Scuderia Ferrari F1 Team 2015

[Juzh]

I think the only realistic target for Ferrari should be to battle for 2nd best...they can't touch Mercedes. I don't think anyone can. If they get the 2nd position then it will be a good basis to build upon and challenge Mercedes in the 2016 title and maybe win it in 2017...
I don't see them doing anything more. I don't know Arrivabene or Mattiachi but I still prefer guys like Ross Brawn or Bob Bell to be in charge. Future will prove us wrong or right.

I have a feeeling that Williams is a bit ahead of Redbull or Ferrari at the moment. we will see.

i dont think williams will be ahead of Ferrari and Red bull....it may appear that way now but i think that when the in season development push starts williams will be left behind...you cant discount how pathetic they were in so many races last year allowing the flawed red bull and ferrari to finish ahead of them.

Williams advanced the most as the season progressed in 2014, whereas ferrari (and even RB to a degree) fell back. What makes you think they'll be left behind in 2015?

[mika vs michael]

I was talking more or less about melbourne williams being a bit ahead from Ferrari and Redbull not for later on...

do we have any kind of data from the race simulation yesterday and today?

[giantfan10]

I think the only realistic target for Ferrari should be to battle for 2nd best...they can't touch Mercedes. I don't think anyone can. If they get the 2nd position then it will be a good basis to build upon and challenge Mercedes in the 2016 title and maybe win it in 2017...
I don't see them doing anything more. I don't know Arrivabene or Mattiachi but I still prefer guys like Ross Brawn or Bob Bell to be in charge. Future will prove us wrong or right.

I have a feeeling that Williams is a bit ahead of Redbull or Ferrari at the moment. we will see.

i dont think williams will be ahead of Ferrari and Red bull....it may appear that way now but i think that when the in season development push starts williams will be left behind...you cant discount how pathetic they were in so many races last year allowing the flawed red bull and ferrari to finish ahead of them.

Williams advanced the most as the season progressed in 2014, whereas ferrari (and even RB to a degree) fell back. What makes you think they'll be left behind in 2015?

williams with the best pu on the grid was beaten several times by both ferrari and red bull with their lame PUs simple logic says that both those teams with much upgraded pus will be better than williams.....they both have much bigger budgets to outdevelop williams during the season also.....
williams with their ties to mercedes( the wolf family) more than likely has the best costumer version of the mercedes package....that alone will no longer put williams in second in my opinion

[Juzh]

williams with the best pu on the grid was beaten several times by both ferrari and red bull with their lame PUs simple logic says that both those teams with much upgraded pus will be better than williams.....they both have much bigger budgets to outdevelop williams during the season also.....
williams with their ties to mercedes( the wolf family) more than likely has the best costumer version of the mercedes package....that alone will no longer put williams in second in my opinion

This simple logic is flawed. You're talking as if mercedes is standing still with their PU, which they're not.
Even so, best PU or not, williams got beaten by RB and ferrari at the start of season all the time, yet managed to out develop and out race them on pace more often than not in the latter half of the season. All this on maybe half the budget. So again, what makes you think they'll be left behind in 2015?

[Harsha]

williams with the best pu on the grid was beaten several times by both ferrari and red bull with their lame PUs simple logic says that both those teams with much upgraded pus will be better than williams.....they both have much bigger budgets to outdevelop williams during the season also.....
williams with their ties to mercedes( the wolf family) more than likely has the best costumer version of the mercedes package....that alone will no longer put williams in second in my opinion

This simple logic is flawed. You're talking as if mercedes is standing still with their PU, which they're not.
Even so, best PU or not, williams got beaten by RB and ferrari at the start of season all the time, yet managed to out develop and out race them on pace more often than not in the latter half of the season. All this on maybe half the budget. So again, what makes you think they'll be left behind in 2015?

i feel that more due to RBR and Ferrari are stopped developing their car at the rate they should be due to the lack of engine Grunt. Even if we take out Ferrari , RBR is the only team we often hear about inseason development kings. But if Williams can do it this year also then it will be fight for P2 in WCC.

[Vasconia]

I think that both Williams and RB improved through the season but RB was very penalized by a weak engine. Ferrari, once again, did not improve at all. The biggest change that this team needs is to prove that they can keep up with the developement pace.

[Harsha]

I think that both Williams and RB improved through the season but RB was very penalized by a weak engine. Ferrari, once again, did not improve at all. The biggest change that this team needs is to prove that they can keep up with the developement pace.

I agree about RB and Willi's but What else can Ferrari do when they got much weaker engine which struggles to overtake a Struggling Renault engine power units. They might have made bad choices in 2014 but as you said the new Ferrari team must prove that they can and will update their cars aggressively as other contenders

[giantfan10]

williams with the best pu on the grid was beaten several times by both ferrari and red bull with their lame PUs simple logic says that both those teams with much upgraded pus will be better than williams.....they both have much bigger budgets to outdevelop williams during the season also.....
williams with their ties to mercedes( the wolf family) more than likely has the best costumer version of the mercedes package....that alone will no longer put williams in second in my opinion

This simple logic is flawed. You're talking as if mercedes is standing still with their PU, which they're not.
Even so, best PU or not, williams got beaten by RB and ferrari at the start of season all the time, yet managed to out develop and out race them on pace more often than not in the latter half of the season. All this on maybe half the budget. So again, what makes you think they'll be left behind in 2015?

williams finishing ahead of ferrari and red bull later in the year had zero to do with development and everything to do with their superior pu and williams finding creative ways to throw away good finishes earlier in the year with suspect strategy and plain old bad luck.
ferrari had pu issues and front end issues and never realistically belonged anywhere near the front of the grid.
red bull lucked into a couple wins when mercedes had mechanical issues along with gifts from the safety car.

williams didnt outdevelop anybody...
the major advantage they had over redbull and ferrari was the pu and that was an advantage that could not be challenged due to the 2014 rules.....that is not the case this year.

[Juzh]

the major advantage they had over redbull and ferrari was the pu and that was an advantage that could not be challenged due to the 2014 rules.....that is not the case this year.

They held the same PU advantage from start till finish. Even with their strategy screw ups they didn't stand a change at first few races, but then firmly cemented their place as 2nd fastest towards the end.

[giantfan10]

the major advantage they had over redbull and ferrari was the pu and that was an advantage that could not be challenged due to the 2014 rules.....that is not the case this year.

They held the same PU advantage from start till finish. Even with their strategy screw ups they didn't stand a change at first few races, but then firmly cemented their place as 2nd fastest towards the end.

williams was fast in a straight line and lacked downforce... even they admitted that....you seem to forget who the real williams is....midfield team in finances development and on the track....all they had to do last year was sort out downforce and they couldnt even get that done...having a Pu advantage doesnt suddenly make a team great at everything else..
we will see how the season unfolds but my best guess is mercedes followed by red bull or ferrari then williams

[evered7]

I think Williams should be given credit to their design philosophy. They went with a low drag configuration and it helped them with fuel consumption as well I suppose.

They screwed up in terms of strategy and I have a feeling they didn't want to challenge the Mercs but they maximised their chances with the resource at hand.

This year it will be real test with RB and Ferrari negating some of the advantages of the PU and Ferrari seemingly having the better driver combo compared to Williams. RB = Williams in the driver pairing IMO.

The team that is able to out develop others will win second place this season, considering Merc have at least a second over the second.

[Vasconia]

the major advantage they had over redbull and ferrari was the pu and that was an advantage that could not be challenged due to the 2014 rules.....that is not the case this year.

They held the same PU advantage from start till finish. Even with their strategy screw ups they didn't stand a change at first few races, but then firmly cemented their place as 2nd fastest towards the end.

williams was fast in a straight line and lacked downforce... even they admitted that....you seem to forget who the real williams is....midfield team in finances development and on the track....all they had to do last year was sort out downforce and they couldnt even get that done...having a Pu advantage doesnt suddenly make a team great at everything else..
we will see how the season unfolds but my best guess is mercedes followed by red bull or ferrari then williams

But I think that Williams managed to improve the car, not only with the PU, but also with the chasis. Williams had a better performance in the second half of the season, which is a fact.

I think they deserve more credit because they do a great job with a clearly smaller budget.

[WaikeCU]

What is so great about Williams is that they have made a car which is has low drag and still have great grip and stability. That was already the case back in 2014. That's also the main reasons you see them top the charts on fuel consumption and quite high on the charts of the speed trap. It's all because of the low drag body and the strong Mercedes PU.

[timbo]

Williams definitely deserve credit for choosing a direction which yielded them overall performance (=results) and sticking with it. Don't forget they cleanly beat McLaren with a same PU and budget advantage. And they managed to develop a car as good or better as their rivals, remember F1 is like Red Queen's race, had Williams not been developing (and successfully) their car they'd quickly fall behind (like what usually happens to FI).
I think that is the benefits of having Pat Symonds in the team.
Ferrari OTOH for years has been failing to update car over the year and also invested in areas which didn't produce them much performance. I hope that Allison can provide needed direction. A good indicator over this season would be them maintaining a good development pace and closing the gap to rivals. There are already positive signs in that drivers find the car more driveable, something which Ferrari lacked not only last year, but also before (Massa struggles mid-2013, clear problems with 2012 car).

[giantfan10]

Williams definitely deserve credit for choosing a direction which yielded them overall performance (=results) and sticking with it. Don't forget they cleanly beat McLaren with a same PU and budget advantage. And they managed to develop a car as good or better as their rivals, remember F1 is like Red Queen's race, had Williams not been developing (and successfully) their car they'd quickly fall behind (like what usually happens to FI).
I think that is the benefits of having Pat Symonds in the team.
Ferrari OTOH for years has been failing to update car over the year and also invested in areas which didn't produce them much performance. I hope that Allison can provide needed direction. A good indicator over this season would be them maintaining a good development pace and closing the gap to rivals. There are already positive signs in that drivers find the car more driveable, something which Ferrari lacked not only last year, but also before (Massa struggles mid-2013, clear problems with 2012 car).

they didnt beat mclaren with the same PU... there are levels of support you can get from mercedes the pu manufacturer... im willing to bet williams got a better package than mclaren got.....(wolf part owner of williams and his wife is a test driver at williams counts for something)
mclaren has complained about designing their car with one set of pu specifications in mind and getting a different spec pu from mercedes... i dont believe i have heard williams complain about that... mclaren also complained about access to pu data and a few other things...
only a fool would believe that mercedes would give their competition the exact same engine that they were using after all customer team or not they are the COMPETITION.
i'm just not drinking the williams koolaid.
i also dont really buy into the mercedes fanboy craze saying mercedes is some car with superior aero compared to the other top teams...its all about the PU