A place to discuss the characteristics of the cars in Formula One, both current as well as historical. Laptimes, driver worshipping and team chatter do not belong here.
Definitely not as tightly packed at the rear as the Ferrari. Another short nosed car though, even though the Ferrari has a long nose cone the entire nose is alot shorter that the 08 car. The drivers are so much closer the the front wheels this year.
Depending on your point of view, I am not at the Toyota launch today, or at least I am where everybody else is looking at it from the internet! I will see the car at Portimao on Monday so i hope to post some info from there.
With next to no technical info on the press pack and no interview until tuesday, we will have to draw our own conclusions on the car.
In terms of layout the team have followed Ferrari and moved the cockpit forward, this moved the rear edge of the cockpit template forwards and hence gives more room for aero around the front of the sidepods.
Toyota’s nose treatment is the inverse to Ferrari and shorter nose with high tip. I doubt there’s a lot to be gained between the two lengths, the longer nose may be easier to pass the crash tests, but the shorter nose will need just as much material to get the same deceleration, so should end up around the same weight. The front wing pylons are neatly merged and the pylons seem so long after years of seeing only low noses (reminds me of the Arrows A22, Super Aguri SA01a). The nose cone carries two vanes attached to its rear edge, these lead back under the tub and feature a serrated profile, certainly a lot neater than the BMW interim cars vanes in this area. The wing drops distinctly between the ‘drawing 7’ template and the outer spans, while its general shape and the flaps seem like an early version of the wing in comparison to McLarens curvy 09 test car wing. The endplates show some innovative thinking the forward upper edges bend out to pick up the airflow and probably produce some downforce in their own right, I would suspect a cascade could extend inboard of these curled sections, which would certainly look dramatic!. The endplates curve outwards in plan view to send flow around the wheel. Which looks like the wheel fairings were fitted in the wrong position, their outlets pointing to 5 o’clock rather than 7 o’clock? Of course McLaren and BMW Sauber have their exits in this position but they have internal ducting on the fairing, not present on the Toyota (the car had the 08 louvered rear wheel fairings). Subjectively the front suspension dihedral angle looks less extreme than on the TF108. The front splitter features two fences running up its edges leading to quite complex axe head area and the small rearward bargeboards. The sidepods are extremely undercut, the upper sections are very rounded, making the visual undercut more pronounced. The sidepod fronts sport a simple pod wing and conventional mirrors.
The sidepod mid section and upper engine cover are fairly conventional, the outlet to the coke bottle area is much less rounded than Ferrari and seems to bulge high over the gearbox\dampers. The exhausts are buried inside the pods and the outlets seems very generously curved to provide some extra cooling outlet area.
The rear crash structure and diffuser look a lot more developed. The beam wing sits on metal uprights and its full span is exposed to the airflow, this element no longer works so tightly with the diffuser and upper rear wing, thus the team appears to be maximising its use. This change needed a lower more complex rear structure. From the limited view of the back of this crash structure there appears to be some attempt to extend the diffuser in the 15cm wide window allowed behind the diffuser.
The KERS story is well publicised, the car will initially race without its electrical battery storage system. What was a surprise was that Luca Marmorini has left the team. He has always seemed so passionate about his engine development and vehemently against design and freeze restriction places on his beloved race engines. I don’t know if he was pushed or jumped, I tend to think he jumped. The future of F1 engine development is in a mess and I doubt he is that excited about what he will be left to develop. He never seemed enthused about the KERS option. Lets hope he goes to another sport that rewards engine development, may be MotoGP (Ducati?) or a Le Mans effort. I will miss chatting to him at F1 events.
It looks like high noses will make a return to F1. This will probably not be the last.
Formula One's fundamental ethos is about success coming to those with the most ingenious engineering and best ..............................organization, not to those with the biggest budget. (Dave Richards)
I LOVE THOSE ENDPLATES! They better get some mirrors mounted on their sidepod shields to legitimize them, because I don't understand how that isnt considered furniture...
I like it, altho not as classy looking as the Ferrari F60. The only thing i like to dislike is those front wing end plated, they look nice and all, but it predict those could slice some rear tyres.
ESPImperium wrote: The only thing i like to dislike is those front wing end plated, they look nice and all, but it predict those could slice some rear tyres.
Maybe that's exactly what they had in mind, just to remind people to keep away from their front wing!!
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. H.P.Lovecraft
