Ferrari 296 GTB: here's how the tech works

If you’ve read the review of the Ferrari 296 GTB you’ll already know we think it’s pretty exceptional. There’s a reason for this. It won’t have escaped your attention that cars are getting more complicated and more electrified – not just the way they’re powered, but the way they’re managed. That’s been going on donkeys of course – it’s been a while since electric fuel injection was introduced. And if you want to go back to 12v batteries and alternators...

The 296 GTB is no exception. Quite the opposite. It features a full hybrid powertrain with battery and electric motor mated to twin turbo V6 and eight speed double clutch gearbox with power flowing out through an electronically controlled differential.

Everything from air flowing into the cylinders at one end through to the wheels turning at the other is controlled electrically. As is every move the car makes: the steering, brakes, stability, dampers. Electronics oversee the lot.

The aim for any firm building a car designed to be fun to drive is how to integrate this stuff without it corrupting the experience or distancing you from it. To make you feel like the master of it all. Ferrari has absolutely achieved that. So here’s the key tech, how it works and what it does.

Proper geeky stuff incoming. You’ll find no mention of lane keep or radar cruise here.

Photography: Mark Riccioni

Stands for 6 way Central Dynamic Something-or-other. Not literally. OK, it’s Chassis Dynamic Sensor. Most cars have a yaw sensor – it’s basically a gyroscope that measures acceleration around a vertical axis. The 296 has a three-axis sensor (X, Y and Z, basically positions it in three-dimensional space), monitoring the car’s velocity and acceleration for movement in all planes.

It’s the car’s central dynamic brain. Every other system has to come to this one to ask if what it’s going to do is OK. For instance there’s a sensor on the steering rack that works with the Side Slip Control (SSC) and 6w-CDS to not just rein in the car when it reaches the limit, but to predict when you’ll reach the limit.

Being predictive rather than reactive means those electronic intrusions can be subtler. Interesting point to note: this tech isn’t necessarily being developed just for cars – the sensors are similar to the motion detection systems used in wearables and VR headsets.

The 296 has brake-by-wire. In other words all you’re pushing with your foot is a bunch of ones and zeros, you’re not personally shifting the hydraulic fluid. This allows Ferrari to give the 296 a very short travel pedal, and then the ones and zeros just use the data they’re getting about how hard and fast you’re hitting the pedal to work out the braking you’re after.

But you lose natural feel, so what’s the advantage? Well, each wheel can be braked completely independently of the others. This means that if you turn and brake at the same time, putting more force on the outside front and much less on the inside rear, the car can work at the maximum braking potential at each wheel. And it juggles this all the time, fractional variations in brake pressure to balance the car and help it slow more efficiently and effectively.

Plus there’s regen braking on the rear axle through the electric motor, further increasing stopping potential. Ferrari claims the stopping distance from 124mph has dropped by 8.8 per cent relative to the F8 Tributo. They don’t talk actual figures, but that’ll be three or four car lengths, minimum. And you feel it. Instead of the car diving onto its nose as it slows, you get the sense of a huge hand crushing it into the tarmac from above.

OK, not electronics, but I couldn’t resist a bit of aero stuff. The front brakes are cooled by intakes by the lights. Big deal, McLaren got there first. And probably others come to think of it. But what’s interesting is that cutout in the centre of the splitter. It’s designed to pull air down into the underbody, creating a high pressure area in the centre, compared to the low pressure air that’s coming in underneath the car.

Where they hit each other they create a vortex, accelerating the flow, creating more suction at the front and more downforce on the front axle. It’s nothing especially radical, but it shows the lengths Ferrari is going to enhance the dynamics of its cars.

You can’t see the active rear spoiler can you? It’s very neatly integrated. See that dark line that runs between the lights at the back? That’s it. When deployed it pushes up behind the rear lip of the bodywork into the airflow, instantly adding 100kg of downforce. Well, provided you’re doing at least 155mph.

It’s more like a gurney flap really, just stalling the air. The drive has no direct control over it and is barely aware of it working. It’s used more under brakes to maintain rear end grip and stability, but Ferrari also says it’s used during hard acceleration to keep more pressure on the wheels. I’m not sure how much I buy that given it only develops significant downforce at big speeds, by which time the rate of acceleration has surely dropped to a point the tyres can cope. But maybe I’m wrong. It is a head-bangingly powerful car.

Cumbersome name for a clutch. It manages and actuates the transitions between electric and petrol, so the name’s pretty literal. The electric motor is positioned between engine and gearbox, with the TMA sitting in the gap between V6 and electric motor. It consists of a triple plate dry clutch, a command module with clutch control linkage and – entirely predictably – some ECUs.

The job it does is at once simple, yet brilliant. It has to blend 165 e-bhp with 654 petrol bhp. And do so well enough that the driver can’t tell what’s doing the pushing. So the two powerplants feel like one source. I don’t actually mind when they do feel like two powerplants to be honest. The Porsche 918 Spyder was fabulous for the way it accelerated, handing power off from electric to petrol as the revs climbed. But this is just as impressive in its own way. It doesn’t even feel particularly turbocharged.

And what’s most remarkable about that is that it is VERY heavily turbocharged. Yes, Ferrari has shrunk the turbos since they were used in the SF90 so they spin faster, respond quicker and have even less lag.

But this engine still develops 219bhp per litre. Ferrari claims it has the highest specific output of any production road car ever. For reference the other commonly cited power-dense engine is the Merc-AMG A45 S’s 2.0-litre single turbo (208bhp/litre). But yes, those of you with long memories and rally car leanings, Mitsubishi did once do a Lancer Evo X FQ-440 that developed 440bhp from 1998cc. They only built 40, and you could argue whether or not it’s production, as it didn’t leave the factory in that tune, but yeah, 220bhp/litre.

It's not easy developing that much power in limited space, especially not if you want to give it easy driving manners. Combustion chamber pressure has been raised, new metal alloys have been employed in the block and heads and there’s 350-bar injection.

Do you think this is cheating? It’s not, everyone is at it these days. Basically there’s an extraneous loop of exhaust pipe that runs back behind the bulkhead, bringing the noise closer to your ears. And it’s good noise, since that pipe brings unfiltered gas before it’s been run through the exhaust treatment systems.

Noise is very important to the 296. This is higher pitched and more energetic than the F8 Tributo’s gruff gale-force gust. There’s a bit of turbo wastegate chatter when you lift off, but overall this does a fine impression of an especially healthy nat asp motor. Right down to the soundtrack.