Ferrari F2012

[Dream Theater]

Thanks mate!

Btw, after the qualifying, Alberto Antonini from Autosprint and Fabiano Vandone talked about the fact that, from Monaco till now, the Scuderia Ferrari engineers played with the F2012's settings, with an higher rake and softer suspensions, discovering that the F2012 likes this type of setting, and so do Massa.

What do you think about that? It can be a real hypothesis?

[bhall]

Yeah. Massa said in an interview after Monaco that they tried a setup specifically for that race, and that it greatly improved the car. He also said he thought it would translate well to other tracks, too.

Naturally, I assumed the new setup had something to do with ride height/rake and softer suspension settings, because that's simply what a car needs around a very short circuit like Monaco where mechanical grip is paramount. But, I didn't think that was necessarily the translatable part of the equation due to the fact that a soft suspension can play hell with aerodynamic grip. So, I thought something else was going on, something underneath the surface.

That said, if it really took them six races to figure out that they needed more rake and a softer rear end, I might just blow a gasket. Seriously.

I made a MASSIVE deal out of those exact needs during winter testing. I pitched a fit and everything. In fact, there's not one person who regularly follows this thread who doesn't know that the F2012 needed a higher rear-end ride height to allow for a softer setup that would improve traction out of slow corners, which was an early Achilles' Heel for this car. We all just assumed that such settings were impossible because of the car's ineffective exhaust solution.

In other words, we gave the team the benefit of the doubt that they knew what they were doing.

"Felipe Massa says his improved form in Monaco was down to discovering that the set-up required for the Ferrari F2012 on the slow street circuit suited him better than previous settings - and now hopes it can be adapted for future races."

So, yeah. If Autosprint is correct, and Ferrari only stumbled upon the need for a softer rear end in Monaco - where they didn't even so much as try to seal the diffuser, by the way - I'm definitely gonna be...something.

For what it's worth, I'm not saying these things to stake any sort of claim of vindication - well, maybe a little. But, mostly I'm saying it because someone who can't do simple arithmetic mentally shouldn't be among the first to recognize a Formula One car's problems. I find that incomprehensible.

[Teechnical]

I hope we have a big upgrade for Hockenheim.
Although the cars pace is definitely not bad, maybe 0.15 tenths off.
but thats it.

[phoenix1206]

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w5H2mktoDnA/T ... ircuit.jpg

is this the usual rake?

Hi, everyone! I am new in this forum. I have a question, hope the gurus can answer me. How can you tell whether the rake opf the car has changed just by looking at the pictures. Thanks.

[radosav]

RB8 and Ferrari F2012 were at same level in Silverstone:
1st stint : in 10 laps alonso on hards made 4 sec advantage to webber on softs
2nd stint: both on hards gap was the same ,around 5 sec
3rd stint: in 10 laps alonso on softs lost 4 sec advantage to webber on hards
http://en.mclarenf-1.com/index.php?page ... o%20Alonso

so i must say that alonso's ferrari and webber's red bull were prety even on race pace, on both cars softs were 0.4 sec slower than hards
ferrari made mistake with alonso's too short 1st stint

[Teechnical]

Was Massa using the new front wing?
Very happy for him in 4th:)

[Owen.C93]

Sorry for the OT, but, anyone knows why f1zoom.co.cc is down? Because I want to see good pics of F2012 in today's qualifying...
Or maybe anyone knows another site with the same quality of pics?
Thanks in advance!

Hello, fellow Dream Theater fan.

You can visit my Polish friends from Motorsportgp.pl over here - http://www.motorsportgp.pl/index.php/ga ... ria/sobota - these are the pictures from Saturday. Use any translator to navigate through the page.

Other place is http://clausellf1.com/ - he is usually on the race.

For the f1zoom.co.cc ... I have some suspicions, I'll answer them on Tuesday.

I don't expect f1zoom to come back, which is a shame because some of the new users used it to embed a lot of their photos so now a lot of the thread is useless.

[alogoc]

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w5H2mktoDnA/T ... ircuit.jpg

is this the usual rake?

Hi, everyone! I am new in this forum. I have a question, hope the gurus can answer me. How can you tell whether the rake opf the car has changed just by looking at the pictures. Thanks.

you look thousands of pictures and you know!

but you can never be sure!

[alogoc]

I hope we have a big upgrade for Hockenheim.
Although the cars pace is definitely not bad, maybe 0.15 tenths off.
but thats it.

It's track dependent!

You can really say it's 0.15,because Silverstone was perfect for F2012 we knew that will be the case already in winter when everybody were saying that the car was only looking good in high speed stuff!
I think next races are very good for RB because of their off-thorttle cheating device,Hochenheim maybe not so much but Hungary is perfect for that,remember 2010 when they use it for the first time everybody were stunned by their speed!
So any way Ferrari needs something fast to keep up whit them,i'am thinking they should also try that engine missfire, slippery clutch or whatever the hell Renault is doing again!

[Spankyham]

Nice shot of the current rake on the F2012. Is that completely back to where they had it in pre-season testing? If not its getting close.


Click on image for slightly higher res version:

[Kiril Varbanov]

Nice shot of the current rake on the F2012. Is that completely back to where they had it in pre-season testing? If not its getting close.

Norm, hard to tell, really.
The idea of "rake" is simple: to increase the diffuser exit area. Generally, its effectiveness is dependent on two factors:
1. The ride height
2. The angle of the diffuser

What you need to do is to really balance those two parameters, as increasing the rake itself boosts the angle, but also the height as well. You can't do this forever, since your plank will wear out, etc. This is where the exhaust gases come into play, to help the lateral-edge vortices of the diffuser to be stronger. Not sure if I explained that one properly in a hurry (I will blog about it soon), but here's a picture from pre-season testing, but I'm not sure if it's Barcelona or Jerez:



OK, edit, I have to avoid double-posting: Since the usual resources of finding great post-race stuff are gone, does anybody have a picture of the front wing fluttering that occurred on Alonso's car in the middle of the race?
I'm extremely curious to watch the lap in context and see what might have caused that.

[.poz]

That said, if it really took them six races to figure out that they needed more rake and a softer rear end, I might just blow a gasket. Seriously.

It took them five races to seal the diffuser and being able to run with the rake the car was originally designed for.

[bhall]

Not so, my friend. Ferrari didn't even attempt to seal the diffuser in Monaco, where the "magic" setup was "discovered." Instead, they used the solution tested in Mugello, which directed the exhaust plume to the beam wing. The current, and by all measures most effective, solution wasn't introduced until the next race in Canada.

[Spankyham]

Nice shot of the current rake on the F2012. Is that completely back to where they had it in pre-season testing? If not its getting close.

Norm, hard to tell, really.
The idea of "rake" is simple: to increase the diffuser exit area. Generally, its effectiveness is dependent on two factors:
1. The ride height
2. The angle of the diffuser

What you need to do is to really balance those two parameters, as increasing the rake itself boosts the angle, but also the height as well. You can't do this forever, since your plank will wear out, etc. This is where the exhaust gases come into play, to help the lateral-edge vortices of the diffuser to be stronger. Not sure if I explained that one properly in a hurry (I will blog about it soon), but here's a picture from pre-season testing, but I'm not sure if it's Barcelona or Jerez:



OK, edit, I have to avoid double-posting: Since the usual resources of finding great post-race stuff are gone, does anybody have a picture of the front wing fluttering that occurred on Alonso's car in the middle of the race?
I'm extremely curious to watch the lap in context and see what might have caused that.

Thanks mate, that helps alot. Will look forward to reading the blog. PM me when you get that done plz.

I mentioned elsewhere that I have a recording, can you give me lap number and I'll see what I can get posted

[alogoc]

Pat Fry's reputation of being better in in-season development than in winter 0-design is proving once again to be truth!