Ferrari F14T

[flyboy2160]

Here we go again. The car threads are for car hardware discussions, not for comments like "Ferrari won't get out of this mess until next year." Comments like that belong in the Team thread; you can repost over there. I'm just going to keep deleting these.

edit: This scenario keeps reminding me of the Sorcerer's Apprentice scene in Fantasia: Mickey empowers the brooms to do his water hauling chores, only to have them overpower him. Ain't gonna happen here.

[garygph]

I was just asking, because suspension changes could improve traction.

F14T traction problems are engine related.

I just cannot understand how anyone can make the statement that the traction problems are engine related without being one of the very informed engineers on the team at this stage of the game. It may be, but it might be suspension geometry or a combination of both. If in high speed corners it may be lack of rear downforce and so on. For any of us on this forum ( who are not employed as an engineer on that specific team) to make such definitive conclusions, instead of suggesting a possibility, seems ludicrous.

[Ganxxta]

On a different topic here's hoping that the rumoured electronics fix posted a few pages back makes it to the next Grand Prix in Bahrain. The F14T is definitely struggling power delivery wise, as evidenced by it's poor top speed. In fact the same can be said for all Ferrari powered cars.

I just cannot understand how during tests ferrari had one of the highest top speeds In bahrain which made us all believe that whoever came up with the 'ferrari have X power defesit on merc engines' comment, was just talking nonsence... Were all merc powered teams sandbagging or afraid to unleash all their potential at that point? Or was ferrari just running a minimum drag configuration?

Might have been_

-DRS
-Slipstream
-Monza spec
-Tail wind
- maximum engine+ERS power at this specific part of the track
- ignoring 100kg/h fuel flow limit

or all of the above

Its testing.

[Wayne DR]

If you are the team manager, how do you do it?

The front end/wing seems pretty well sorted, direct and they are getting good correlation from their wind tunnel testing. Possibly only wing end plate mods, which is not really the "silver bullet"

Improve rear wing efficiency (50% of rear down force)
The engine air intake is directly in front of the rear wing, and will punch a HUGE hole in the air.
Consider dropping this down to two intakes, either side of the drivers head (allowed under 5.14.1 of the Regs), and you will get a cleaner flow to the smaller rear wing...

Improve use of side pod airflow
The rear diffuser/floor make up 50% of the rear down force. The side pod airflow appears to exiting just ahead of the rear suspension, without much direction, as the beam wing is gone. There must be something funky they can do with this to improve rear down force (I suspect that this is what Newey has been doing on Red Bulls for a while).

Chase a fuel limit of 90kg per race
10kg is just under a 1.5% weight saving. Possibly worth while, if you are asking drivers to lose weight...

[max_speed]

any news on updates Alonso mentioned car will be identical to malaysia so i dnt have hope of any aero bit. what about rumored PU software upgrade. alonso or anyone did not mention anything on that too.

[Lycoming]

Improve rear wing efficiency (50% of rear down force)

That sounds a bit high. Where do you get 50% from?

The engine air intake is directly in front of the rear wing, and will punch a HUGE hole in the air.
Consider dropping this down to two intakes, either side of the drivers head (allowed under 5.14.1 of the Regs), and you will get a cleaner flow to the smaller rear wing...

You still have the roll hoop in the way.

Improve use of side pod airflow
The rear diffuser/floor make up 50% of the rear down force. The side pod airflow appears to exiting just ahead of the rear suspension, without much direction, as the beam wing is gone. There must be something funky they can do with this to improve rear down force (I suspect that this is what Newey has been doing on Red Bulls for a while).

This is a non-answer.

[ringo]

A bit of a reset.

I think the idea of somehow getting air flow "under the car" via a high nose is a bit misleading, as air flow truly under the car comes from under the sidepods on either side of the plank. The purpose of a high nose, on the other hand, is to help move air around the sidepods to the back of the car. That's why the area under the cockpit is dominated by a splitter. This is easily seen on last year's high-nose Ferrari.

http://i.imgur.com/IjLrb4J.jpg
F138

The new car relies on an adverse pressure gradient, which is an area where pressure rises downstream, in this case suddenly, in order to encourage flow to spill over the nose and around the sides. This flow is further directed by the camera pods to move toward the splitter to be turned around the sidepods.

http://i.imgur.com/FpioMKP.jpg
F14 T at Jerez

As shelly mentioned, a potential advantage of this nose, as well as with the Mercedes design, is the low-pressure zone (read: downforce) that will be created under the nose. A disadvantage is that air flow spilled over the nose will lose energy as a result of the adverse pressure gradient. To combat this, Ferrari uses elements on the barge boards that are effectively vortex generators which attempt to "energize" flow around the sidepods. (And please excuse my lack of artistry below. Air flow will not be turned as sharply as I've depicted. Ferrari has likely ensured that all turns are as gentle as possible, otherwise turned air flow on top of the nose can contribute to lift.)

http://i.imgur.com/rQIm4Hz.jpg
F14 T

Incidentally, Mercedes does things a bit differently. Instead of using a sharp adverse pressure gradient to encourage flow to spill over the nose and eventually around the sidepods, they use this: the batwing, from which tip vortices are shed to "energize" flow around the sidepods. (I have to admit that the novelty of this solution tickles me to death. It's a barge board under the chassis.)

http://i.imgur.com/dki5gV1.jpg
W05

These designs have the potential for less drag than other dick-nose designs. Not only does the phallus have a tendency to disturb air flow, simply allowing a loooooooong boundary layer to form under the chassis carries the risk of increased drag due to the tendency of boundary layer flow to thicken downstream, which effectively increases the size of the chassis. This was an acceptable trade with high-nose designs because of the significant increase in mass flow - and teams still tried to tidy up the boundary layer, as scarbs would say, wherever possible. Such a trade may no longer be worthwhile.

http://i.imgur.com/asJmWSf.jpg
FW36

All of this is to say, there are no black-and-white, good-or-bad solutions this year. At least not yet. I think the designs are simply too immature to judge at this point.

I'll have to disagree with what you are saying. The high nose is not to move air around the side pods. I'm not sure why you would believe that it's easier for air to take so many turns around the lower regions of the car just to go around the back.
And when it reaches around the back then what does it do there?

I think your concept of how down-force is generated is different to what it is in reality, and subsequently your train of thought on the subject propagates throughout the rest of your post.
And i'm not being a troll or anything, but it's the first i'm seeing an interpretation such as yours. It's interesting, but it's not necessarily correct.

[Pierce89]

Both things happen . Some air goes under that's why the t-tray has turning vanes VGs etc., but a lot of the air does go along the splitter and flanks of the car.

[f1316]

any news on updates Alonso mentioned car will be identical to malaysia so i dnt have hope of any aero bit. what about rumored PU software upgrade. alonso or anyone did not mention anything on that too.

I think this is the best you're going to get:

http://formula1.ferrari.com/news/alliso ... ent-fronts

You'd presume there'd be very little between Malaysia and Bahrain, but there's an implication in Allison's statement that there could still be progress made - 'race by race' includes Bahrain.

Also, it makes me think that now software is such an important thing - especially where some engines are supposedly not delivering as well as others (i.e. the hardware is fine but just not yet optimised) - it surely has to be easier to bring those sorts of upgrades to fly-away races? We're not talking about shipping physical parts, so perhaps this gives more scope for performance improvements to be made even where there are no visible changes.

[max_speed]

any news on updates Alonso mentioned car will be identical to malaysia so i dnt have hope of any aero bit. what about rumored PU software upgrade. alonso or anyone did not mention anything on that too.

I think this is the best you're going to get:

http://formula1.ferrari.com/news/alliso ... ent-fronts

You'd presume there'd be very little between Malaysia and Bahrain, but there's an implication in Allison's statement that there could still be progress made - 'race by race' includes Bahrain.

Also, it makes me think that now software is such an important thing - especially where some engines are supposedly not delivering as well as others (i.e. the hardware is fine but just not yet optimised) - it surely has to be easier to bring those sorts of upgrades to fly-away races? We're not talking about shipping physical parts, so perhaps this gives more scope for performance improvements to be made even where there are no visible changes.

lets hope this PU software update comes in and works , it has been long to see a prancing horse on track , fighting with bulls and silver arrows. i am resting my faith in Aliision , he speaks like engineer.

[f1316]

https://twitter.com/joseluisf1/status/4 ... 5139483648

[kaido]

Was watching Sky F1 post race coverage and in Ted Note Book, He mention something along the lines that Ferrari could have possibly pick the wrong turbo size and this may be a reason why there engine is not as power as the rest?

Has anyone else heard anything along those lines or is this just another rumour?

[monsi]

At 2:20 you can see the car bouncing when it comes off the jacks, and similar bouncing on the track in a number of places e.g. at around 3:13. The suspension appears lightly damped, with a marked resonance frequency. I haven't looked at other cars to compare, but could some more knowledgeable member than me comment on what the effect might be and whether this appears problematic ?

[f300v10]

Was watching Sky F1 post race coverage and in Ted Note Book, He mention something along the lines that Ferrari could have possibly pick the wrong turbo size and this may be a reason why there engine is not as power as the rest?

Has anyone else heard anything along those lines or is this just another rumour?

Who knows if this is true, but it could explain some of the deficit. If Ferrari sized the turbo for optimal ICE performance, they may not be able to extract as much power from the MGUH. A turbo that was 'over sized' for the ICE would allow for more power extraction while still providing maximum boost to the ICE.

This quote from SD seems to indicate Ferrari believes the ICE is competative in terms of performance, which leaves the MGUK/H as the cause of the current shortfall:

"We knew from the very beginning that with these rules changes the challenge will be massive. When we went about designing the 2014 car we knew it would not only be a matter of the engine - where we believe we are quite strong - but also a matter of considering the whole power unit. We know that other engine manufacturers have advanced knowledge because they use that technology in their road cars, so we knew it was not going to be easy. But we know the areas where we need to improve and falling into disappointment doesn’t help. I know that we have improved our organisation in some areas where we have been weak…"

[Frafer]

Was watching Sky F1 post race coverage and in Ted Note Book, He mention something along the lines that Ferrari could have possibly pick the wrong turbo size and this may be a reason why there engine is not as power as the rest?

Has anyone else heard anything along those lines or is this just another rumour?

Who knows if this is true, but it could explain some of the deficit. If Ferrari sized the turbo for optimal ICE performance, they may not be able to extract as much power from the MGUH. A turbo that was 'over sized' for the ICE would allow for more power extraction while still providing maximum boost to the ICE.

This quote from SD seems to indicate Ferrari believes the ICE is competative in terms of performance, which leaves the MGUK/H as the cause of the current shortfall:

"We knew from the very beginning that with these rules changes the challenge will be massive. When we went about designing the 2014 car we knew it would not only be a matter of the engine - where we believe we are quite strong - but also a matter of considering the whole power unit. We know that other engine manufacturers have advanced knowledge because they use that technology in their road cars, so we knew it was not going to be easy. But we know the areas where we need to improve and falling into disappointment doesn’t help. I know that we have improved our organisation in some areas where we have been weak…"

Actually i'm pretty sure they know exactly where they are about ICE power, sound spectrograph softwares are good tools to compare engines performance when you aren't allow to see telemetry data