Ferrari F2012 Development News Thread

[Rosso Corsa]

But there could still be some changes that we just can't see.

It's possible. We'll see during the weekend I suppose.. Our updates at Singapore didn't make an appearance until free practice. That front wing is new though. Looks cool.

[Tifoso84]

It's possible. We'll see during the weekend I suppose.. Our updates at Singapore didn't make an appearance until free practice. That front wing is new though. Looks cool.

Yea, that front wing is definitely new! The only question now is, how well does it work?

All our questions will soon be answered.

[gjoko-mkd]

The holes indicated have nothing to do with DDRS. The concept of the DDRS is to also reduce the the drag of the lower wing element by forcing or allowing air to fill the low pressure zone under the lower wing element. thereby reducing the drag of that wing. It is the lower pressure under that wing that creates some of the down force at the rear of the car. So take away the down force and the car has less drag.

yes,but this is the first step of DDRS,the second step of reducing drag is blowing the air who came from the holes of lower element of the rear wing ,and put them around the difuzer,which is producing less downforce from rear wing and the difuzer too.that means higher max speed

[Ken]

yes,but this is the first step of DDRS,the second step of reducing drag is blowing the air who came from the holes of lower element of the rear wing ,and put them around the difuzer,which is producing less downforce from rear wing and the difuzer too.that means higher max speed

Yes but achieve that effectively the air passage needs to be from a High pressure zone to the low pressure zone at the rear. Having studied the photographs and enlarged them as far as I could. I could see in those holes what appeared to be fastenings or the tails of bolts. I suspect those holes are only for tool access and taped over when the car is raced ?

[gjoko-mkd]

maybe you are right.in the situation when we are slower then RB,everything in our eyes seems to be chance for a little more speed

[mark p]

maybe you are right.in the situation when we are slower then RB,everything in our eyes seems to be chance for a little more speed

TI reckon the upgrades are all the ones we have seen but tweaked by mm to make them work. They would of had the right philosophy with them from the get go but the data issues meant they were slightly out so did not work. Over the last 7 or so races there have been many little changes and if they can all be made to work they could add up to alot. Sevrral races worth of upgrades coming together in one go. I'm not expecting Spanish gp levels of visual difference.

[anialonso]

If they have a new rear wing then it will appear when they test it not now when the car is sitting around free for anyone to take pics off.

Seem to agree with you..If Ferrari had upgrades they would not showcase it on thursday...
but we will know for sure in FP1..

[Hombre B]

Scarb:

Revised diffuser for Ferrari, the dip below the tail light used to be a straight edge:



Extra heat shielding on the floor for Ferrari, note the louvers in front of the rear tyres:

[wacc]

New RW (without the V-cuts and different shape of slots in end plates):

[wacc]

That new FW is looking similar to the old one except the holes in the end plates:

[Hombre B]

Andrew Benson:

I'm told @alo_oficial kept all developments on car through P2 - ft & rear wings, diffuser, brake ducts. Encouraging for them if that's case

James Allen:

- The Red Bull looked very easy to drive on low fuel, with lots of traction out of low speed corners, while the Ferrari looked the opposite. The car was a real handful for both drivers, with Massa spinning off the circuit twice and Alonso having a few “moments”.

- But the Ferrari looked much better with high fuel.

- ...Sebastian Vettel set his fastest time on the third lap on soft tyres, while Fernando Alonso’s time came after the tyres had done six laps...

- Ferrari has brought a new front wing endplate, new brake ducts and a new diffuser to India, while the Red Bull has only a couple of detail changes, according to the boss Christian Horner.

Source: http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2012/1...lose-in-india/

[Tifoso84]

Looks very interesting
Does anyone notice any changes?

[scuderiafan]

Encouragingly for Ferrari, Alonso set his fastest times with all the new parts on his car - in the three previous races developments intended to improve the car were taken off for second practice after the team discovered they did not work.

[medeni73]

Gary Anderson very pessimistic:

Indian GP: Why Ferrari are struggling - Gary Anderson
By Gary Anderson BBC F1 technical analyst

Ferrari have spent the last few races watching helplessly as a once-commanding championship lead for their driver Fernando Alonso has been turned into a narrow deficit by the revived steamroller that is Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel.

Where Red Bull have significantly improved their car, Ferrari have effectively stood still, and they have been quite open about the fact that they are struggling to introduce new aerodynamic developments.

This, they say, is a result of a lack of correlation between the results they are getting from their wind tunnel, a crucial tool where new parts are tested, and the effect when those new parts are put on the car on the track.


“I don't think the problem Ferrari are trying to fix can be fixed”

That is a major concern - and especially so because it has been going on for two years, with Ferrari intermittently thinking they have got to the bottom of the problem, and then realising again that they haven't.

An F1 car's performance is 80% dictated by aerodynamics. They are developed by a wind tunnel and by using a computer programme known as computational fluid dynamics (CFD) .

If a wind tunnel is running correctly, it is the best way to develop a car, while CFD is a good tool for understanding airflow around the car.

A wind tunnel is a complicated device used to simulate a complicated phenomenon.

In effect, a racing car is travelling at a speed over the track but the mass of the car is moving slower because it is pushing air in front of it, with the exception of the parts that are producing downforce - such as the front wing, diffuser and rear wing, which energise airflow and make it go faster.

What you're trying to do is minimise the amount of air the car is pushing forward and maximise the speed of the airflow over it, because that creates downforce.

In a wind tunnel, you have air being blown by a fan, the road rolling and the car sitting still. It's a very different environment from the track.

You want the airflow in front of the car - what is called the boundary layer - and the rolling road to be at the same speed.

To do that is an absolute nightmare, and they never will be the same.

Another problem is that the size of the models the teams use has increased over the years - most now use a 60% scale model - but the size of the wind tunnels themselves has not.

That can mean that the airflow coming off the car hits the wall or the roof, which changes the airflow over the car.

The result of all that is that, in reality, the wind tunnel and the track will never completely correlate.

To successfully read the wind tunnel results, therefore, the group of people running it has to understand what is important - you need the people there to see past the raw data and understand what it means.

In short, I don't think the problem Ferrari are trying to fix can be fixed. And they created another problem for themselves by going to use another wind tunnel - Toyota's in Germany, left over from the now defunct Toyota works F1 team.

So they have results from one wind tunnel, different results from another, and more results from CFD and they're standing in the middle scratching their heads.

Shutting down their own wind tunnel, as they are going to do, is the right thing. It takes out of the equation one extra thing that can mess them up.

Before India, they also went off and did some straight-line testing. That is very important - you can do a ride-height map and match that to the wind tunnel, you can see when the diffuser and front wing stall more accurately.

You'll see a lot of stuff that will help you understand the aerodynamic map of the car a bit better but you won't see what happens when the driver turns the steering wheel, and that is the important bit. It defines how fast a car goes around a corner.

It's very difficult to simulate how the airflow works as a car goes around a race track, so you need a group of people who can read the data you do get and understand the off-sets. Otherwise, you are wasting all your time at a race track and you'll never get it sorted.

I still believe Ferrari missed the basics of the aerodynamic package of the car this year - the exhaust outlets still compromise the airflow too much in the important 'coke-bottle' area between the rear tyres.

When they changed it for the Spanish Grand Prix in May, they made it better and said there was another step to come. But they haven't taken that next step. Red Bull, by contrast, have developed their car from being not so good at the start of the year, to one that was better and which they could develop further.

Red Bull have been making small changes all the time. You had to look twice to see the change they made to the rear of the sidepods in Korea, but the effect of it was big enough to justify a completely new rear bodywork package, which is not cheap or easy.

And the small amount of change needed to make the 'coke-bottle' work better, Ferrari could do that tomorrow, and make 10 times that change, but they haven't. So there is a lack of vision there in terms of seeing where they're trying to get to with the car.

And that's the main problem. Ferrari lack a visionary - someone like Red Bull's chief technical officer Adrian Newey.

That doesn't mean they can't build a good car. They have - it started bad and it got better. Since the Spanish Grand Prix it has been there or thereabouts, but never actually the quickest.

Combined with Alonso's consistency it was enough to build a decent championship lead by mid-season. But as Red Bull have come on strong, Alonso has lost his advantage - not helped by being taken off at the first corner in two of the last five races.

But as this year has proven, whether that is enough to beat Red Bull over a full season is another matter.

They might have to take a step backwards to go forwards. They stated ahead of this season that they had taken a deliberately aggressive approach to the design of their car. But I don't understand what that is.

You only design something that is going to be better - stiffer, lighter or produces more downforce.

If it isn't at least one of those three things you can be as aggressive as you like, you're not going to progress.

Gary Anderson, BBC F1's technical analyst, is the former technical director of the Jordan, Stewart and Jaguar teams. He was talking to BBC Sport's Andrew Benson.

[OneMoreChance]

Maybe anderson is right.

[dmkevin]

Gary Anderson very pessimistic:

Indian GP: Why Ferrari are struggling - Gary Anderson
By Gary Anderson BBC F1 technical analyst

Ferrari have spent the last few races watching helplessly as a once-commanding championship lead for their driver Fernando Alonso has been turned into a narrow deficit by the revived steamroller that is Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel.

Where Red Bull have significantly improved their car, Ferrari have effectively stood still, and they have been quite open about the fact that they are struggling to introduce new aerodynamic developments.

This, they say, is a result of a lack of correlation between the results they are getting from their wind tunnel, a crucial tool where new parts are tested, and the effect when those new parts are put on the car on the track.


“I don't think the problem Ferrari are trying to fix can be fixed”

That is a major concern - and especially so because it has been going on for two years, with Ferrari intermittently thinking they have got to the bottom of the problem, and then realising again that they haven't.

An F1 car's performance is 80% dictated by aerodynamics. They are developed by a wind tunnel and by using a computer programme known as computational fluid dynamics (CFD) .

If a wind tunnel is running correctly, it is the best way to develop a car, while CFD is a good tool for understanding airflow around the car.

A wind tunnel is a complicated device used to simulate a complicated phenomenon.

In effect, a racing car is travelling at a speed over the track but the mass of the car is moving slower because it is pushing air in front of it, with the exception of the parts that are producing downforce - such as the front wing, diffuser and rear wing, which energise airflow and make it go faster.

What you're trying to do is minimise the amount of air the car is pushing forward and maximise the speed of the airflow over it, because that creates downforce.

In a wind tunnel, you have air being blown by a fan, the road rolling and the car sitting still. It's a very different environment from the track.

You want the airflow in front of the car - what is called the boundary layer - and the rolling road to be at the same speed.

To do that is an absolute nightmare, and they never will be the same.

Another problem is that the size of the models the teams use has increased over the years - most now use a 60% scale model - but the size of the wind tunnels themselves has not.

That can mean that the airflow coming off the car hits the wall or the roof, which changes the airflow over the car.

The result of all that is that, in reality, the wind tunnel and the track will never completely correlate.

To successfully read the wind tunnel results, therefore, the group of people running it has to understand what is important - you need the people there to see past the raw data and understand what it means.

In short, I don't think the problem Ferrari are trying to fix can be fixed. And they created another problem for themselves by going to use another wind tunnel - Toyota's in Germany, left over from the now defunct Toyota works F1 team.

So they have results from one wind tunnel, different results from another, and more results from CFD and they're standing in the middle scratching their heads.

Shutting down their own wind tunnel, as they are going to do, is the right thing. It takes out of the equation one extra thing that can mess them up.

Before India, they also went off and did some straight-line testing. That is very important - you can do a ride-height map and match that to the wind tunnel, you can see when the diffuser and front wing stall more accurately.

You'll see a lot of stuff that will help you understand the aerodynamic map of the car a bit better but you won't see what happens when the driver turns the steering wheel, and that is the important bit. It defines how fast a car goes around a corner.

It's very difficult to simulate how the airflow works as a car goes around a race track, so you need a group of people who can read the data you do get and understand the off-sets. Otherwise, you are wasting all your time at a race track and you'll never get it sorted.

I still believe Ferrari missed the basics of the aerodynamic package of the car this year - the exhaust outlets still compromise the airflow too much in the important 'coke-bottle' area between the rear tyres.

When they changed it for the Spanish Grand Prix in May, they made it better and said there was another step to come. But they haven't taken that next step. Red Bull, by contrast, have developed their car from being not so good at the start of the year, to one that was better and which they could develop further.

Red Bull have been making small changes all the time. You had to look twice to see the change they made to the rear of the sidepods in Korea, but the effect of it was big enough to justify a completely new rear bodywork package, which is not cheap or easy.

And the small amount of change needed to make the 'coke-bottle' work better, Ferrari could do that tomorrow, and make 10 times that change, but they haven't. So there is a lack of vision there in terms of seeing where they're trying to get to with the car.

And that's the main problem. Ferrari lack a visionary - someone like Red Bull's chief technical officer Adrian Newey.

That doesn't mean they can't build a good car. They have - it started bad and it got better. Since the Spanish Grand Prix it has been there or thereabouts, but never actually the quickest.

Combined with Alonso's consistency it was enough to build a decent championship lead by mid-season. But as Red Bull have come on strong, Alonso has lost his advantage - not helped by being taken off at the first corner in two of the last five races.

But as this year has proven, whether that is enough to beat Red Bull over a full season is another matter.

They might have to take a step backwards to go forwards. They stated ahead of this season that they had taken a deliberately aggressive approach to the design of their car. But I don't understand what that is.

You only design something that is going to be better - stiffer, lighter or produces more downforce.

If it isn't at least one of those three things you can be as aggressive as you like, you're not going to progress.

Gary Anderson, BBC F1's technical analyst, is the former technical director of the Jordan, Stewart and Jaguar teams. He was talking to BBC Sport's Andrew Benson.

I hated this guy as he seems to pick up on ferrari all the time... But what he just said I agree 100% and i have been saying this all year... wind tunnel is not really an issue, its the people working for ferrari that arent good enough... Tombadumb is killing us... sorry to come back to him but he hasnt come up with anything good so far... yes we made big progress from start, that was because he just copy and pasted others ideas... There is nothing apart from the radiator, which is in the way of the airflow and the front suspension which i believe is not giving us anything!! so ferrari spent all last year to come up with an initial exhaust solution that didnt work, a sidepod which is still killing us and a front suspension that has no benefit.... Big talk from Tomba... He only talk the talk and cannot walk the talk!!! if it was Lord Sugar he would have said... Tomba you are useless, you havent come up with anything apart from copying your compeititors so Tomba YOU ARE FIRED!!!

[Rosso Corsa]

Gary Anderson, BBC F1's technical analyst, is the former technical director of the Jordan, Stewart and Jaguar teams. He was talking to BBC Sport's Andrew Benson.

The car Gary Anderson produced with Jaguar for the 2000 season produced so much lift, Eddie Irvine had a direct link to air traffic control. Don't listen to Gary.

[medeni73]

The car Gary Anderson produced with Jaguar for the 2000 season produced so much lift, Eddie Irvine had a direct link to air traffic control. Don't listen to Gary.

Not very objective comment..if you dont like the guy it doesnt mean he's talking all BS...I dont like him either cos hes always picky about Ferrari but read the text and you will see that those are the same things we have been discussing here for over 2 years now....

[Rob]

The car Gary Anderson produced with Jaguar for the 2000 season produced so much lift, Eddie Irvine had a direct link to air traffic control. Don't listen to Gary.

[Rosso Corsa]

Not very objective comment..if you dont like the guy it doesnt mean he's talking all BS...I dont like him either cos hes always picky about Ferrari but read the text and you will see that those are the same things we have been discussing here for over 2 years now....

Sorry Medeni, was just a light hearted comment. I'm confident that Ferrari know better than Gary, but perhaps there are some truth's in what he's talking about.

[Tifoso84]

Hate to admit it, but what Gary Anderson said actually makes sense.
We do seem to lack a true visionary. In many ways I feel that Ferrari has slumped back to pre-Schumacher/Brawn/Todt era, when there wasn't any real vision or direction in the team. We seem to be going around circles all the time, without anyone knowing exactly which is the best way to go. I love Ferrari with all my heart and I hate being critical, but we just can't keep going around circles like that. Something needs to be fixed or changed within the team. I don't know exactly where the problem lies, maybe it's the wind tunnel or maybe it's Tombazis or someone else, but we need to get to the bottom of this problem and find solutions to fix it. Otherwise we could keep on going around circles for many more years.

I'm sorry for being critical, but some things just need to be said.

[Rob]

Every team has, but as i said, people want the glory years back and live in past, but F1 is so far away and different to those times and rules. Our time is coming, (4 races time )

[wacc]

New diffuser (there are not only changes in the middle part but also the flap at the sides is modified. It now goes all the way down to the floor):



Old one (also from today):


It seems there is new detail between the two small boards. But we need higher resolution picture to confirm that:



They were using flow wiz around this area:

[gjoko-mkd]

I`v just filled little more lights

[Hornet]

Thanks for the picture and the edited one.

I couldn't spot the difference in the diffuser since it was dark.

[wacc]

Saturday they ran the old dif, but dont know if it is from FP3 or Q.



Nice detail of RB's DDRS.

[F1NAC]

the team dissapointed me this weekend .. All these stories about upgrades and 3 straight line tests and we are far away from RB ... we can say after tomorrow that is all over .. We can turn on 2013. with this car Alonso cannot win the WDC. Yeah many of you will say : Let's see and wait for tomorrow maybe vettel DNF or something but we can not rely on someone's unluck.. I hope you all undrestand me .. I am a hardcore fan of Ferrari for 12 years and i believe our time will come , maybe next season . I am looking forward tomorrow at least finish in front of Maccas

[gjoko-mkd]

Ferari have to put those aero elements.I think those parts canalized air to exhaust and helps Coanda effect to put down the hot air from exhaust to bottom of the car.

[XXX132]

Don't give up 'naca, we are still in the fight. Looks bad, but still plenty to fight for.

[bluesilhouettes]

I think the destination of the airflows through those RB fins is the brake ducts.
And ours is to reduce the airflows to the sidepod intake, maybe our cooling system work so well.