812 on the track

Friend of mine has recently taken deliver of his 812 and we had a track day yesterday, a variety of cars from 458 Speciale's, 488's, F12's and most of the last 25 years of V8 Ferrari models.

He is a driver and has a multiple 488 variants, a 458 Speciale and a F12.

I hopped into the passenger seat of the 812 unsure what to expect and at this point I should say this track is tight and technical, there is only one relatively long (150 mph) straight, the rest of the track is a succession of corners. In short this isn't the sort of track that should favour a big GT.

First off the V12 is really quite quiet with a helmet on.

We fed out behind a 488 spider and proceeded to have a titanic dice, the straight was not quit long enough to give the 812 any advantage at all, which I found a bit surprising to be honest considering we were right behind the 488 through the corner heading onto the straight.

Agility, this V12 has uncanny levels of agility through a tight switch back complex of corners, quite a lot better than the F12 was through the same set of corners. There is still quite a lot of body roll but its not really that noticeable.

The gearbox in the 812 is dare I say it too smooth, most of the time you don't feel the changes at all even flat out, I'd want more drama in the changes. Brakes held up very well and tyres even more so, after lap after lap in hot conditions I expected the tyres to look very second hand, they didn't at all which leads me to think one could go for a softer compound for ultimate track driving.

For me the thrill of the 812 is the pace and the way it changes direction, its not a small car but the way it handles corners is amazing.

During the course of the day the car did around 45 laps and just lapped it up with no issues at all, tyres were still perfect.

In summary, I was really surprised at what an accomplished track car it is. As a GT supercar I suspect I has no real competitor.

 

Thank you for taking the time to write in detail your experiences of an 812 on track!! I’m curious to learn as much as possible about the 812


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Thanks for sharing, I am thinking of tracking this beast! Since I have taken delivery of the car, I am amazed how fast and nimble the car is. The V12 is pure bliss.

 

Thanks for the write up. Do you know what tyre make & model was fitted?

 

Thanks for the write up. You can see the difference the lighter weight makes for the 488. I would guess its a good 600lbs less than the 812. Probably carries more speed through corners, and thus, likely a higher entry speed on to the straight and as you can see, even with more power, its hard to make up for that unless you have a lot of room.

 

Thank you for sharing that great experience. Your write up about the "titanic dice" between your friend's 812 and that 488 reminded me of a quite embarrassing episode that happened to me with my F12. Last year during a Ferrari track day in a circuit that used to held formula 1 races there was some light rain and the track was very slippery. We noticed there was a 430 Scuderia driving much faster than everyone else and with the F12 I couldn't keep up with it's pace in the curves and only had a slight chance on the long straight. Intrigued about how fast that 430 was in such slippery conditions I tried to find out who the driver was and soon discovered that was someone very experienced in racing. It's really amazing how the quality and the experience of a driver can make such a big difference on a track.

 

I was trying to find a "test" of an 812 versus an F12 tdf, as usual it is always the same question: 430 vs 360 stradale, 458 vs 430 scuderia, f12 vs 599 gto, 488 vs 458 speciale, and now 812 vs f12 tdf, and soon 488 pista vs all of them!
Obviously due to weight difference as well as hard core definition there is sometime still a major advantage for such special version, so is it the case for the 812 vs f12 tdf?