All the talk about the new wave of hypercars is getting a lot of people really excited. I know I get almost teary-eyed with anticipation just waiting for Aston Martin, Mercedes-AMG, and McLaren to drop the mother-load with their respective machines. But in the midst of all the hype these cars are deservedly getting, it’s important not to get twisted into thinking that a company like Ferrari is going to just sit on the sidelines now that it’s given us the LaFerrari. The Prancing Horse may be in stables now, but it’s about ready to gallop once more now that Ferrari's chief technology officer Michael Leiters confirmed that a replacement to the LaFerrari is coming. It’s not a question of “if” anymore; it’s a question of “when.”

Speaking with Autocar, Leiters revealed that the successor to the LaFerrari has a launch timetable of about three to five years, meaning that we can see it as early as 2021 or as late as 2023. The Ferrari exec also mentioned the company’s goal moving forward is to have a clear blueprint on how it wants to develop its next hypercar. The development of that innovation and technological “roadmap” is the key that can unlock its plans for a LaFerrari successor and according to Leiters, that roadmap is expected to be finished by the end of the year. If all goes to plan, the clock for the LaFerrari successor effectively starts in 2018.

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Smart play to wait it out

I understand the urge that’s born out of competition. It bites everyone when they see a rival doing something and they’re not so that competitive itch is very difficult to scratch by sitting on the sidelines. Ferrari is doing the smart thing by doing just that. For one, it already proved what it could do with the LaFerrari so it has nothing to prove in that respect.

Second, if it’s not in the cards yet, why rush it? At the moment, Ferrari is in the middle of adjusting its short- and long-term plans for its production car lineup and it would be very short-sighted for the company to drop those plans altogether to go build a new hypercar just because Aston Martin, Mercedes-AMG, and McLaren are doing it. When the time comes that it’s laid out a proper roadmap that it can use moving forwards, that’s the time it can start thinking about developing a successor to the LaFerrari.

Now as far as the “three-to-five-year” timetable is concerned, I admit that it’s still a long time from now. A lot can happen in three years to alter those plans so even with Michael Leiters indicating that the successor to the LaFerrari is coming as early as 2020, take those comments with a grain of salt if you don’t want to end up being disappointed. Then again, the timetable may still be a ways away, but it’s still something that we can hang our hats on as we wait for the Italian company to develop all the new technologies it wants to include for its next hypercar. For sure, it’s going to test our patience, but if the successor to the LaFerrari proves to be every bit better than the hypercar it’s succeeding, you can be sure that the long wait is going to be all worth it.

So don’t fret, loyal tifosi. Just because Ferrari is sitting the second wave of hypercars out, it doesn’t mean that the company is sitting on its laurels. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done before Ferrari is ready to jump back inside that ring. You can be sure though that when it does, those punches are going to pack a lot of power in more ways than one.

Read our full review on the Ferrari LaFerrari here.