pRo wrote:
Do the cars get inspected between quali and race? Or the parts, including tyres and whatever are on them, taken off during race?
Answer is yes to both questions.
You can download on FIA website after each race the detailed scrutineering reports with all the checks done on the cars during the weekend since Thursday till after the race. (
http://www.fia.com/mediacentre/Press_In ... japan.html use the links on the right for other races)
Anyway in term of parts replaced during the race the only requirement is :
4.3 Adding during the race :
With the exception of fuel and compressed gases, no substance may be added to the car during the race.
If it becomes necessary to replace any part of the car during the race, the new part must not weigh any more than the original part.
So as long as the rim with the partial fairing weighs the same or less than the rim with the “complete” fairing, then there’s no problem.
In qualifying situation is different, because the car is in parc fermè (it goes from start of qualifying till start of race). While in parc fermè you can substitute parts of car only as long as the new one is identical to the original one and only asking for FIA approval; in the scrutineering reports you’ll see that lot more parts than one would think of are usually changed in parc fermé.
So, to summarize, in qualifying Ferrari has to always substitute the brake duct with another one identical at each tyres change, during the race they can use different ones.
DaveKillens wrote:
The facts don't lie, that device sure helped in top end speed, but didn't help in rear brake cooling.......... make your own conclusions.
Piola mentioned during the coverage already in China and again in Japan that probably they preferred to fit the “open” version at the pitstop because it reduces the risk of mistakes; in fact ever since the introduction of the fairings in Turkey Piola insisted a lot on the particular attention required at the pitstop and on the time spent by Ferrari guys on practicing the operation, even more than usual (that is already a lot).
If that’s really the case the only conclusion we can make from the non-lying facts is that during a race the seconds potentially lost with a problem at the pitstop have bigger impact than the little increment of performance or cooling efficiency from the fairings would have.
Anyway, just to point it out another time, contrarily to constant assumptions made here, the fairing isn’t legal because Ferrari somehow was hiding its real function with an idiotic excuse that FIA accepted only because they are in love with the team.
The fairing on the wheel is legal solely because of its position inside the area regulated by the article 11.4, and consequently it’s explicitly exempted from article 3.15 banning moving parts with aero influence. Movable bodywork in that area is legal no matter what its function is, hence the fairing would be legal even if its effect was exclusively to reduce aerodynamic drag (and IMHO, if I understand correctly how Ferrari rear brake ducts work, it’s not), no need to convince FIA that it has no aero influence, it obviously has, but it’s allowed to.
manchild wrote:
Temperature and pressure were going up and down in Canada when Williams was disqualified because their ducts were too big.
So ? Too big is too big, period. All the versions of brake ducts used by Ferrari are inside the dimensions mandated by rules. I really don’t see the relevance of the example.
I'm sure the whole bodywork could be changed during pitstop, if it makes a big enough difference and is designed so.
