moRON speaks out again...

kilcoo316 · Post 19 Mar 2007, 19:50

Not content with having a go at BMW for trying to run a different strategy, and having the bare faced cheek to get in front of mclaren when doing it, wRONg also has a go at ferrari:

http://www.speedtv.com/articles/formulaone/auto/36099/

Ferrari’s floor has come under scrutiny from rival teams, who suspect there may be a mechanism that allows it to move illegally.

Although he did not name Ferrari or specify floors, McLaren boss Ron Dennis says he is confident that are cars whose performance will be affected in the near future if certain technical rule interpretations are clarified.

However, the article did state:

If the front of the floor drops at speed it could create an aerodynamic stall, which improves straightline performance.

Which does leave me to wonder how accurate the rest of it is... seeing as you would never want to play with stalling the floor. You'd have one very pissed off driver if the floor downforce decided to disappear mid-corner!

allan · Post 19 Mar 2007, 20:00

Well, u should have expected that, shouldn't u? Other teams started complaining about ferrari before the season even started, so no wonder Big Mouth Ron started complaining now, after he discovered that his cars are actualy 0.5+ slower than the ferraries..

captainmorgan · Post 19 Mar 2007, 20:45

I actually enjoy it when teams take advantage of gray areas and loopholes in regulations to gain an extra tenth. But even if the FIA arbitrarily or randomly deprives teams of these solutions, it should be equitable, and I'm not sure if it's actually been that way.

jaho101 · Post 19 Mar 2007, 22:46

So Ferrari have a lower ride height on straights? Reminds me of Active Suspension. . . . . . . . Well, iuno if it should become illegal but, if it makes the races more competetive then I'm all for it. Couldn't stand to have another 2004.

mx_tifoso · Post 19 Mar 2007, 23:11

even if Ferrari has a lower ride heigth, they still dont have the highest top speed, as Massa said, he tried to pass fisichella but couldnt because the renault was faster on the straights, so i dont know why (moRON) is talking so much crap, it just happens to be that the F2007 is the class of the field and is being driven by Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen, the better of the 22 race drivers in F1

and if Massa wouldnt have had all those glitches and setbacks on saturday the race would have ended on a very different note, we have yet to see the actual difference Massa will make in the battle for the DC

Scuderia Ferrari 2007 WCC

dumrick · Post 20 Mar 2007, 00:07

Well, without insulting and making justice to this being a technical forum, this is what's being questioned, according to SpeedTV:

All cars have a form of stay holding the front of the floor in place, but rivals noticed an unusually complex arrangement on the Ferrari when the bodywork was off the car in the Melbourne pit garage.

This are Ron's comments, which seem reasonable enough:

“You look at people’s cars, you are not always of the opinion that rule interpretation has been strictly adhered to, and you get in to, ‘Hold on a second, what are we allowed to do and what are we not allowed to do?’ and that always takes place at the first event. So it takes a race or two to know what is or isn’t permitted.”

If Ferrari are exploiting a loophole, congrats to them, the other teams, as always, will follow as soon as they understand how it works. If they are hiding an illegal system, being Ferrari it will be probably legalized...

Ciro Pabón · Post 20 Mar 2007, 02:46

Well, to be legalized it has to be illegal in first place. You tell me (emphasis mine):

3.15 Aerodynamic influence:
With the exception of the cover described in Article 6.5.2 (when used in the pit lane) and the ducts described in Article 11.4, any specific part of the car influencing its aerodynamic performance:

- Must comply with the rules relating to bodywork.

- Must be rigidly secured to the entirely sprung part of the car (rigidly secured means not having any degree of freedom).

- Must remain immobile in relation to the sprung part of the car. Any device or construction that is designed to bridge the gap between the sprung part of the car and the ground is prohibited under all circumstances.

No part having an aerodynamic influence and no part of the bodywork, with the exception of the skid block in 3.13 above, may under any circumstances be located below the reference plane.

About kilcoo316 observation about the undertray stalling, I guess the flexing happens under aerodynamic load, my man. If it's a smart move and it is legal, I guess other teams will follow suit.

The guys putting names on Mr. Dennis are... well, how should I put it? Can you substitute "clever" name calling for some form of argument? I'm sure Mr. Mozzarella, Ferrari's president, wouldn't approve that kind of behaviour.

dumrick · Post 20 Mar 2007, 02:54

Ciro, you are (in a far more elegant way) rephrasing my comments.
You know for sure that, when Ferrari comes into play, a lot of relativizations are immediately done: if the floor of the red cars really moves, then someone will come and say that every element with different loads must move, it's the in nature of matter, and so on...
Therefore, the distinction between loophole and illegality may get red tinted and move to a grey area (very unfortunate colour metaphor, I know...).

Ciro Pabón · Post 20 Mar 2007, 04:50

I don't know if elegant, but yes, it was your comment, dumrick, that moved me to reinforce not to call names to people. This is childish, even for hardcore Flexirrari fans...

Anyway, I've read Felipe had nice straight speeds. Why, if all engines have the same rev limit?

Something is not adding, even if Ferrari, I concede easily, has the best package, as Todt puts it, with reason.

Kimi won fair and square, but 15 seconds in 18 laps? Same tires, 19.000 rpm, aerodynamics harder and harder to improve... I take my hat off to the Maranello guys. Whatever they did, they're cleverer than all regulations in the world. This was supposed to be a season where emotions will take over boredom.

I think Kimi winning the WDC pays less than a dollar for each dollar you bet. The only way to beat Ferrari is using a cannon, not a car.

joseff · Post 20 Mar 2007, 06:14

The top speeds at Melbourne are recorded by the Toyota powered cars: Rosberg, Wurz, Trulli.

IMO the Ferrari's pace is down to how it uses its tyres. Massa ran half distance with full tanks on soft tyres! Even Rosberg who was on softs for only the last 16 laps (and ergo, much lighter car) reported graining near the end. Their 6 years' catalog of exclusive rubber must be good for something, after all.

bhall · Post 20 Mar 2007, 06:15

It should be noted that Ron also said that he thought BMW were "showboating" by going fast this weekend (http://www.f1-live.com/f1/en/headlines/ ... 1839.shtml). So apparently to him, the McLarens are the only cars that are allowed to have good pace.

I'm not surprised by how fast Ferrari is this year, and I don't think it has anything at all to do with a movable floor or anything else illegal.

They have the most experience on Bridgestone tires. So naturally they are going to know more than others about how to extract the most from the rubber. I think this is probably why they lengthened the wheelbase of the car.

And last year, Ferrari was the fastest in the field even though they were using an aerodynamically inferior single-keel design. It only makes sense that the car would perform even better after being fitted with a zero-keel front suspension.

Simply put, Ferrari moved forward, and the other teams, for whatever reason, didn't. Here's what I mean:

Australian Grand Prix fastest laps between McLaren and Ferrari:

2006
Kimi Raikkonen, McLaren: 1:26.045
Michael Schumacher, Ferrari: 1:27.180

2007
Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari: 1:25.235
Fernando Alonso, McLaren: 1:26.314

On familiar tires and with dramatically enhanced aerodynamics, Ferrari gained just under two seconds from last year. On the other hand, McLaren, on foreign tires and with a more subtly-developed aero, lost nearly two tenths.

Ron should just admit that Ferrari got it right while his team is struggling. There's no shame in that.

Ciro Pabón · Post 20 Mar 2007, 07:54

We all agree that Kimi won fair and straight. What we find amusing is the difference. Even if you love Ferrari winning, do you really want F1 to become the most boring sport on wheels? Think about that for a minute. What fun is to win without competition?

And let me tell you I'm not fan of Ron, I don't care about him. It's just that F1 has no good "formula" right now, apparently (and that's not Todt or Kimi's fault: I blame Mr. Max "The Lawyer Extraordinaire" Mosley).

For how long is Ferrari going to suffer this situation, in which most of their wins are easily tainted by suspicion? Why Ferrari spoke persons always have to say "no comment"? Where is italian indignation about false accusations when you need it? Have they forgot how to say "mascalzone!"?

C'mon, men, sometimes I think I love Mr. Enzo's spirit more than many people here! I'd love to see Ferrari struggle for a win and get it. This is becoming like Tyson's first round victories: boring and less than interesting.

I WISH for the "almost only" latin factory (not counting, if it can be counted, the extinct Minardi, commanded by Paul Stoddardt, for heavens sake! Nor Renault, on a different class, if you follow my drift) to win a championship without enraging the racing world and USING A LATIN DRIVER. Is that too much to ask? Can you remember, without looking it up, when was the last time an italian won a GP? If, for example, Ferrari new driver, after Schumi and Kimi is some guy from Latvia, using tires larger than regulations allow (allegedly!) I'm going to kill myself.

dumrick · Post 20 Mar 2007, 11:08

At least, we know now one of the reasons for Ferrari surprising longer wheelbase: since the flat bottom must extend to the centreline of the front wheels, pushing front wheels forward (the main architectural difference between last year's and this year's Ferraris) allows for longer flat bottom and makes easier to make it stall...

scarbs · Post 20 Mar 2007, 12:46

May be people should look at Rons diffuser, the height of that side channel is clearly not within the spirit of the rules.

people in glass houses........

dumrick · Post 20 Mar 2007, 14:24

scarbs wrote:May be people should look at Rons diffuser, the height of that side channel is clearly not within the spirit of the rules.

people in glass houses........

You have already hinted at that detail more than a month ago, so I'm still waiting for reactions from the other teams. I can't believe they have missed it?

Only a small remark: there is a huge difference between the spirit and the writing of the rules. If you can go around the spirit and stay within the writing, blaim the rulers, if you disrespect the writing, you are a cheater.

Ron has clearly stated that the first GP was the occasion to appreciate other teams' solutions and how they fit in the rulebook. He suggested Ferrari have solutions that don't fit it. He never excluded McLaren from the same analysis...

Side note: I'm happy Scarbs made no remarks to my theory relating Ferrari's increased wheelbase to exploring illegal underfloor flexibility to make it stall. It seems that I may be right...