Posted on 12/15/2025 7:01:50 AM PST by Red Badger
Ferrari is exploring radical oval pistons that could shrink engines, boost efficiency, and reinvent how high-performance gas motors are designed for the next generation.
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Key Points
* Ferrari patents oval, or "stadium-shaped," pistons to replace traditional circular designs.
* The design could significantly shorten engines while maintaining displacement and cylinder count.
* Oval pistons could also lower frictional losses, improve combustion efficiency and lead to engines that "breathe" better.
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Breaking Away from Tradition
For as long as internal combustion engines have existed, pistons have been round. This wasn’t necessarily because circular shapes were optimal for performance. It was simply the easiest and most cost-effective geometry to manufacture with the machinery available when engines were first being developed. Manufacturing technology has evolved dramatically since then, yet piston design has remained stubbornly circular.
Ferrari oval piston patent rotating assembly
Ferrari’s European patent application, published in March this year, proposes something different. The company has filed protection for what engineers call a stadium shaped or pill shaped piston design. Instead of the traditional cylindrical form, these pistons are oval with elongated sides, or rectangles with semi-circular ends. Nothing says how serious Ferrari is about the internal combustion engine’s future than a complete reimagining of fundamental engine architecture.
Ferrari oval piston patent single piston. Ferrari oval piston patent pair of pistons
How Oval Pistons Switch Things Up
Ferrari’s key innovation lies in the orientation. The long side of each oval piston lies perpendicular to the crankshaft. This arrangement allows the short dimension of the piston to run parallel to the crankshaft, which means the entire engine becomes significantly shorter from front to back.
This matters enormously for packaging, especially in engines with many cylinders. A V12 engine using conventional round pistons requires substantial length to accommodate all twelve cylinders. Ferrari’s oval design could compress the footprint considerably while maintaining the same displacement and cylinder count, possibly even with a hybrid unit. The patent also describes using shared connecting rods via a multi-link system for pistons on opposite banks, further reducing the engine’s overall size.
Ferrari isn’t the first to experiment with oval pistons. Honda attempted something similar with its NR500 motorcycle racing engine in the ‘70s and ‘80s, but oriented the pistons differently with the long axis parallel to the crankshaft. The ellipse piston design was also more complex, and Honda faced issues with the precise machining of piston rings, creating the required combustion chamber sealing and eventually high-rpm failures.
Ferrari oval piston patent cross sectional
More Than Just Space Saving
As packaging constraints tighten and efficiency demands increase, engineers must find creative solutions to maintain power output without building physically massive engines. Exotic configurations like Bugatti’s W16 have addressed this problem through clever cylinder arrangements, but Ferrari’s approach attacks the issue at an even more fundamental level by rethinking the piston itself.
2018 Ferrari 488 GTB
The benefits of oval pistons are potentially more than just space-saving. Depending upon how the oval shape is implemented, there is great potential for improved combustion efficiency, lower frictional losses, and better thermal management. Given the increased surface area of the piston, there’s also scope for increasing valve surface area through more valves, which would allow the engine to breathe better. On the flip side, manufacturing complexity and cost will shoot up, considering a switch to oval pistons is like reinventing the wheel.
Whether this patent ever materializes in an actual Ferrari engine remains to be seen. But the very existence of this filing suggests Ferrari is actively exploring ways of rethinking internal combustion engine architecture for the better, which is good news for enthusiasts hoping to see them around for decades to come.
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About the author
Simran Rastogi News Editor, Autoblog
Simran Rastogi is an automotive journalist with over a decade of experience writing and road testing for leading Indian and international outlets, including OVERDRIVE, India Today, and HotCars. Passionate about both modern and classic cars, he combines deep research with engaging storytelling to make automotive content accessible to all audiences.
Wankel ... Had one in my RX-7, gen 2.
Yeah ... dad loved rotary engine Mazdas. Always talked about how much power they had compared to equivalent sized traditional engines. I also remember spending long hours at the mechanics shop because when a seal failed, the entire engine had to be rebuilt.
I still don’t understand how you could make the rings work and not have a huge amount of extra wear due to the shape or truly control oil consumption.
The machining cost would be out of site if it ever required boring.
You had to be anal about the maintenance and have some luck or else the lip seals on the edge of the rotors went bad and they started burning large quantities of oil.
I have owned a bunch of cars with V4 engines.
I have been thinking about buying another.
I don't think you would. None of the existing machinery to bore, hone and resize would work on oval cylinders, pistons and rings.
I'm sure if you threw enough money at it, you could tool up and build it, but you'd spend less just buying a new engine (which would not be cheap).
Oh well, you bought a Ferrari --- what did you expect?
Are you in Europe? I cant think of any V4 cars in the states. What are the brands and models of V4 cars you’ve owned?
They better hope Honda’s patent has expired.
They did this decades ago.
Tep, had a Mazda Rx-2 and a turbo Rx-7.
Smooth running.
I believe it has.............
Both used a ford V4
Planes use multy plugs for safety to pervent a stalling more so then performance many went down before someone came up with the idea.
Side note disk brakes were used on the late 20’s cars didn’t get them until the early 70’s
exchange of ideas works
I love innovation stuff. I wonder how well it works.
Lewis Hamilton will be happy if it makes his car competitive, LOL
Honda experimented with this on their GP bikes decades ago. This is nothing new no matter how much anyone crows about it.
Kinda like Epstein’s lemon-shaped member?
I agree, and perhaps someone can educate me on how this piston design would lower friction losses. My guess is that friction would increase due to greater circumference (total length around the boundary of the oval shape) /piston volume.
Interesting idea, however.
Interesting. Hope they have the development bucks.
The Wankel engine died, because they would not allow it to race. That made experimentation and improvements more expensive without a chance of winning. All they had to do was make seals that last as long as piston rings.
I can’t remember how many cylinders they allowed for the Wankel to compete, but it seemed like it was 3 or 4. If they allowed them to have 8 cylinders, they would have destroyed the field.
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