Ferrari and Williams use Toyota windtunnel to improve aerodynamics

During the launch event of the new Ferrari F150, the team revealed that it has been using the Toyota wind tunnel. The team did so to make big aerodynamic gains this year and made the decision to use the Cologne facility to do so.

Aldo Costa said: "There are some FOTA regulation restrictions in terms of expense - which is the cost for the framework, the number of people working in the team, the number of hours spent in the wind tunnel, and also the power of the server for the CFD.

"These are the four restrictions and the last two are connected, so it is up to the team how to spend money, how to employ people and where to work.

"We therefore decided to really focus on the work of the wind tunnel, and one wind tunnel was not enough, we needed one and a little bit more.

"The Toyota tunnel is one of the commercial tunnels that is more state-of-the-art, and that is why we have selected it."

F1Technical can also reveal that besides Ferrari, the Williams F1 Team has also been using the state-of-the-art wind tunnel of Toyota Motorsport to make aerodynamic gains.

Renting out the wind tunnel and the know-how on other aspects of designing and improving a Formula One car has become the core business of Toyota Motorsport. Despite the fact that the team pulled out of the pinnacle of motorsport, the factory, based in Cologne, still has a major influence on F1 thanks to the well equiped infrastructure and the talented engineers.