2023 Ferrari 296 GTB Assetto Fiorano First Test: Badass Record Breaker
The plug-in hybrid twin-turbo V-6-powered 296 is the quickest RWD car we’ve ever tested.
Let's skip the pleasantries, shall we? The 2023 Ferrari 296 GTB Assetto Fiorano is the quickest rear-wheel-drive production car MotorTrend has ever tested. Each of the six quicker cars we've tested relies on all-wheel-drive traction to save a precious tenth or two in the 0-60-mph sprint and only two cars, each making more than 1,000 hp, can beat the rear-drive Ferrari in a quarter-mile drag
How Fast Is Fast?
The numbers: The 2023 Ferrari 296 GTB hits 60 mph from a stop in 2.3 seconds, beating the previous record holder by a single tenth of a second. That car? The mighty LaFerrari in all its electrically enhanced V-12 glory.
Keep the throttle pinned, and the 296 GTB cracks off a 9.6-second quarter-mile time at 149.6 mph, putting it in extremely rarified air. The only two cars capable of a quicker pass are the Tesla Model S Plaid and the Lucid Air Sapphire, both of which make hundreds of additional horsepower and drive all four of their wheels.
Neck and neck with the Ferrari 296 at the finish line is the Ferrari SF90 Stradale Assetto Fiorano, the quickest hybrid and quickest combustion-powered car we've ever tested. With an extra 168 hp, three times as many electric motors, and two more cylinders, the SF90 is quicker off the line and reaches 60 mph in 2.1 seconds, but those extras add another 311 pounds to the car's curb weight—allowing the lighter 296 GTB to reel it in by the quarter-mile finish line. In a photo finish, both cars cross the line in 9.6 seconds, but the 296 is travelling 4.4 mph faster at that point.
How The Work Gets Done
Yes, the 2023 Ferrari 296 GTB achieves all this using a plug-in hybrid twin-turbo V-6 powering only the rear wheels. The nearly flat 120-degree wide-angle V-6 alone makes 654 hp, and the electric motor sandwiched between it and the eight-speed dual-clutch transaxle contributes another 164 hp for a peak combined output of 818 hp. Meanwhile, the gas engine makes 546 lb-ft of peak torque, with the electric motor making 232.
Combustion engines and electric motors don't reach peak output at the same speed so it's difficult to pinpoint their combined totals, but it's basically irrelevant in the case of the 2023 Ferrari 296 GTB, anyway. Ferrari deliberately limits and adjusts the electric motor output in each gear to create the desired power delivery, so what you're getting at any given moment is a careful balance of turbocharger boost and electric assist rather than everything the powertrain has to offer.
Not that it feels that way from inside. Perform one launch-control start, and you'd struggle to believe this car leaves anything on the table. The power is immense and only builds as the revs do. With an 8,500-rpm redline, you (or the computer) shift when it sounds like the engine couldn't possibly rev any quicker and you're hit with another surge of power.
Ferrari says the powertrain is tuned for linear delivery, but it feels to us as though the real goal was to make it feel like an older naturally aspirated V-8 but with double the horsepower. Low-end torque is stronger than you expect and instantaneous thanks to that electric motor. The turbos come on quickly, and there's a surge in acceleration as you pass the 4,500-rpm mark when it feels like the engine reaches full boost and comes on the cam simultaneously. It doesn't let up until you shift, when there's only the slightest pause as the engine drops back to the high 4,000-rpm range and you do it all over again until you run out of road.
All the while, it really does sound like some new kind of V-12. Ferrari's engineers took to calling it the "piccolo V-12" (little V-12). To our ears, it sounds like a cross between a flat-six and a V-12.
The Other Numbers
Raw acceleration isn't the only thing the 2023 Ferrari 296 GTB does well. When you're travelling near 150 mph after only a quarter of a mile, big brakes are a must. The 296 stops from 60 mph, our standard metric, in just 88 feet. That's 2 feet shorter than the heavier SF90 and among the shortest distances we've ever recorded. Only three cars stopped shorter, and only by a foot or two.
String the acceleration and braking together into an ideal theoretical 0-to-100-to-0-mph test, and it's the second-quickest car we've ever tested at 8.1 seconds. Only the SF90 squeaks ahead at 7.9.
The only instrumented test the 296 doesn't dominate comes on the skidpad. Its average lateral acceleration of 1.15 g is fantastic, but 15 cars have done better. Don't think you've found a crack in the Ferrari's armor, though. If anything, it's a trap.
Ask the car to turn, accelerate, and brake in quick succession like we do in our figure-eight test, and the 296 sets yet another record. A tenth of a second and three-hundredths of a g were enough to take the crown from the McLaren 765LT Spider with a new lap record of 21.7 seconds at 1.04 g.
The Drive
Getting there requires carefully managing your tire pressures. Ferrari uses the same trick as McLaren—relatively narrow front tires—to give the 296 GTB excellent turn-in response and good steering feel (particularly for the marque's first attempt at electric power steering). The downside is the fact those tires heat up quickly in hard maneuvering and the pressures spike, eroding maximum grip and introducing mild understeer. In other words, conditions have to be perfect to get that record lap.
Likewise, the brake pedal takes some getting used to. This is Ferrari's second go at a brake-by-wire system, and it's not quite as good as the first attempt (the SF90); it's better than the F8 and 488 before it but not as good as the SF90. The 296 has a slightly wooden brake pedal feel that requires you to apply a bit of blind trust in the braking system rather than relying entirely on what your foot tells you.
Finally, you need to trust the car overall. Ferrari's excellent Side Slip Control vehicle dynamics system is a bit too conservative for setting records in either Sport or Race modes. Switch the manettino on the steering wheel over to CT OFF (traction control off, stability control in its loosest setting), and the car comes alive. No longer trying to eliminate all tire slip, CT OFF allows you to power-oversteer the 296 ever so slightly coming out of the corners rather than limiting power until the steering wheel is nearly straight. However, at no point is the oversteer threatening or twitchy, making it easy to drive off the corners repeatedly with absolutely everything the tires can give and no fear of an expensive repair bill.
Off the track and on the road, you don't need to forgo the safety nets to have a good time. Sport is still a little too tame if you really want to drive that winding road for all it's worth, limiting power unnecessarily as you come off the hairpins. Race is more than permissive enough to get rid of that limitation without turning everything off. Rather than worry about overdriving the rear tires, you can stand on the throttle and lean on the reduced but not disabled traction control to hurl you out of turns. The car is so insanely quick on a public road, you don't need to wag its tail to impress yourself or anyone else.
You also don't need to shift yourself, but it's more fun if you do. Ferrari's transmission computer is as smart as anyone's in the drivetrain's Performance or Qualifying modes (separate from the Side Slip Control modes mentioned above), pulling gears exactly when you would most of the time. That said, if you're in it for the thrill that only a high-rpm screamer of an engine can give, you'll find it sometimes relies a little too much on the electric-motor torque and doesn't always downshift as far as you might want. It's especially guilty of this in the default Hybrid mode. If you want to taste nothing but redline upshifts followed by peak torque in the next gear, pull 'em yourself. The computer might deliver a quicker lap time, but this isn't a race car and lap times aren't paying the mortgage. Go for the fun.
The Car Stuff
Record-setter though it may be, the 2023 Ferrari 296 GTB—even in its track-ready Assetto Fiorano trim (carbon-fiber wheels, track dampers, more downforce)—is still a street car. Driving it as a car rather than a supercar reveals its weaknesses, such as they are.
Most difficult to ignore is the hybrid system's state of tune. It's pretty good, but there are a few wrinkles still in need of ironing out, and you notice them driving to and from the track or your favorite road. The good news is, they only exist in the default Hybrid driving mode. Switching to Performance or Qualifying solves the problem immediately (at the expense of fuel economy, if you care).
The first wrinkle is the handoff from pure electric propulsion to blended combustion and electric driving. In Hybrid, the car will turn the combustion engine off whenever possible and wait as long as possible to fire it back up. Unless you floor it, the 296 will try to give you the acceleration you want with just the electric motor. When that's not enough, there's a slight pause between when the electric motor maxes out and the combustion engine engages. From the cockpit, you feel it as an unexpected interruption, however brief, in acceleration. The computer likely knows the acceleration you're requesting is more than the electric motor can supply and should activate the gas engine a split-second sooner.
The other wrinkle is the wildly unpredictable regenerative braking. It engages whenever the computer feels like doing so and seemingly at different intensities every time. Sometimes, you lift off the accelerator and the car coasts; other times it decelerates like an EV in max regen. There's no way to change the regenerative braking behavior, so you just must be ready to either get on the brakes when you get no regen deceleration or get back on the accelerator when you get too much."
