Ferrari F10

[flynfrog]

Dangerous!!??

Seriously, come on guys, it wasnt that long ago drivers used to change gears with their hands.

Tim

And they smoked cigs drank like fish and slept with whores and the racing was the dangerous part.

[ringo]

Looks like an annoying mental excercise to perform that.
Got to hand it to them though for snaking the pipe ever so slightly between the foam and the tub. The hole seems small though (you can see it when the camera zooms in to Alonso's open palm).
The pipe is a "T" , Alonso is jamming his hand to keep pressure in the pipe passing through the car.


edit: on second thought, it may just be a simple pipe pulling vacuum. Alonso's hand stops the vacuum and changes the signal.

[PlatinumZealot]

That is what I was trying to show you guys. it's the black tube on the right.

[Holm86]

But where is their front intake for this system?? Like Mclarens snorkel.

[WhiteBlue]

The video shows how the Ferrari F-duct is activated and I have added some screen shots to make it more visible.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAQVIICLdVY[/youtube]

Look at the black Neoprene patch on the upper side of the left glove in the following pic which seals the control vent.



In the next pic you can see how Alonso only keeps the finger tips on the wheel in order to seal the control vent with the back of his glove.



The last picture shows how he grips back the steering wheel with his left hand at the end of the straight coming up to the 50 m board and the Neoprene patch becomes visible again.

[WhiteBlue]

But where is their front intake for this system?? Like Mclarens snorkel.

It obviously must be somewhere on the left side of the cockpit or further up at the nose.

[hollus]

Probably no front intake for this F-duct in the Ferraris. It must be less sophisticated than Macca's. Notice also how there is less space to manipulate the air where the tube from the cockpit meets the one in the shark fin.
Maclaren probably has some sofisticated fluidic switch above the airbox. This one looks more just very long pipes connected through a T section.
The air enters by the intakes behind the airbox. The pipes then split in two sections, one going to the cockpit, the other to the rear wing. Probably so that the section going to the cockpit has a larger cross section, so naturally most of the air would follow that path, and maybe a flow diverter, like this:


That's just a basic scheme and wild guessing. Naturally, most of the air would simply vent into the cockpit due to the different cross sections of each pipe, but it you close that vent, pressure quickly builds up and the only exit is now the rear wing. This also avoids having to pass two pipes in and out of the cockpit.
As usual, Ringo gets the concept faster than me

[Confused_Andy]

Could it be that there is a pipe from the cockpit that when uncovered provides suction, when its covered theres no suction the air in pipes within the sharkfin is directed towards the wing...

[Miguel]

I've got the feeling that during qualifying and practice 3, Alonso was commiting more driving mistakes in S2 than usual. Considerably more. Especially into T6 and T9, which is why his middle sectors were so crappy. Maybe driving one-handed or none-handed is not the best way to achieve ideal laptimes.

And yeah, F-Duct should be banned for 2011. Or at least that's my opinion.

[segedunum]

I think the jury is still out on that F-duct system. It's gained them a nice straight line speed advantage which should be neat for Monza, but it's open to debate as to whether it is contributing to their losses in the middle sector. I don't think their rear wing is going to be as efficient there and I'm sure the drivers are finding operating that thing difficult. Alonso did look somewhat less precise through corners.

Ordinarily, on a track like Barcelona I would have expected them to be much closer to Red Bull because they looked as if they had good downforce in winter testing and the first few races. However, here it looks as if they have fallen further behind.

[timbo]

I think the jury is still out on that F-duct system. It's gained them a nice straight line speed advantage which should be neat for Monza, but it's open to debate as to whether it is contributing to their losses in the middle sector. I don't think their rear wing is going to be as efficient there and I'm sure the drivers are finding operating that thing difficult. Alonso did look somewhat less precise through corners.

Ordinarily, on a track like Barcelona I would have expected them to be much closer to Red Bull because they looked as if they had good downforce in winter testing and the first few races. However, here it looks as if they have fallen further behind.

I think they are struggling with finding correct aero setting with F-duct, just like McLaren @ Bahrain.
They probably could be more aggressive with downforce and let F-duct recover the speed lost on the straight.
But I hope extra kphs would come handy in the race for overtaking.

[autogyro]

Are you sure the increase in speed is not more to do with the engine changes made?

[marcush.]

Are you sure the increase in speed is not more to do with the engine changes made?

in the first race Ferrari were top but suddenly after experiencing trouble the only played second fiddle ..you got a point there..

[segedunum]

Are you sure the increase in speed is not more to do with the engine changes made?

It's possible, but it's always difficult when a team brings some new variables to a race to judge. I can't imagine their apparent jump in straight line speed is simply to do with the engine.

[timbo]

Are you sure the increase in speed is not more to do with the engine changes made?

Well, Ferrari set fastest speed today, just a little shy of 312.
In Shanghai, it was in the pack, with speeds equal to Mercedes and RedBull. Both were around 303-304 today.
So, if we consider that Power ratio = (speed ratio)^2 (since drag is squared with speed), and we assume they had 750 Hp before the upgrade, the figure we achieve (well, if I've done my math right, of course) is ~785-790 Hp. Quite a big upgrade .