Ferrari F138

[JDC123]

it doesn't look as if it would too be difficult to change to the ramped rbr/lotus exhaust as ferraris is very low to the floor any way and has a very sharp slope. Could the sharpness of the slope be ferraris problem, with the exhaust gases unable to stay attached to the surface. In comparison everyone else who uses the same layout as ferraris seems to be a much more gradually slope.

[diffuser]

Ferrari need a lotus/redbull exhaust if they want to make progress now.

I feel that is highly unlikely, considering we're going into the summer break and they have a complete new car next year. Besides there would be so many unknowns making a change of that size.

I don't know if we should believe them when they say they have a major upgrade for SPA that will work with the upgrades they released for Hungary.... Well... we should believe them.... What I mean is I'm worried that the upgrades will not work to the extent they're expecting.

Every part RBR bring to the track they seem to use. Ferrari... no so much.

[radosav]

Did Ferrari race with upgrades in hungary?

[froggy]

Ferrari need a lotus/redbull exhaust if they want to make progress now.

Mercedes is apparently the fastest car this season and doesn't use the ramp style exhaust.

Ferrari are simply lacking on the aerodynamics side of things. Pretty much all the other teams continually bring upgrades and refinements to their packages. Ferrari bring parts that are only used on Friday or keep recyling the same parts throughout the season. Fed up.

[timbo]

Ferrari need a lotus/redbull exhaust if they want to make progress now.

And more ellipses.

[Crucial_Xtreme]

Did Ferrari race with upgrades in hungary?

Only with new FW and new turning vanes under the nose. They only used new diffuser in FP on Friday..

[Crucial_Xtreme]

Ferrari need a lotus/redbull exhaust if they want to make progress now.

I feel that is highly unlikely, considering we're going into the summer break and they have a complete new car next year. Besides there would be so many unknowns making a change of that size.

I don't know if we should believe them when they say they have a major upgrade for SPA that will work with the upgrades they released for Hungary.... Well... we should believe them.... What I mean is I'm worried that the upgrades will not work to the extent they're expecting.

Every part RBR bring to the track they seem to use. Ferrari... no so much.

Spot on analysis from Gary Anderson regarding F138 Updates..

Ferrari have lost their way. In the last four races Alonso has had a second, third, fourth and fifth. That slide is going in the wrong direction.
They are bringing developments to the track - as they did with a new diffuser in Hungary - but they are not using them in races.
So all of that research and effort is not being turned into performance.
Caution can be a positive when it comes to engineering, but Ferrari are guilty of over-caution.
They spent Friday in Hungary trying to compare the new diffuser with the old one. But it is impossible to do so-called back-to-back runs on a part as influential as that with the track changing as quickly as it does in Hungary.
That's because you can never be sure what is influencing the changes in car behaviour and lap time - is it the track evolution, or the new parts?
Sometimes you simply have to have faith in your simulation data, put the part on the car and get on with it. Because Ferrari are not, they are effectively going backwards, because while they are standing still everyone else is going forwards.
Mercedes had new parts on the car. They had a new front wing and they just got on with it.
Ferrari are in a halfway house. They're neither optimising the car, nor benefiting from new parts. Mercedes, Red Bull and Lotus by contrast, tend to stick new parts on the car, believe in them, and get on with it.
This is why Ferrari badly need former Lotus technical director James Allison to start work in his new role. They need someone to stand up and make those decisions.
You have to make decisions. They might be wrong, but at least by committing to something you get the bits on the car and get the best out of it that weekend.
It might only be 95% of the total potential of the car, but at least you got that 95%. If you back-to-back things all weekend, you don't get the best out of the car either with or without the new parts, so your overall performance is worse.

[donskar]

Ferrari need a lotus/redbull exhaust if they want to make progress now.

I feel that is highly unlikely, considering we're going into the summer break and they have a complete new car next year. Besides there would be so many unknowns making a change of that size.

I don't know if we should believe them when they say they have a major upgrade for SPA that will work with the upgrades they released for Hungary.... Well... we should believe them.... What I mean is I'm worried that the upgrades will not work to the extent they're expecting.

Every part RBR bring to the track they seem to use. Ferrari... no so much.

Spot on analysis from Gary Anderson regarding F138 Updates..

Ferrari have lost their way. In the last four races Alonso has had a second, third, fourth and fifth. That slide is going in the wrong direction.
They are bringing developments to the track - as they did with a new diffuser in Hungary - but they are not using them in races.
So all of that research and effort is not being turned into performance.
Caution can be a positive when it comes to engineering, but Ferrari are guilty of over-caution.
They spent Friday in Hungary trying to compare the new diffuser with the old one. But it is impossible to do so-called back-to-back runs on a part as influential as that with the track changing as quickly as it does in Hungary.
That's because you can never be sure what is influencing the changes in car behaviour and lap time - is it the track evolution, or the new parts?
Sometimes you simply have to have faith in your simulation data, put the part on the car and get on with it. Because Ferrari are not, they are effectively going backwards, because while they are standing still everyone else is going forwards.
Mercedes had new parts on the car. They had a new front wing and they just got on with it.
Ferrari are in a halfway house. They're neither optimising the car, nor benefiting from new parts. Mercedes, Red Bull and Lotus by contrast, tend to stick new parts on the car, believe in them, and get on with it.
This is why Ferrari badly need former Lotus technical director James Allison to start work in his new role. They need someone to stand up and make those decisions.
You have to make decisions. They might be wrong, but at least by committing to something you get the bits on the car and get the best out of it that weekend.
It might only be 95% of the total potential of the car, but at least you got that 95%. If you back-to-back things all weekend, you don't get the best out of the car either with or without the new parts, so your overall performance is worse.

Thanks, Crucial_X. Gary Anderson gets little love in this forum, but his comments above seem very well targeted. How do we argue with:

In the last four races Alonso has had a second, third, fourth and fifth. That slide is going in the wrong direction. . . . They're neither optimising the car, nor benefiting from new parts.

I do not envy James Allison, nor do I expect him to be a savior. There is something, very basic, very fundamental wrong at Ferrari. Poltics? Cursed wind tunnel? Lack of a strong technical leader?

[sucof]

Ferrari need a lotus/redbull exhaust if they want to make progress now.

I feel that is highly unlikely, considering we're going into the summer break and they have a complete new car next year. Besides there would be so many unknowns making a change of that size.

I don't know if we should believe them when they say they have a major upgrade for SPA that will work with the upgrades they released for Hungary.... Well... we should believe them.... What I mean is I'm worried that the upgrades will not work to the extent they're expecting.

Every part RBR bring to the track they seem to use. Ferrari... no so much.

Spot on analysis from Gary Anderson regarding F138 Updates..

Ferrari have lost their way. In the last four races Alonso has had a second, third, fourth and fifth. That slide is going in the wrong direction.
They are bringing developments to the track - as they did with a new diffuser in Hungary - but they are not using them in races.
So all of that research and effort is not being turned into performance.
Caution can be a positive when it comes to engineering, but Ferrari are guilty of over-caution.
They spent Friday in Hungary trying to compare the new diffuser with the old one. But it is impossible to do so-called back-to-back runs on a part as influential as that with the track changing as quickly as it does in Hungary.
That's because you can never be sure what is influencing the changes in car behaviour and lap time - is it the track evolution, or the new parts?
Sometimes you simply have to have faith in your simulation data, put the part on the car and get on with it. Because Ferrari are not, they are effectively going backwards, because while they are standing still everyone else is going forwards.
Mercedes had new parts on the car. They had a new front wing and they just got on with it.
Ferrari are in a halfway house. They're neither optimising the car, nor benefiting from new parts. Mercedes, Red Bull and Lotus by contrast, tend to stick new parts on the car, believe in them, and get on with it.
This is why Ferrari badly need former Lotus technical director James Allison to start work in his new role. They need someone to stand up and make those decisions.
You have to make decisions. They might be wrong, but at least by committing to something you get the bits on the car and get the best out of it that weekend.
It might only be 95% of the total potential of the car, but at least you got that 95%. If you back-to-back things all weekend, you don't get the best out of the car either with or without the new parts, so your overall performance is worse.

I do not completely agree with this.
If you have wind tunnel correlation problem, you must do a lot of comparison work before you can go forward. And Ferrari did go forward with the new parts, and they lost their performance. This means they did made the decision, what Gary wanted, and it turned out to be wrong, that is why they had to go back to the old parts.
I do not see this decision problem, only that they somewhere do have a huge problem understanding wind tunnel data, but I agree that James Allison could be a help with this.
Also sad to think that it might be still the same problem and reason since 3 years with the correlation, but still they were not able to find it. It might be that their wind tunnel was not the problem but that they use the wind tunnels wrong somehow... because they are using all kinds of tunnels since the last year but they are still in the same situation.

[THENOMAD79]

Every time same story, wind tunnel...correlation problem...bla bla...hm... Demolished that wind tunnel, all equipment out..rebuild new tunnel, new equipment in...and resolve problem with correlation data.

[sucof]

Every time same story, wind tunnel...correlation problem...bla bla...hm... Demolished that wind tunnel, all equipment out..rebuild new tunnel, new equipment in...and resolve problem with correlation data.

I am pretty sure the equipment is not to blame, but there is some fundamental problem with how they interpreting the data, since they still have the correlation problem using 2 other wind tunnels too.

[JDC123]

How can a team (especially one like ferrari) go for years without 'correlation problems' and then all of a sudden they do. Mclaren said the same thing at the start of the season. Is it just an excuse for designing a bad car or not having a good enough technical team to keep up with the rest of the front runners?

[Hail22]

How can a team (especially one like ferrari) go for years without 'correlation problems' and then all of a sudden they do. Mclaren said the same thing at the start of the season. Is it just an excuse for designing a bad car or not having a good enough technical team to keep up with the rest of the front runners?

A clamp down by the FIA on in-season testing / preseason testing...before that all teams were able to test their 2007, 2008 & 2009 cars at SPA, Bahrain, Imola, etc where as now its been restricted to only two tests (Jerez and Barcelona).

Its no secret that Ferrari is one of the few teams that highly depends on in season testing to rectify their aero packages...where as some other teams are able to calculate the effectiveness of aero parts to the nearest measurement of error.

Anyways, on the F138...fundamentally its the perfect base F1 vehicle of 2013...However Ferrari have failed thus far to capitalise on such a great base package Re: Launch spec to now..

[sucof]

How can a team (especially one like ferrari) go for years without 'correlation problems' and then all of a sudden they do. Mclaren said the same thing at the start of the season. Is it just an excuse for designing a bad car or not having a good enough technical team to keep up with the rest of the front runners?

A clamp down by the FIA on in-season testing / preseason testing...before that all teams were able to test their 2007, 2008 & 2009 cars at SPA, Bahrain, Imola, etc where as now its been restricted to only two tests (Jerez and Barcelona).

Its no secret that Ferrari is one of the few teams that highly depends on in season testing to rectify their aero packages...where as some other teams are able to calculate the effectiveness of aero parts to the nearest measurement of error.

Anyways, on the F138...fundamentally its the perfect base F1 vehicle of 2013...However Ferrari have failed thus far to capitalise on such a great base package Re: Launch spec to now..

Could it be that they have 2 different teams for developing next years car and to create upgrades to a current car? So they have one team working OK and the other responsible to the updates does something wrong?

[diffuser]

Every time same story, wind tunnel...correlation problem...bla bla...hm... Demolished that wind tunnel, all equipment out..rebuild new tunnel, new equipment in...and resolve problem with correlation data.

I think that hole wind-tunnel thing is just an excuse. They use it when they don't know how to explain it..."The changes worked in the wind-tunnel!"