabin, while dropped in aft of the cabin is the engine from the 488 Pista. A 3.9-litre V8 with turbochargers, it develops 720hp and 568lb ft of torque. That's enough to propel the new Spider to 62mph in 2.9 seconds and on to 211mph.

Compared to the previous model, the F8 Spider is stronger by 50hp and lighter by 20kg. Impressively, all but two of those kilograms were stripped from the engine itself, 9.7kg being trimmed away from the exhaust alone as the old pipes make way for new Inconel ones. Ferrari reckons the new Spider is 'less extreme than the 488 Pista Spider, but sportier than the 488 Spider' that it replaces.

The Retractable Hard Top, as Ferrari calls it, takes 14 seconds to perform its dance, which it'll do at speeds up to 28mph. A number of people I showed the car off to during the (annoyingly rainy) weekend I spent with it didn't realise it was a convertible at all. With the roof stowed, the cabin is calm even at motorway speeds, but only with the side windows up. There is a third window over your shoulder that you can lower even with the roof in position, allowing a little more of the outside world in.

Despite the designers' best efforts, the cabin is just about starting to show its age. There's nothing really wrong with the dashboard design, for instance, but it has evolved only modestly since we first saw it in 2009 and it's starting to seem a touch familiar. The seating position though is very good, the seats themselves both comfortable and supportive. Meanwhile, the steering wheel is so full of switches and knobs and buttons you can find yourself indicating for a junction, changing the driving mode using the manettino, hitting the Bumpy Road button, flicking the wipers off and changing gear all within the space of a few seconds, as though you're playing a £226,000 Bop It.

There is much else to admire about the Spider, too. The laudable ride quality translates to a wonderful kind of pliancy when you up your game, the wheels allowed to rise and fall as they swish over the shape of the road; it never goes light over crests and nor does it scrape its underbelly across the road surface in compressions. The steering is so much better than in either the 458 and 488 that I reckon Ferrari should recall those older models and fit this upgraded rack gratis. It's calmer and more intuitive than before, allowing you to position the car with confidence from the very first mile. There's enormous grip, as you'd expect, plus a sweet inherent chassis balance that lets you smudge the front end on the way into a corner, and smudge the rear end on the way out.

It's astonishing how playful and manageable a 720hp mid-engined supercar can be when driven at the limit, but that's exactly what the F8 Spider is. And all thanks to those clever chassis electronics - knocked back a notch from the fully-on position, they give you just enough rope to have some fun, but not so much that you can hang yourself.

The gearbox does its job brilliantly and the engine is a true masterpiece, at least in technical terms. Throttle response is so sharp and precise you almost doubt Ferrari's assertion this engine is turbocharged at all. And, of course, the sheer forcefulness of the straight-line acceleration the V8 serves up takes you by surprise every time.

But what a shame it doesn't sound more tuneful. As we've come to realise by now, Ferrari's mid-engined supercar no longer floods the entire street behind it in that baleful howl of old. Not for the last half-decade, in fact, has this model line played that evocative naturally-aspirated tune - that hollow, howling cry of the unassisted flat-plane crank V8. But I'm certain Ferrari could have done more with this car's soundtrack nonetheless.

Or perhaps not. It has a gasoline particulate filter, you see, in order to meet emissions legislation. It'll take an aftermarket exhaust to liberate some actual music, because there's no freer-breathing alternative on the options list. What you get is that typically droning sound of a turbo engine, albeit with a dramatic guttural tone under hard acceleration. A McLaren 600LT Spider is altogether more exciting to listen to with its crisp, sharp exhaust note and wicked cracks on gear changes. Dropping the roof, or even that third little window over your shoulder, exposes how relatively tuneless the Ferrari V8 has become.

'I don't really know how a 2019-spec supercar could be any better to drive on the road,' I wrote of the Tributo. It's easy to imagine how the Spider could be better given its obvious imperfections. None is sufficient to wholly undermine what is a spectacularly competent and desirable drop-top supercar, because what made the F8 peerlessly good last summer is unmistakable even now. But if Ferrari doesn't replace the 458/488/F8 dynasty with an all-new mid-engined supercar - complete with a significantly more rigid structure for the Spider, plus an entirely new cabin for all variants - sooner rather than later, it'll finally begin to look as though it can't keep pace with the opposition.

FERRARI F8 SPIDER | SPECIFICATION

Engine 3902cc, V8, twin-turbo
Transmission Seven-speed dual-clutch, rear drive
Power (hp) 720@8000rpm
Torque (lb ft) 568@3250rpm
0-62mph 2.9 secs
Top speed 211mph
Weight 1400kg (dry, with lightweight options)
MPG TBC
CO2 TBC
Price £225,897 (£282,225 as tested)