Ferrari F138

[THENOMAD79]

two wind tunnels, difference correlation data, so where is the problem...wind tunnels or measuring equipments, or maybe something third...like a team who work in wind tunnel.

[diffuser]

Spot on analysis from Gary Anderson regarding F138 Updates..

They are bringing developments to the track - as they did with a new diffuser in Hungary - but they are not using them in races. So all of that research and effort is not being turned into performance. Caution can be a positive when it comes to engineering, but Ferrari are guilty of over-caution.They spent Friday in Hungary trying to compare the new diffuser with the old one. But it is impossible to do so-called back-to-back runs on a part as influential as that with the track changing as quickly as it does in Hungary.That's because you can never be sure what is influencing the changes in car behavior and lap time - is it the track evolution, or the new parts? Sometimes you simply have to have faith in your simulation data, put the part on the car and get on with it.

This is why Ferrari badly need former Lotus technical director James Allison to start work in his new role. They need someone to stand up and make those decisions.
You have to make decisions. They might be wrong, but at least by committing to something you get the bits on the car and get the best out of it that weekend.

I edited what he's saying to get some clarity. When you take out some of the "fluff"... Gary is saying is there is someone at Ferrari making decisions that certain parts don't work and Gary would like that person replaced with Allison that will NOT make that decision and just have "Faith".
Seems to me that it takes balls to stand up to the factory to tell them these parts don't work. Since these guys are scientists, they need facts and not "gut feeling" type stuff. So I can't see them not running the parts without proof.

[Gerhard Berger]

How can a team (especially one like ferrari) go for years without 'correlation problems' and then all of a sudden they do. Mclaren said the same thing at the start of the season. Is it just an excuse for designing a bad car or not having a good enough technical team to keep up with the rest of the front runners?

A clamp down by the FIA on in-season testing / preseason testing...before that all teams were able to test their 2007, 2008 & 2009 cars at SPA, Bahrain, Imola, etc where as now its been restricted to only two tests (Jerez and Barcelona).

Its no secret that Ferrari is one of the few teams that highly depends on in season testing to rectify their aero packages...where as some other teams are able to calculate the effectiveness of aero parts to the nearest measurement of error.

Anyways, on the F138...fundamentally its the perfect base F1 vehicle of 2013...However Ferrari have failed thus far to capitalise on such a great base package Re: Launch spec to now..

Also, pre-2009 Ferrari could use a 100% scale model in the wind tunnel as much they want. Now, they have to use a 60% model.

[turbof1]

The problem is also that development shifted into areas that are highly sensitive for small changes. A few years back development went into for instance bodywork attached to the sidepods, things that gave clearly extra performance. Even if cfd and wind tunnel simulations were somewhat off, there would be net gains.

These days are more about small developments. A slightly different shaped endplate, different angled corners on the diffuser, different exhaust bending,... . Small changes, but because they work in union with the complete package, it is rather easy to make it worse then better.

Just saying: it is next to bans and limitations also due the nature of current development.

[Redragon]

How FIA can control the size of a model in a private wind tunnel? Just wondering about the new facilities at Ferrari.

[bonjon1979]

How FIA can control the size of a model in a private wind tunnel? Just wondering about the new facilities at Ferrari.

People talk. Staff move from team to team. If they were using larger models than they're supposed to it would come out eventually.

[timbo]

Toyota's tunnel might not be best too, Toyota itself rarely shown significant improvement over the course of the season. It might be that it produces reliable general trends but fails when it comes to details.

[Kalsi]

I still cannot understand why they dont kinda "revert" to australia spec car... if you go watch onboard videos from Melbourne and compare them with the recent few races you can see the VERY BIG amount of performance loss under almost EVERY aspect of the car, traction and front downforce in particular...

[wesley123]

Toyota's tunnel might not be best too, Toyota itself rarely shown significant improvement over the course of the season. It might be that it produces reliable general trends but fails when it comes to details.

Afaik Toyota's was one of the better windtunnels in F1. They had those fancy stuff so you could see the wheel wake etc. etc. And yes, Toyota never shown good in season improvement, but is that in the wind tunnel or the team? I think the latter.

[timbo]

Toyota's tunnel might not be best too, Toyota itself rarely shown significant improvement over the course of the season. It might be that it produces reliable general trends but fails when it comes to details.

Afaik Toyota's was one of the better windtunnels in F1. They had those fancy stuff so you could see the wheel wake etc. etc. And yes, Toyota never shown good in season improvement, but is that in the wind tunnel or the team? I think the latter.

From what I read a tunnel technology is sort of black art. It's not like the science behind it is not understood, but rather there are too many factors that contribute and each one is unique. And surely the best tunnel is not the one which has most gimmicks but the one that produces best correlation.

[hollus]

Posting this here since they are obviously having diffuser problems. Mods, feel free to move this to its own thread.
All teams have strakes in the diffuser area, so I think there are no limits to bodywork there. But why are the strakes all more or less vertical? Why not add strakes perpendicular to the vertical strakes and the center section, to better guide the flow? I can imagine they would create some blockage, but if one is having attachment problems, some blockage with good attachment is better.


Edit: Thanks to Timbo below, that pretty much limits you to strakes that are either vertical or horizontal, or somewhere in between, but not both.

[shelly]

IIRC not vertical fences are forbidden by the 2009 rules for diffusers

[timbo]

Posting this here since they are obviously having diffuser problems. Mods, feel free to move this to its own thread.
All teams have strakes in the diffuser area, so I think there are no limits to bodywork there. But why are the strakes all more or less vertical?

If I understand correctly it is because of this article (3.12.7):

No bodywork which is visible from beneath the car and which lies between the rear wheel
centre line and a point 350mm rearward of it may be more than 125mm above the reference
plane. With the exception of the aperture described below, any intersection of the surfaces in this area with a lateral or longitudinal vertical plane should form one continuous line which is
visible from beneath the car.

[Hail22]

From an earlier poster that Ferrari will be testing the F150 Italia for 3 days at Magny cours seems correct.

Article below with translation under link:


http://www.mundodeportivo.com/20130730/ ... 05845.html

Ferrari is making three-day 'test' in Magny Cours to try to regain lost competitiveness, according to Gazzetta dello Sport.

Pedro de la Rosa will run the wheel of a Ferrari F150, used by the Italian team two seasons ago and tires that are not currently used in order to not incur a sports irregularity.

The regulation prohibits conduct tests during the season only if cars are used the current season or earlier.

Nor is it possible to use new parts. In fact, there is a special version of F1 tires, called 'demo, intended for' filming day ', the days when the teams come out onto the track to shoot commercials, or the' road show '.

This test or 'collaudo' was already planned after poor results at Silverstone and Nurburgring Ferrari and the FIA ​​already knew.

Everything indicates that this test you are looking to understand the reasons why the results of wind tunnel and simulator are not reflected during races.

Fernando Alonso in Hungary already complained that the majority of new parts that bring on Fridays should be rejected because it does not bring improvement.

Simone Rea, project of F138 admitted that there is this discrepancy. This was the reason why it was decided 'closed for renovations' wind tunnel work in Maranello and Toyota in Cologne, the most advanced available in F1. So Pedro de la Rosa is at the wheel, as the Barcelona man leads the majority specific weight in trials in the simulator.

[The FOZ]

And yes, Toyota never shown good in season improvement, but is that in the wind tunnel or the team? I think the latter.

Absolutely the latter. Running a F1 team from Cologne certainly impairs the team's ability to attract and maintain top engineering talent.

Additionally, Toyota were far too conservative - design by committee, see what others do, then attempt to understand it from first principles, then reproduce it, then test it...if you're not gaining half a second per race, you're ultimately losing ground to the teams that ARE.

2009 was a prime example. Toyota started with a working DDD, so clearly their tunnel wasn't THAT bad. Race by race they slipped further down the pecking order, and by Monaco they qualified DFL. Unless the tunnel had some sort of progressive problem that got worse over the course of the season...my money is on "the people were the problem"