Ferrari 667 Speculation Thread

[Mr.G]

Due to some weird regulation loop hole Ferrari managed to find.

RedBull doing that with Tororosso for years and now when Ferrari has the chance its called "weird regulation loop hole"?

[krisfx]

Due to some weird regulation loop hole Ferrari managed to find.

RedBull doing that with Tororosso for years and now when Ferrari has the chance its called "weird regulation loop hole"?

Iirc, 2009 was the last year of that.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

Due to some weird regulation loop hole Ferrari managed to find.

RedBull doing that with Tororosso for years and now when Ferrari has the chance its called "weird regulation loop hole"?

It is one thing to find an avenue of testing, but it is another to actually have creative IDEAS, implement them and then test. I doubt if they really have brains on aerodynamics whose ideas they can perfected using this avenue. Red Bull, not sure how much they used the opportunity of Toro Rosso, had enormous strength and depth in aerodynamics. Mercedes, without any such avenues has managed to rival Red Bull (not outsmart). So, it's about ideas, not just about an avenue of testing. I would not be surprised if Ferrari remains a distant second or even third this year. In the past too, we have heard loads of BS in winter. They couldn't show a great progress through in season development last year. I hope this is not another crap like 70% new car of last year.

[ME4ME]

Due to some weird regulation loop hole Ferrari managed to find.

RedBull doing that with Tororosso for years and now when Ferrari has the chance its called "weird regulation loop hole"?

That's rubbish. Ferrari had the opportunity because Haas F1 wasn't bound by F1 regulations and thus could test unlimited. This window of opportunity ended 1 January 2016, as Haas entered F1. Toro Rosso has been in F1 for years and has had limited wind tunnel hours like every other team. Although certain collaboration is possible, Red Bull can't just steal all wind tunnel time and let the sister team starve development wise.

[Mr.G]

I'm not 100% sure, but was back then windtunel testing time so limited?

[giantfan10]

Due to some weird regulation loop hole Ferrari managed to find.

RedBull doing that with Tororosso for years and now when Ferrari has the chance its called "weird regulation loop hole"?

It is one thing to find an avenue of testing, but it is another to actually have creative IDEAS, implement them and then test. I doubt if they really have brains on aerodynamics whose ideas they can perfected using this avenue. Red Bull, not sure how much they used the opportunity of Toro Rosso, had enormous strength and depth in aerodynamics. Mercedes, without any such avenues has managed to rival Red Bull (not outsmart). So, it's about ideas, not just about an avenue of testing. I would not be surprised if Ferrari remains a distant second or even third this year. In the past too, we have heard loads of BS in winter. They couldn't show a great progress through in season development last year. I hope this is not another crap like 70% new car of last year.

you think the fact that Mercedes started developing their car waaay before ferrari and red bull has anything to do with the pecking order right now? the engine program they spent half a billion on waay before any other engine manufacturer have anything to do with them being out front the past 2 years?
where were these so called ideas when Mercedes was finishing 4th,5th and 2nd in the championship?
how did Ferrari go from fourth in the championship to beating mercedes 3 times last year and splitting their cars on more than one other occasion ?? blind luck?
red bulls great aero have anything to do with the fact that they have one of if not the largest budgets in F1 but spend a minimal amount of it on purchasing an engine,close to ZERO dollars on engine development and most of it on aero development??
stick to reality.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

RedBull doing that with Tororosso for years and now when Ferrari has the chance its called "weird regulation loop hole"?

It is one thing to find an avenue of testing, but it is another to actually have creative IDEAS, implement them and then test. I doubt if they really have brains on aerodynamics whose ideas they can perfected using this avenue. Red Bull, not sure how much they used the opportunity of Toro Rosso, had enormous strength and depth in aerodynamics. Mercedes, without any such avenues has managed to rival Red Bull (not outsmart). So, it's about ideas, not just about an avenue of testing. I would not be surprised if Ferrari remains a distant second or even third this year. In the past too, we have heard loads of BS in winter. They couldn't show a great progress through in season development last year. I hope this is not another crap like 70% new car of last year.

you think the fact that Mercedes started developing their car waaay before ferrari and red bull has anything to do with the pecking order right now? the engine program they spent half a billion on waay before any other engine manufacturer have anything to do with them being out front the past 2 years?
where were these so called ideas when Mercedes was finishing 4th,5th and 2nd in the championship?
how did Ferrari go from fourth in the championship to beating mercedes 3 times last year and splitting their cars on more than one other occasion ?? blind luck?
red bulls great aero have anything to do with the fact that they have one of if not the largest budgets in F1 but spend a minimal amount of it on purchasing an engine,close to ZERO dollars on engine development and most of it on aero development??
stick to reality.

I hope you understand that the budgets are different for a Race team and for Engine division. I hope you do. So don't club it. The racing team budgets of Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari have always been quite similar. Mercedes started off with very small budget. In fact, that is the fundamental parameter on which Norbert Haug convinced Daimler board to buy BrawnGP as it was a small and successful team. The sponsor money and free engine that they were giving to McLaren for gaining publicity in auto market, was much higher than the investment than to have their own race team. So the board agreed. Based on the struggles and failures of 2010 and 2011, it took a lot of convincing on Brawn's part to help the board understand the need for extra budget. Even after rise, the Mercedes budgets for racing team have stayed lower than the aforementioned. They were the ones who were fighting for Resource Restriction Agreement, more than any other big team.
It was only in late 2011 that the manufacturers reached a consensus on the engine specification as there was a lot of argument between 1.8 Litre and 1.6 Litre and the extent of hybrid components. It was essentially, a two and half years of time frame to get the engines ready for 2014. Mercedes was on a big struggle in 2012 with respect to their car and that wasn't the base for 2014 either, especially as the whole geometry of the car was set to change for 2014. So "Waaaayyyy" ahead doesn't make any sense.
It was Ferrari who badly wanted the regulations to change as they were suffering with 2009 changes that made F1 aero intensive. They pushed the lobby, so they were the ones who were ready to invest. Obviously, if they wanted the change, they should have utilized it to their benefit. Mercedes wasn't in the power broker list then.
Mercedes has jumped from being 4th and 5th to win 2 consecutive championships and Ferrari hasn't won a title in almost a decade. So naturally, despite having huge budgets, they haven't managed to achieve a title. If it was one or two years, understandable, but almost a decade? The previous management is gone; First year of transformation is over; This year, they would not have any excuses. Ferrari's rise to second last year, has to do with their Power unit improvement and there was nothing path breaking about aero. Whenever opportunities arised, Red Bull has shown how good their car is. What better evidence you need that Red Bull will thump both Mercedes and Ferrari if either one provides them, even a customer car, that they have rejected to provide? Red Bull still leads the field in aero and Mercedes has picked up pace. But Ferrari?

[turbof1]

@GPR-A, I agree mostly, with the exception of this:

It was only in late 2011 that the manufacturers reached a consensus on the engine specification as there was a lot of argument between 1.8 Litre and 1.6 Litre and the extent of hybrid components. It was essentially, a two and half years of time frame to get the engines ready for 2014. Mercedes was on a big struggle in 2012 with respect to their car and that wasn't the base for 2014 either, especially as the whole geometry of the car was set to change for 2014. So "Waaaayyyy" ahead doesn't make any sense.

There were plans before 2011 for a V4 double turbo with very similar energy recovery systems we see today (and ironically as I have been told, that platform was more powerful then what we see today). Mercedes actually started investing, and investing heavily, in developing the PU we see today, back in 2010. Even with a completely different ICE and turbo layout in 2011, a lot of the development work was transferable to the V6 single turbo.

I think they were ahead. "Way ahead" is subjective however, but there was an astounding belief all across the Mercedes F1 departments that 2014 would be their year (although they did not expect with such dominance).

[Big Mangalhit]

...Ferrari's rise to second last year, has to do with their Power unit improvement and there was nothing path breaking about aero...

According to an interview in the beginning of last year with Allison, the ´15 improvements were 60% engine and 40% chassis. So although I agree that most improvements were in fact engine and maybe suspension I still think there was big gains in aero from the heavily flawed and unbalanced F14T. Especially if we compare the two in the hands of Kimi.

[turbof1]

Ferrari definitely moved away from their unique interpretations of the aerodynamics, and moved to the ideas and concepts used across the field. It did pay dividends.

[hurril]

@GPR-A, I agree mostly, with the exception of this:

It was only in late 2011 that the manufacturers reached a consensus on the engine specification as there was a lot of argument between 1.8 Litre and 1.6 Litre and the extent of hybrid components. It was essentially, a two and half years of time frame to get the engines ready for 2014. Mercedes was on a big struggle in 2012 with respect to their car and that wasn't the base for 2014 either, especially as the whole geometry of the car was set to change for 2014. So "Waaaayyyy" ahead doesn't make any sense.

There were plans before 2011 for a V4 double turbo with very similar energy recovery systems we see today (and ironically as I have been told, that platform was more powerful then what we see today). Mercedes actually started investing, and investing heavily, in developing the PU we see today, back in 2010. Even with a completely different ICE and turbo layout in 2011, a lot of the development work was transferable to the V6 single turbo.

I think they were ahead. "Way ahead" is subjective however, but there was an astounding belief all across the Mercedes F1 departments that 2014 would be their year (although they did not expect with such dominance).

I'd like to know more about that older configuration of Mercedes'; do you know more about it that you could tell us about? Any online resources?

[turbof1]

I only know what I have been told; details unfortunaly are mostly kept inside the company and will probably never see the daylight .

(btw, made a slight mistake in my previous post: it's not a V4, but an i4.)

[hurril]

I only know what I have been told; details unfortunaly are mostly kept inside the company and will probably never see the daylight .

(btw, made a slight mistake in my previous post: it's not a V4, but an i4.)

Ack, well I guess that's the story. F1 has never been this interesting (to me.)

[ringo]

Now motorsport: http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/techn ... es-668712/

Is commenting on the potential changes to the Ferrari power unit. One thing that stuck out for me was the mention of going to up 300 bar pressure. I'm sure I read someone on here say that everyone wishes to get closer to 500, however, later in the article it talks about 500 bar pressure for the injectors, so I guess the 300 bar pressure in the combustion chamber is different.

Be careful that you might be mixing up fuel pressure with combustion chamber pressure.

300 bar combustion pressure is very high. I would suspect that the pressures are currently around 250 to 260 bar. I would have to check when i get home.

[shady]

"One target that has been set has been to reach a 300 bar pressure in the combustion chamber, much higher than last year's figures that were understood to be around 220-240 bar."

Directly from the article. emphasis; mine.