LaFerrari successor in the making?

According to Ferraris’ chief technology officer Michael Leiters, the successor of the LaFerrari is about three to five years away.

In an interview with Autocar Leiters mentioned the car will not feature an F1 engine, because of the high revs in stationary mode. ‘’To be realistic, it would need to idle at 2,500-3,000 rpm and rev to 16,000 rpm’’. This will make the F50 even more unique because of its F1 engine.

Even though the LaFerrari is only 4 years old Ferrari is already working on the car. Leiters said that they’re currently modernizing the general road car and research/development strategy so in a couple of years the successor we’re talking about will consist of brand-new changes.

It’s unsure if the LaFerrari Aperta will be replaced by a roofless LaFerrari-successor. The only Ferrari hypercar that came in a convertible variant as well was the F50. Good news is that the engine of the successor won’t be mounted with turbos. There’s a big chance of it being the same setup as with the LaFerrari: a big V12 combined with an electric engine.

Spanish GP: Vettel finished second, Räikkönen DNF!

It was an epic battle between Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel. Both title contenders were fighting for the first place in the Spanish Grand Prix. Vettel wasn’t as quick as Hamilton which made it a pretty easy win for the Mercedes-driver. The gap between Vettel and Hamilton in the Drivers’ Championship is now six points.

Although Hamilton started from pole position, Vettel was able to overtake him and grabbed the first place till lap 46. We all know the Mercedes’s are probably the fastest cars on the grid, so with a little help from the DRS on the main straight, Hamilton caught up with Vettel. Sadly for us, Vettel wasn’t able to keep the Mercedes behind him and had to let him through which led to a victory for the English driver. Despite the fact Hamilton won, the audience mainly voted for Vettel as Driver Of The Day.

Räikkönen had a short race. He made contact with Bottas and Verstappen in the first corner leading to damage of his front axle. Funny enough, there was a little boy spotted on the grandstand who was quite disappointed with the exit of Räikkönen. Ferrari tracked him down and invited him over to the pit box to meet up with Räikkönen.

The next race of this years’ season is the Monaco GP! Are the Italians able to show us an excellent Grand Prix? We’ll find out on the 28th of May!

California vs. California T… from the passenger side

 

Ferrari shocked the world back in 2008 when they revealed the California. Enthusiast were not happy with a front-V8 engine grand tourer and it was often referred as the women’s Ferrari. But, almost ten years later the California became a serious car and big competitor for the Porsche 911 and the Mercedes-Benz SL63 AMG.

According to the stats the California T is a step up compared to the old California, but does it really live up to these expectations? I guess you’ll find out in this article!

The first generation California has a front-mid placed 4.3-litre V8 with 453 bhp at 7,750 rpm. The California T features a 3.9-litre twin-turbocharged V8 producing 553 bhp at 7,500 rpm. Although Ferrari mounted two turbos on the engine, it’s still a massive improvement we don’t get to see that often. Performance wise, the first gen California will take you from 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) in around 4 seconds. As for the California T it has a 0-100 km/h (62 mph) time of 3.6 seconds. Both cars have the same top speed of 316 km/h (196 mph). I was lucky enough to experience both cars, but I wasn’t able to feel any huge differences between the two. The first gen California is a bit louder and the California T is a bit faster. I might have to drive both cars to sense more changes.

 

 

You may have noticed the California T isn’t just like any California T. That’s because it features the Handling Speciale package, an $8,000 dollar option introduced in early 2016 that gives you better handling. Big changes include reprogrammed magnetic dampers, stiffer springs (16% front – 19% back), a more aggressive sound track and an updated sport mode. The Handling Speciale option came to life when Ferrari wanted to fill the gap between the standard California T and the 488 GTB.

Both owners were kind enough to pick me up in my hometown, so at some point two Ferraris were parked in front of my place. Besides it being a pretty cool feeling to have two of these cars sitting right in front of your home, it also was a good opportunity to compare the two on a visual note. Most obvious design changes are the exhausts, the bonnet and the front lights as you can see on the pictures.

 

 

To answer the question I asked in the beginning, in my opinion Ferrari did a great job by optimizing the car. Don’t get me wrong, it still is a grand tourer but with a bit more power compared to the first generation California. I’m not sure which one I prefer in terms of design. I think the front of the original California looks better but the California T wins if it’s about the back. Personally, I never really understood why Ferrari placed the exhausts obliquely one above the other on the original car.

Massive thanks to the guys from Meijers Autobedrijf, @dutchcalifornia, Tom (@tgb.automotive) and Max (@thebestcars_nl) for joining the day. Check out this page for more pictures.

 

Russian GP: Double podium for Ferrari!

Time flies when you’re having fun. The latest race took place at the Sochi track in Russia and it was a pretty good GP for Ferrari. Although Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas won his first F1 GP, Ferrari showed the biggest concurrent giving up is not an option.

Ferrari was very fast the whole weekend. Vettel and Räikkönen set the pace on Friday and Saturday. They both took the front row in qualifying with just a time difference of 0.059 second. Bottas was able to overtake Vettel and Räikkönen at the start which eventually created a gap of around 6 seconds.

Bottas made his first stop in lap 27 of the race. He switched his ultrasofts for a fresh set of supersofts. Vettel drove into the pits a lot later mainly because his pace was very good and he was able to drive longer with his tires. When the German came back on track, the gap with Bottas was decreased to 4.5 seconds. Vettel was faster in the last 20 laps,  but it wasn’t enough at the end to defeat Bottas.

Räikkönen had a steady race but he wasn’t able to really challenge his teammate Vettel or Mercedes-driver Bottas. However, he finished in front of Lewis Hamilton and that’s a pretty good achievement as well. It was the first time since the Austria GP in 2016 Räikkönen ended on the podium.

Vettel still leads the Drivers’ Championship with 86 points after four races. In the Constructors Championship Mercedes has sadly passed Ferrari with a difference of just one point. The next race will take place in Spain on the 13thof May.

One of the most beautiful LaFerraris has been seen again!

A Blu Tour De France LaFerrari has recently been spotted driving around near Geneva. It’s owned by a very special owner, that also ownes a few other toys.

A Blu Tour De France LaFerrari has been recently spotted in Plan-Les-Ouates, near Geneva in Switzerland. This particular car has been seen the last time in Paris, whilst charging up in some normal parisian sidestreet. The owner of this car also has some other prancing horses in his collection, including a Blu Tour De France Enzo, a Blue Tour De France F50 and probably some more amazing cars we don’t know of, as they probably never have been spotted. The owner, Benjamin De Rothschild, is the chairman of the private swiss bank Edmond De Rothschild Group. He obviously also is part of the Rothschild family and dynasty. We hope this car will be spotted more frequently, as this was the first time he actually has been seen driving the car, and not keeping it parked up.

The same owner’s Blu Tour De France Enzo has also been spotted at the same parking spot as the LaFerrari has been sitting, in a sidestreet in Paris. It has been seen in 2009, it’s not been seen since. The F50 he also owns was parked up outside the Lamborghini Geneva dealership, where the LaFerrari also was parked up at, before leaving when it has been photographed.

This particular car has been delivered at Garage Zenith Sion, which also holds many LaFerraris for their owners. There are about 10-15 LaFerrari coupes including about 5 Apertas.

Ferrari GTE series at Silverstone!

Last weekend the circuit of Silverstone hosted the European Le Mans Series (ELMS) and the World Endurance Championship (WEC) for Ferrari customers. This is how it went!

European Le Mans Series
Ferrari customer teams had scant success in the first round of the 2017 European Le Mans Series. The two 488 GTE’s and the 458 GTE failed to clinch a podium place despite demonstrating the potential to do so.

The 488 GTE #55 of Spirit of Race was close to a podium finish and was even leading when Aaron Scott was at the wheel. In the end the British driver, his teammates Duncan Cameron and Matt Griffin had to settle for fourth place.

It was a much tougher weekend for the other 488 GTE of Spirit of Race team, crewed by Giorgio Roda, Gianluca Roda and official Ferrari driver Andrea Bertolini. Car #51 faced major problems after qualifying and as a precaution had its engine replaced. In the race it had a number of problems, with the crew suffering two drive through and struggling to warm up their tyres. It wasn’t an easy race either for the 458 GTE’s of JMW Motorsport, the winner on Silverstone a year ago, but whose crew of Jody Fannin, Rory Butcher and Robert Smith had to settle for fifth place. The next round is on 14 May at Monza in Italy.

World Endurance Championship
The start of the new 2017 season took place at Silverstone. In difficult overcast conditions there were mixed fortunes for Ferrari.

GTE Pro
In GTE Pro the AF Corse Ferrari #51 took second place after a strong race from Calado and Pier Guidi. At the start, Calado was at the wheel of the Ferrari 488 GTE and moved up from sixth position to fourth. The other AF Corse Ferrari had a bad start with Sam Bird behind the wheel. The Englishman was hit by a Porsche in the first corner and was forced to run wide. He lost several positions. The #51 then went on with an very aggressive strategy. At the first pit stop they changed the tyres and there was a driver change. The #71 took a less aggressive strategy and left the tyres on and didn’t performed a driver change. After an early stop from the Ford that was in second position, the car from Calado and Pier Guidi moved up to second place. After some very good strategic calls in the chaotic third and fourth hour, the #51 finished in second place. There were some accidents with #71 and in the end it sadly finished in fifth place.

GTE Am
In GTE Am there were some better results for Ferrari. The 488 GTE crewed by Singaporeans Mok Weng Sun, Japan Keita Sawa and Ireland Matt Griffin won the race but also thanks to a bit of luck. Starting from the back of the grid, a perfect strategy and the skill of the drivers quickly put car #61 into a podium position. In the final part of the race Griffin closed in on the Aston Martin of Pedro Lamy, engaging in a duel with the Portuguese that saw the Ferrari prevail. When it seemed that nothing could stand in the way of a Clearwater victory, the 488 needed to refuel. At that point Lamy retook the lead pursued by the other 488 GTE, of Spirit of Race driven by Thomas Flohr, Francesco Castellacci and Miguel Molina. Molina, an official Maranello driver, closed the gap on the Aston Martin towards the end and attempted to overtake on the final lap. Lamy extreme defence caused the Aston Martin to collide with the Ferrari, which came off worst ending up off the track with damage to the suspension. This allowed Griffin to cross the finish line first.

Bahrain GP: Vettel, the boss in the desert!

Sebastian Vettel is the winner of the Bahrain Grand Prix 2017! Wich means he has his second victory of 2017 in the pocket. Mercedes-man Lewis Hamilton was very quick at the end, but the German driver was first to cross the finishline!

 Ferrari had a good qualifying on Saturday. Seb set the third time and Kimi the fifth. Vettel had a good start as he passed Lewis Hamilton for second place. Kimi lost two places. ‘The Ice Man’ wasn’t happy in the rest of the race. At the end, the Fin came home fourth. Vettel was ‘on fire’ again. He was very quick in his stints on the softs and the super softs. Lewis Hamilton made a late stop for fresh softs. The man from Great Brittan set great times on his fresh tires, but in the end it was not enough to pass Vettel for the win!

The confidence has returned at Ferrari. Ferrari President Marchionne is happy and he looks forward to the rest of the season. ‘’We are now completely confident that our victory in Melbourne wasn’t just a one-off and that we will be at the forefront of this World Championship until the last”, said Marchionne.

“We finally have a competitive car to count on and it is important to recognise the speed with which we implemented the developments demanded for each new race.
“All this is the fruit of super work at the track and in Maranello, so my compliments are not just to Seb for his achievements in Bahrain, but also to the whole team.”

Ferrari lead the Drivers’ Championship with Seb, on 61 points, and the Constructors in which it has 102 points. This weekend was the third raceweekend of 2017. The next one is the Grand Prix of Russia, that will take place on the 30thof April.

This is the story of the F40 Barchetta!

We recently received some questions of the F40 Barchetta which let us decide to do some research and combine it all in an easy-to-read article. Please note there are many different stories about the F40 Barchetta so we’ll simplify the most common one.

1987

Ferrari got many complains in the 80s about their cars being too soft and too comfortable. The goal – which led to the F40 – was to build a true racing car for the streets without any luxurious options or electronic gadgets. Pininfarina went to work and created a brilliant automobile which was named after 40 years of Ferrari: F40. The car got its power from a twin-turbocharged V8 which produced around 480 bhp. This engine is still notorious for its turbo lag so you can’t be mad at Enzo Ferrari of what he said during the first test drive: ‘’This car is so fast it will make you sh*t your pants.’’. Which basically concludes both Pininfarina and Ferrari succeeded in their pursuit to better their products and satisfy their clients.

1988

At first, the F40 wasn’t supposed to compete in any championships whatsoever, but as with all companies the client is king so Ferrari did what buyers asked them to do. Michelotto – long-time Ferrari GT and prototype developer – started a project which eventually resulted in the F40 LM. It had a complete reworked chassis, an updated suspension system and carbon parts like the front splitter and rear diffuser. Even the remarkable wing was replaced by an adjustable one to create more downforce. Although it has the same engine as the F40, the twin-turbocharged V8 in the F40 LM produced around 700 bhp which to this date is still a massive expansion.

1989

When the F40 LM was ready to race it debuted in the IMSA GT: a North American racing series. It appeared at the start without official Ferrari licenses because the parent company Fiat commanded Ferrari to focus on the Formula 1 rather than other racing series. The F40 LM with chassis number #79890 entered the championship via the French Ferrari club. Even though being forced to race with engine restrictors, Frenchman Jean Alesi was able to finish as third in the one-hour Laguna Seca race. The next race, at Del Mar, was less successful. Former F1 driver Jean-Pierre Jabouille failed to finish because of mechanical complications.

1990

Although Jabouille finished second during the race at Road America (Wisconsin), the F40 LM wasn’t strong enough to compete with the other cars. It didn’t fulfil most expectations as well and those reasons led to the decision to quite racing in the F40 LM. The #79890 F40 LM was put into storage…

1993

…until three years later when Belgian billionaire Jean Blaton bought the car. Blaton used to race in the 1950s and 1960s and wore the nickname Jean Beurlys. Beurlys appeared fifteen times at the starting line of the 24h of Le Mans with the third place in the 1965 race as the best result. Beurlys knew he got something special and rare when he bought one of the two F40 LM’s which competed in the IMSA GT, but he wasn’t satisfied. His wish was to build something outrageous, something that was never done before. To get the process going Beurlys got in touch with Tony Gillet: a former Belgium racing driver and founder of Gillet Cars. Gillet got the request to redesign the unique F40 LM and transform it into something uncommon…

Results

…the drastic changes resulted in a so called Barchetta: an Italian roofless car. The whole roof structure was removed and a manual push-rod suspension – just like the Corse Clienti cars – was installed. The recognizable triple-exhaust turned into a modified system which exited just before the rear wheels. Gillet built a one-off steel roll cage for the F40 Barchetta for safety reasons and a little windshield was placed just in front of the passengers to protect them from stone chips. To make it even more extreme the engine restrictors were removed which added an additional 60 horsepower resulting in an engine output of 760 bhp. The F40 Barchetta is capable of reaching a 100 km/h from standstill in just over 3 seconds. Top speed is said to be around 370 km/h.

Refused by Ferrari

Ferrari never gave permission to transform the car to what it still is to this date. They forced the owners to remove all original Ferrari badges. This is most likely the reason why the one-off didn’t reached the estimated $195,000 at an auction back in 2005.

It’s unclear who the current owner of the F40 Barchetta is. Dutch Ferrari specialist Forza Service had the car in their garage back in 2012 for a full revision. Click here to check out their website and some pictures of the process. The latest appearance of the car just a couple of days ago at the circuit of Assen, didn’t end successfully: it crashed into a wooden boarding just before parking its rear end in a set of tire piles due cold tires. Some pictures of the aftermath were kindly lend to us by Arjan van der Heide.

We hope you enjoyed the time line we made of the F40 Barchetta. Please note there are several stories about the F40 Barchetta. We tried to simplify the most told one. About which Ferrari would you like to read a similar layout-article? Please reach out to us!

Chinese GP: Another podium for Vettel!

Sebastian Vettel finished second in today’s Grand Prix. Vettel was once again the best Ferrari-driver of the day. His teammate, Kimi Räikkönen, had an issue with his car, so the fifth place was the best he could do. Ferrari leaves China with 28 points in the championship.

All the drivers started the race with the intermediate tyres on because of the bad weather which made the track very wet. Seb and Kimi both had a good start which results in a 2nd and 4th place in the championship. Vettel made his first pit stop in lap 2. A few laps later Kimi arrived in the pits to change the intermediate tyres to soft tyres, just like Vettel did. Due the crash of Giovinazzi on the straight, there was a safety car on track for about 5 laps. After the safety car was removed from the track, Räikkönen drove on the 4thplace and Vettel on the 5th. They were both hold up by Daniel Ricciardo from Red Bull. Speaking of Red Bull, Max Verstappen had an incredible race! He started on the 16th position and finished third which is an achievement many drivers could only dream about. Lewis Hamilton was the only obstacle left but the English driver was too fast for Sebastian.

On the other hand, Kimi Räikkönen wasn’t happy with the car.’ He wasn’t able to overtake both Red Bull drivers so he ended up on the 5th position.

Like everyone is saying, Ferrari is back. It was a pretty good weekend for the Italians and we hope they can achieve the same if not more in the next race: Bahrain. Can Ferrari beat the silver arrows in the dessert? Let’s hope so! Onto the next race!

This guy is living the Ferrari dream!

Taking delivery of a new Ferrari has just been taken to a whole other level!

Maranello
British car collector Jon Hunt isn’t your average Ferrari owner. Back in 2014, he brought his four iconic Ferrari hypercars to collect a LaFerrari in Maranello. Three years later, he did the same but outdid himself. To be precise, Hunt recently brought 7 of the most wanted Ferrari supercars to join the special occasion of taking delivery of a Giallo Triplo Strato LaFerrari Aperta in Maranello. Hunt clearly doesn’t care about high mileage on his exclusive cars due the fact it took the group around 14 hours to cover 1.400 kilometres (870 miles). Hunt parked his precious belongings for a little photoshoot in front Enzo’s old office at the Pista di Fiorano when he received the keys of his latest addition.

The cars attending this insane experience were his 288 GTO and 288 GTO Evoluzione, the legendary F40 and F40 LM, the extremely rare F50, his beloved Enzo Ferrari and of course his LaFerrari! Events like this give us capitalistic urges…