2017 Scuderia Ferrari F1 Team - Ferrari

[godlameroso]

Congratulations to the first team to win a race in new F1 aero era. What do you guys think has made Ferrari slash more than half a second per lap compared to Mercedes between seasons?

Simple Ferrari has an engine that lets them compete. Mercedes engine is still better but it's not enough that a good chassis can compensate for the deficit.

At the same time, Albert Park is a very unique circuit and winning here doesn't guarantee a win in more normal circuits. If Ferrari has similar pace in Shanghai or Bahrain I'll be impressed, but I expect things to swing in Mercedes favor on tilkedromes with more emphasis on engine power, and more towards Ferrari on more aero dependent tracks. I wouldn't be surprised to see Mercedes win the next two races, then Ferrari again in Sochi.

What really worries me is the rate of development of other teams. No way have we reached the limits of these new regulations. Other cars seem plain in comparison what happens when other cars reach a similar level of complexity?

[Juzh]

At the same time, Albert Park is a very unique circuit and winning here doesn't guarantee a win in more normal circuits.

True, lets hope this is not a repeat of Raikkonen's 2013 melbourne victory.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Mercedes win the next two races, then Ferrari again in Sochi.

Sochi is a massively engine heavy track, along the lines of monza, simply because there's so many long acceleration zones. You got it mixed up here.

[godlameroso]

That's up for debate, sector 3 is all low speed, and most if not all the turns in sectors 1 & 2 are medium speed, the straights are not so long, and braking is more important than engine grunt. The McLaren got 6th there but got destroyed in the engine tracks like Candada, Baku, Italy, Mexico and Shanghai.

[ferkan]

Great win for the Scuderia. The restructured organization -- remarkably -- really worked. Don't know if I agree that Rory Byrne made a difference -- isn't he about 72-73 years old?

I hope this car is a result of team working rather han Byrne´s magic design. Because is this design is mainly made by Rory, what the hell is going Ferrari to do without him?

Pretty sure its work of Simone Resta, Cardile and Sanchez.

[basti313]

That's up for debate, sector 3 is all low speed, and most if not all the turns in sectors 1 & 2 are medium speed, the straights are not so long, and braking is more important than engine grunt. The McLaren got 6th there but got destroyed in the engine tracks like Candada, Baku, Italy, Mexico and Shanghai.

I do not think that the engine will make the difference at all and so I think you are going into the wrong direction with this discussion. To me it looked quite clear, that Merc has a big Q advantage, roughly half a second. But Ferrari is much better on the tire usage during the race. If we take this as the difference, the Ferrari will not stand a chance in Sochi but may have a good chance in tire eating circuits.

The situation reminds me very much of 2012. At this time the Bulls had a Q advantage of half a second, maybe more on everyone else. During the race the Ferrari was a rocket ship, but until it had cleared the traffic the Bulls were gone. Sometimes the McLaren was also in front and stealing points from them. This time the path is free without anyone in between so far. So if the Bulls stay weak and Bottas some tenth behind Ham in Q, Vettel might be a real pain for Ham.

[ripper]

You have also to think that Mercedes didn't use their "2017 suspension system" but the 2016 version. We still don't know how much did it cost to them and if they will use it in future.

Anyway it looks like that there's a solid base to develop, but we know that it's one of the biggest problem that Ferrari had last seasons, only the engine department did steady and solid progresses.

I can't wait to see next couple of races in order to see real values

[Juzh]

That's up for debate, sector 3 is all low speed, and most if not all the turns in sectors 1 & 2 are medium speed, the straights are not so long, and braking is more important than engine grunt. The McLaren got 6th there but got destroyed in the engine tracks like Candada, Baku, Italy, Mexico and Shanghai.

I disagree, it's not up for debate at all. As soon as the cars hit the track in 2014 it was obvious sochi is a power track. There's 2 very long straights and a bunch of low speed exits onto medium long straights which kills you instantly if you're as much as 20 bhp down on ultimate power. Not to mention merc's continuous ERS advantage which at this point I do not think will ever be overcome by other power units.

Remember all the ramblings pre-season how ferrari supposedly improved their ERS? As it turns out, they still had nothing on mercedes in quali (far from it in fact), and renault has flat out reverted back to 2016 unit. Honda is not even worth mentioning.

[godlameroso]

That's up for debate, sector 3 is all low speed, and most if not all the turns in sectors 1 & 2 are medium speed, the straights are not so long, and braking is more important than engine grunt. The McLaren got 6th there but got destroyed in the engine tracks like Candada, Baku, Italy, Mexico and Shanghai.

I disagree, it's not up for debate at all. As soon as the cars hit the track in 2014 it was obvious sochi is a power track. There's 2 very long straights and a bunch of low speed exits onto medium long straights which kills you instantly if you're as much as 20 bhp down on ultimate power. Not to mention merc's continuous ERS advantage which at this point I do not think will ever be overcome by other power units.

Ferrari says that they can deploy for 50 seconds around Barcelona, I don't think Mercedes has an ERS advantage, probably a slight power advantage, and a less draggy car.

[Juzh]

That's up for debate, sector 3 is all low speed, and most if not all the turns in sectors 1 & 2 are medium speed, the straights are not so long, and braking is more important than engine grunt. The McLaren got 6th there but got destroyed in the engine tracks like Candada, Baku, Italy, Mexico and Shanghai.

I disagree, it's not up for debate at all. As soon as the cars hit the track in 2014 it was obvious sochi is a power track. There's 2 very long straights and a bunch of low speed exits onto medium long straights which kills you instantly if you're as much as 20 bhp down on ultimate power. Not to mention merc's continuous ERS advantage which at this point I do not think will ever be overcome by other power units.

Ferrari says that they can deploy for 50 seconds around Barcelona, I don't think Mercedes has an ERS advantage, probably a slight power advantage, and a less draggy car.

50s is an arbitrary made up number. It's quite clear from the onboards that ferrari runs out of ers much sooner than mercedes does.
Please stop saying ferrari is a draggy car. There's ZERO proper evidence suggesting that actually is the case. I love how this argument always gets thrown around just for the sake of it.

[ferkan]

I don't really buy that tbh, and I didn't really see issues with ERS deployment with Ferrari, even though its delicate thing to get just right amount of ICE power and ERS deployment. Even 10-20hp difference with these engines will result in 2 tenths on track per lap. In theory, that is little, in practice its exactly what you are seeing with Merc and Ferrari.

Now, last year that was definitely true with Ferrari and its depleted batteries, but both Ferrari and RBR qualified very close to Mercs on track that completely destroyed cars not running Merc PU a year before.

[SR71]

It seems that it really brings luck

https://i.redditmedia.com/Eu_ApTY5xsWhW ... 2f7a6a2c36

What is the context of this photo? That doesn't look like a friendly "we miss you chap" sort of embrace from the RB team member....

[F1ern]

It seems that it really brings luck

https://i.redditmedia.com/Eu_ApTY5xsWhW ... 2f7a6a2c36

What is the context of this photo? That doesn't look like a friendly "we miss you chap" sort of embrace from the RB team member....

It was friendly actually. They were smileing and joking after this picture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU2WzkgwISc

[F1NAC]

It seems that it really brings luck

https://i.redditmedia.com/Eu_ApTY5xsWhW ... 2f7a6a2c36

What is the context of this photo? That doesn't look like a friendly "we miss you chap" sort of embrace from the RB team member....

The poinr is circled logo Quadrifoglio. Sport division from Alfa Romeo.

[Big Mangalhit]

That's up for debate, sector 3 is all low speed, and most if not all the turns in sectors 1 & 2 are medium speed, the straights are not so long, and braking is more important than engine grunt. The McLaren got 6th there but got destroyed in the engine tracks like Candada, Baku, Italy, Mexico and Shanghai.

I disagree, it's not up for debate at all. As soon as the cars hit the track in 2014 it was obvious sochi is a power track. There's 2 very long straights and a bunch of low speed exits onto medium long straights which kills you instantly if you're as much as 20 bhp down on ultimate power. Not to mention merc's continuous ERS advantage which at this point I do not think will ever be overcome by other power units.

Remember all the ramblings pre-season how ferrari supposedly improved their ERS? As it turns out, they still had nothing on mercedes in quali (far from it in fact), and renault has flat out reverted back to 2016 unit. Honda is not even worth mentioning.

But surely ERS matters the less during qualifying and most during sustained race mode?

In quali you can always force the MGU-K and H to fully charge batteries at the expense of fuel in the out lap and minimise harvesting cause it's only one lap and there is no fuel limit (except flow obviously). So a good ERS harvesting matters only in race which is where Ferrari seem to be closer to Mercedes (albeit probably because of other factors).

[f1316]

Yeah, I don't see the evidence that ferrari ERS is down on Mercedes'.

Not that I'm saying it definitely isn't but I think there's as much evidence of this as there of relative drag levels (I.e. None). It certainly didn't seem evident on the on-boards I saw.

Side/trivial note: they say a quick car is a beautiful car but despite how quick the SF70 is, I still find myself wishing the livery was Rosso Corsa and that the Mercedes nose had proved better for them (although obviously prefer an ugly nose that works with their aero concept than a pretty one that doesn't pp).