David vs. Goliath(Red Bull vs. Ferrari), myth or truth?

[Just_a_fan]

But worst of all is this never ending bs about having an inferior engine to the Mercedes...first of all, I don't think it is,
secondly if Newey really wanted FI's engine contract, I'm fairly certain that Mateschitz would make it happen.

The RB runs the Renault engine because Newey wanted the Renault engine. I've been told that it has the best heat rejection of any unit on the grid which, for Newey's design philosophy, is more important than a few % possible bhp deficit.

[CHT]

EUR50Bn? Seriously? What do you think this is Microsoft? I think this should clear things up. We are also looking at Net Profit here, which is different to annual turnover, but still 50 billion euros is massively off target.

http://www.bullfax.com/?q=node/196869

A company with high turnover will naturally have a bigger advertising budget for advertising because A&M drive sales, profit usually dont drives A&M. As for Ferrari, F1 is their only advertising channel as they dont pay print or TV ads to sell their cars.

As for your question about Fiat group turnover. here is a breakdown of their sale.
http://www.fiatgroup.com/SiteCollection ... 10_ITA.pdf

Microsoft turnover is not high, but their profit is extremely high.

Other thing to note is that Ferrari and Mclaren, despite being profitable, doesnt use (or very little) their own money to fund their F1 project, whereas RBR has to fund everything because they dont have any substantial sponsorship money for outside.

If you want to relate money to success, why not look into much money Mclaren has spent over the past 10 years vs how many championship they won.

[SiLo]

Very interesting stuff about the Fiat group there, I can't believe they still made an operational loss of almost EUR900Million.

I got the feeling from this year that some of the teams had interpreted the rules, and they all abided by that, just like they tried to do last year. The F-Duct was something that all the teams agreed not to do, but Mclaren did it anyway (apparently) but the whole flexi wing thing was a step too far in my opinion. Whether Newey knew (pun) about it or designed it himself is another thing.

When it comes to designers, both Mclaren and Ferrari have lost great people, but can still produce great cars. The way I see it is that Red Bull had a great car the year before, but neither Ferrari or Mclaren did.

[donskar]

That's the problem right there Don, in the 70's I know for a fact that Gordon Murray penned every bolt and nut on the BT44, while I am equally convinced that John Barnard designed most of the MP4's with his own hand, perhaps with a little help, but still.

But with today's vast design-engineering/r&d departments in F1, it's difficult to tell who's doing what, not the least who is actually designing anything? What is a "technical director" anyway? I have a business card with that title, but with a staff less than your fingers and toes, it's pretty easy to tell who's designing things.

Agree completely. Very well said. I guess we have to phrase the discussion as "which apparent designer is best at building, developing, coordinating, motivating, etc an F1 design department?" It is possible that Aldo Costa (for example only) is a mediocre technical man, but a much better coordinator (or vice-versa!) Bottom line IMHO: Newey is the best in F1 at his job (unless I'm forgetting someone). Topic for another thread I suppose.

[xpensive]

It can be quite confusing. When Newey left Williams for McLaren, it was for not being given the title "Technical director", which Patrick Head wanted to keep for himself. Now Sam Michael is their "Technical director", what did he ever design?

Newey then made McLaren winners as their "Technical director", later the former Stewart/Jaguar team as well. Is he a master organizer/manager, which Patrick Head feared to give too much administrative leeway, and not so much a design genious?

My view is that he's an xtremely alround engineer, with a university degree in aeronautics to begin with, who worked his way from penning Indycars in the early 80s to become an F1 elder, who's seen every trick. A classic engineering optimizer if you like.

But an innovator in the mold of Chapman, Murray and Barnard, I'm not so sure.

[autogyro]

It is horses for courses xpensive.
Radical ideas were the domain of the old school engineers like Chapman.
Thinking them up or recognising them in others and making full use of them.
Today the regulations hugely restrict such thinking.
Now it is making the best use of the regulations and finding ways to circumvent them.
Engineers like Newey (and Head) have a foot in both disciplines.
I think Adrian has the right balance at present, while those like Head are still a little in the past.

It is all very relative though. like comparing drivers, they are all good.

[CHT]

That's the problem right there Don, in the 70's I know for a fact that Gordon Murray penned every bolt and nut on the BT44, while I am equally convinced that John Barnard designed most of the MP4's with his own hand, perhaps with a little help, but still.

But with today's vast design-engineering/r&d departments in F1, it's difficult to tell who's doing what, not the least who is actually designing anything? What is a "technical director" anyway? I have a business card with that title, but with a staff less than your fingers and toes, it's pretty easy to tell who's designing things.

Agree completely. Very well said. I guess we have to phrase the discussion as "which apparent designer is best at building, developing, coordinating, motivating, etc an F1 design department?" It is possible that Aldo Costa (for example only) is a mediocre technical man, but a much better coordinator (or vice-versa!) Bottom line IMHO: Newey is the best in F1 at his job (unless I'm forgetting someone). Topic for another thread I suppose.

I remember reading AN's interview with F1 raching some years back. This was when he was having his gardening leave I think. He mentioned something like Ron Dennis always insist people to work with a paper less system, while AN said he still prefer to design a car using pen and paper.

[Formula None]

But sadly enough, the FIA's technical delegate was unable to formulate testing methods to prevent the obvious cheating.

Even with rules written in a fashion which outlawed every kind of bending under any circumstance, much like a technical
equivalent of "Bringing the sport into disrepute", "Un-american activities", or even being a "Counter-revolutionary".

Well said.

[xpensive]

I remember reading AN's interview with F1 raching some years back. This was when he was having his gardening leave I think. He mentioned something like Ron Dennis always insist people to work with a paper less system, while AN said he still prefer to design a car using pen and paper.

That's most interesting if true, I remember an interview with John Barnard in 1995, after his return to Ferrari,
where he mentioned that he was always the one to begin the basic layout of the new car with pen on paper.
Saying something like, "Nothing gives you the same feel as doing it with pen in hand".

This statement stopped me from being embarrased for working the same way in my limited technical world.

Perhaps Newey is old school afterall, that he takes his title literally and not just as an administrative role?

[autogyro]

Back of an old fag packet was a good enough starting point in Chapmans day.
I have sat at the bar in Elstree aerodrome and watched that.
Giving up smoking didnt help, those bloody table napkins dont work nearly as well.

[segedunum]

Coming up with initial ideas using pen and paper, or probably pencil, is about the best way of doing things. Nothing gives you quite the same feel as jotting things down and using a rubber. If that wasn't the case then people wouldn't be trying to replicate note taking on a computer with various applications.

When you have vast engineering departments it's virtually impossible for anyone to really design the car and for it to have a philosophy behind how it works. When I saw an engineer at Williams throwing stuff into a CFD workstation to see what gave the car more downforce I knew then that the team would never get anywhere near their past glories.

[segedunum]

Very interesting stuff about the Fiat group there, I can't believe they still made an operational loss of almost EUR900Million.

You better believe it. Some people around here still can't comprehend that Ferrari's position isn't engraved in granite though.

[segedunum]

But worst of all is this never ending bs about having an inferior engine to the Mercedes...first of all, I don't think it is...

I'd be inclined to agree if it wasn't for races such as Spa and especially Monza, where both they and Renault fell away relative to where they'd been. Speed trap figures only tell you part of the story. They don't tell you how quickly a car is getting to a top speed or how long it's been able to maintain it and they don't tell you how much downforce a team is taking out of the chassis through corners in order to reduce drag. That's why the bit of logic about Petrov holding off Alonso in the final race doesn't hold up.

I think we've been over this on a few threads but people still don't want to see the correllating results.

While the Renault is probably very, very good in most respects there's every reason to believe they're missing some top end power. Red Bull, Horner and especially Newey are simply hammering away at it because that's the way Newey historically works. Worrying about drag is for people who can't make engines.....

They'll have opportunities to do something about that next season with KERS and the rear wing however. Fortunately, this season McLaren gave Red Bull and Renault the F-duct idea that Renault took all season to develop well.

...secondly if Newey really wanted FI's engine contract, I'm fairly certain that Mateschitz would make it happen.

Both McLaren and especially Mercedes GP do not want Red Bull having the same engine as them. They simply can't afford that because the pressure will only get ever greater. Mercedes got embarrassed enough last season when a FI blasted past Schumacher at Spa as if he wasn't there with the same engine.

[raymondu999]

Didn't horner also hint that Red Bull may start an in-house F1 engine operation as well?

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Ferrari is a money making machine. For Fiat to sell would be financial suicide, as would the technical expertise of Ferrari.

The reason Fiat made such a big loss was their tie up with cerberus(Chrysler). If it doesnt work Ferrari would have the capacity to buy itself out of FIAT should they hit the wall.

And Schumacher getting "blasted" by a FI at Spa had more to do with him not getting clean exit and entry through eau rouge than anything else.
And its also telling that only Petrov had a new engine at Spa, and all the merc runners had new or practice mileage ponies in the back.
(F1fanatic)

Its as if Renault were trying to push a point