Scuderia Ferrari SF70H

[enjaybel3]

There is nothing God can do it! It is up to R&D team

Correct, everyone knows there's no such thing as God, it's only the Easter Bunny that can help us now

Sent from my VIE-L29 using Tapatalk

[Imperatore]

It will be interesting to see how the car is at Spa, i really pray they will improve so Seb can have a chance.

[dfunk257]

I hope that Maurizio/Binotto story is all crap cause its the last thing we need right now. What we need is to improve our car so we can continue beating Merc, nothing else should matter until the championship is won, especially egos!

[IulianFerrari]

I hope that Maurizio/Binotto story is all crap cause its the last thing we need right now. What we need is to improve our car so we can continue beating Merc, nothing else should matter until the championship is won, especially egos!

If true, I think Marchionne should step in and put an end to this, at least until the end of the season. Everything stays the same until then.

[zike]

Did Ferrari do a test for pirelli today?

[jgonzalesm6]

Did Ferrari do a test for pirelli today?

yup, GIO at the wheel. He did 152 laps.

[zike]

yup, GIO at the wheel. He did 152 laps.

Nice, with sf70h?

[jgonzalesm6]

Nice, with sf70h?

of course.

[enjaybel3]

If true, I think Marchionne should step in and put an end to this, at least until the end of the season. Everything stays the same until then.

It depends on how any points of difference between Maurizio and Binotto are conducted. It's a good and necessary thing to have alternative options and views - set-based design is dependent on it. If your team members, at all levels are hungry, humble and civilly smart then IMO we want to encourage different views, ideas and solutions to be put forward, evaluated and dissected.

[nani_s23]

yup, GIO at the wheel. He did 152 laps.

I think Charles Leclerc too done testing on those tyres for 2nd day.

[mizf1]

I think Charles Leclerc too done testing on those tyres for 2nd day.

1,200km programme# , I'm not sure if they are allowed to test/validate any upgrades but a mammoth amount of mileage covered

http://www.gptoday.com/full_story/vi..._in_Barcelona/

[nani_s23]

1,200km programme# , I'm not sure if they are allowed to test/validate any upgrades but a mammoth amount of mileage covered

http://www.gptoday.com/full_story/vi..._in_Barcelona/

No new parts or upgrades. It's just pirelli 2018 tyres testing programme

[zike]

No new parts or upgrades. It's just pirelli 2018 tyres testing programme

I believe you can learn a lot by doing 1,200km.... Regardless of the tyres

[mizf1]

I believe you can learn a lot by doing 1,200km.... Regardless of the tyres

Yep, the more you run the more you understand your car and fine tune it.

[Jax]

A thought :

Vettel got unlucky twice with safety cars costing him better results early in the season, then there's having his wing taken off by mad max in canada costing him a podium, then there's Bottas with his 'legal' false start when and the puncture at Silverstone. Even if Lewis had won in Baku Vettel would still be 20+ odd points ahead if we are using the age old 'luck is costing me the the title' shtick...

[JPBD]

Don't know about anyone else; but I am SUPER excited to see the cars again post-break. Let's hope for some good developments and even more innovations from our amazing team this year!

[mizf1]

1 week down, 3 more to go

Ferrari know where they have to improve, the next 2 tracks might play to Mercedes strenghts but something tells me we will be challenging.

[zike]

1 week down, 3 more to go

Ferrari know where they have to improve, the next 2 tracks might play to Mercedes strenghts but something tells me we will be challenging.

Noooooo

I thought two weeks had already passed

[mizf1]

Can anyone please copy and paste this article.

Thanks

http://www.autosport.com/premium/fea...e-summer-break

[JPBD]

Can anyone who is technically minded assist:

The monkey seat is designed in such a way that a low pressure area is present under the rear wing to increase the "suction" effect of the low-pressure zone...

If they cascaded the winglets of the monkey seat in the reverse order (downwards) would it have an affect on the performance of the diffuser? For example, could that pocket of warm air increase the low pressure zone created by the diffuser? I'm assuming the answer is no otherwise the teams would have done it... I ask after watching the scarbs video and someone said the rear wing is much less effective than the diffuser... so I wondered if there was a way to increase the performance of the diffuser with the monkey seat, instead of having it interact with the wing. Or is it simply too far behind it to make any difference??

[ramesh]

Ranking the F1 teams at the summer break
As Formula 1 enjoys its traditional summer break before reconvening in Belgium at the end of August, our technical expert digs deep to work out who is starring and who is struggling

By Gary Anderson
Published on Tuesday August 8th 2017
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The major change in technical regulations for this season was always going to test the teams' engineering structures in terms of how they deal with change, rather than just working on the optimisation of a theme. After the first half of the season, a picture is starting to emerge.

Performance of some of the teams seems to be more circuit-specific than it has been in the past. I think this is down to everyone finding their feet in terms of what aerodynamic efficiency levels to accept for the new regulations.

Lots more downforce is available from the front wing, bargeboard, underfloor and larger rear wing areas, but the wider tyres increase the car's overall drag levels. The big question is what drag level is acceptable when signing off aerodynamic components.

This quandary, combined with larger and theoretically grippier tyres means the goalposts of what was acceptable in 2016 have changed. The tyres themselves appear to be more durable than they were last year, although I'm not sure the grip increase that should have come with tyres around 25% wider has actually been delivered.

This will wash itself out by 2018, but for the rest of this season it's going to be the teams who can develop best in the areas they have a deficit that will benefit the most.

For example, as far as out-and-out performance is concerned, Ferrari was blown away by Mercedes at Silverstone - a fast and reasonably high-downforce circuit. Mercedes was blown away by Ferrari in Monaco and Hungary, which are both slow, ultra-high-downforce circuits that require mechanical compliance and hence mechanical grip.

So, let's analyse the performance of the teams in 2017 so far. To do this I've converted each team's fastest individual lap time of a race weekend into a percentage of the single quickest lap. This enables us to weight each of the races equally since the scale is the same.
How the 2017 F1 field stacks up
Measuring the outright pace of each car so far this season

This gives us a performance number for each team, but we also need to dig deep into where and why certain cars have performed well and badly.

We'll also look at which driver for the team has been ahead most times on pure pace (based on fastest individual lap of the weekend rather than only qualifying) and ahead in the race more often (only counting those in which neither driver had a serious problem). Each driver's points haul as a percentage of the maximum is also looked at.

The teams are listed in pace order, rather than championship order.
The lead battle
Comparing the pace of Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull
Click on the labels above to add or remove teams

1 Mercedes - 100.043%
Change from 2016: 0.032% loss
Points: 357
Pure pace: Hamilton 6-5 Bottas
Race: Hamilton 6-5 Bottas
Points: Hamilton 188-169 Bottas
Points share: Hamilton 53%-47% Bottas

Mercedes has lost a tiny amount, but in general it has done a great job of adapting to the 2017 regulations. The car, which has a longer wheelbase than its rivals and a package that has a little more power than its immediate competitors do, is especially suited to the fast, flowing tracks. There are more of those in any given season than slow tracks.

Mercedes has had to bite the bullet and accept second best on a few occasions, notably in Monaco and Hungary, but in general its performance this year, and over the three preceeding seasons, has been exceptional.

Mercedes is a true two-car team and either of drivers is there to pick up the pieces in qualifying or the race if the other one has a bad day at the office.

Developments for the upcoming races will be vitally important, but I will stick my neck out and say Mercedes is the team for the drivers' and constructors' championships.

2 Ferrari - 100.308%
Change from 2016: 0.569% gain
Points: 318
Pure pace: Vettel 8-3 Raikkonen
Race: Vettel 9-1 Raikkonen
Points: Vettel 202-116 Raikkonen
Points share: Vettel 64%-36% Raikkonen

Ferrari has taken a major step forward for 2017 and joined the fight at the front. But is it enough?

Its car concept, with short sidepods, increases the bargeboard area and allows more room for the front-tyre turbulence to be managed in a more positive way. When you do this, developments hinge on your own understanding of the airflow in this area and having a look at what others are up to is a bit of a waste of time.

Ferrari needs a bit more overall aerodynamic efficiency for the fast, flowing circuits, and with that a bit more grunt from the engine wouldn't go amiss. Everyone wants the same thing, but if Ferrari really is to take the fight to Mercedes over the second half of the season it's needed quickly.

As the numbers above show, on average out-and-out performance, Ferrari is still behind Mercedes by a significant amount.

Also, the difference between its drivers' performance is significant. If the car is not best suited for a given circuit, Raikkonen seems to struggle more than Vettel and in the race Vettel has the pace to mix it with the best. Yes, Ferrari has not been totally fair with Raikkonen, but even if it had then Vettel would still come out on top.

Ferrari gets a huge loyalty payment from F1, so in reality the constructors' title doesn't matter as much to it financially as it does to the others. It's a team that thrives on drivers' championships, and that is what Ferrari wants out of 2017. But I'm not so sure Ferrari will get it.

3 Red Bull - 101.179%
Change from 2016: 0.326% loss
Points: 184
Pure pace: Ricciardo 4-7 Verstappen
Races: Ricciardo 1-2 Verstappen
Points: Ricciardo 117-67 Verstappen
Points share: Ricciardo 64%-36% Verstappen

With major aerodynamic changes for 2017, a lot was expected from Red Bull and design guru Adrian Newey. But Red Bull wasn't really there at the start of the season and was under more pressure to hold on to 'best of the rest' than to fight at the front.

During pre-season testing in Spain, I said the car lacked the 'wow' factor. None of the bits were exciting, sophisticated or innovative, but as the season has progressed the car has found its wings (no pun intended).

At the start of the season, Red Bull claimed it had gone for lower downforce and maximum efficiency. But when it realised this was the wrong direction, it started adding bits to increase downforce. More of that gets the tyres working better, and since they're the bits that connect the car to the ground, if you get more from them you will go faster.

Red Bull needs to maintain this trend and, instead of hammering Renault constantly, needs to work with it to get the best from the whole package. Sometimes Red Bull seems surprised by how good the car is and other times by how bad it is. This doesn't bode well when trying to define development direction.

Red Bull has a strong driver pairing. Verstappen has that little bit more speed but Ricciardo is a strong and consistent racer.

Eight retirements is an abysmal record for any team, let alone one that wants to challenge for the championship. So its development direction needs to be focused on this area as well as finding more speed.
The rest
The fluctuating pace of the midfield teams in 2017
Click on the labels above to add or remove teams

4 Renault - 102.353%
Change from 2016: 0.855% gain
Points: 26
Pure pace: Hulkenberg 11-0 Palmer
Races: Hulkenberg 4-2 Palmer
Points: Hulkenberg 26-0 Palmer
Points share: Hulkenberg 100%-0% Palmer

Renault has been on a team-building exercise since buying Enstone back from Genii Capital, and last year was never going to be easy. That means this season could only be better, and although it didn't start so well there are now signs of improvement.

Renault's performance in the past couple of races has been impressive, and it has its sights set on fifth in the constructors' championship. This is achievable, since it is only 15 points behind Williams, but it will need to bring some positive developments to the car and hope Williams, Toro Rosso and Haas flounder.

When I had a close look at the car at Silverstone, it seemed to me that Renault was an underfunded team. Everything just looked a bit tatty, repaired and touched up. Hopefully that was just a bad impression that I got, because Formula 1 needs more teams challenging at the front, and as a works team that is where Renault needs to set its sights.

In Nico Hulkenberg, it has one of the best drivers in the pitlane. To this day I have no idea why he is not in a top team. But that said, it means that looking at the numbers above Renault is a one-car team.

Yes, Palmer has had a nightmare so far as race results are concerned, but if you have the talent it will show up somewhere over the season in pure pace.

5 Force India - 102.402%
Change from 2016: 0.683% loss
Points: 101
Pure pace: Perez 9-2 Ocon
Races: Perez 8-2 Ocon
Points: Perez 56-45 Ocon
Points share: Perez 55%-45% Ocon

Finishing fourth last year was a great effort from this small privateer team, which has a great group of people from the engineers through to the cleaners. It gets more from less.

Hanging on to fourth was never going to be easy, but Force India is relatively comfortable in that position and has a few more points compared with this point in 2016. It won't be easy to stay there, but a little more out-and-out speed should allow it to continue to build a cushion if it can qualify better than the others.

The car isn't always as quick as its championship position indicates, but the team is strong and consistent on race day - even if its two drivers have done their best to throw away points on a few occasions.

Ocon and Perez are well-matched, but the Mexican just comes out on top with his experience. But they need their heads banged together and realise the team is bigger than both of them. Each driver needs to respect the other while entrusted with Force India's cars.

6 Williams - 102.531%
Change from 2016: 0.822% loss
Points: 41
Pure pace: Massa 9-1 Stroll
Races: Massa 5-0 Stroll
Points: Massa 23-18 Stroll
Points share: Massa 56%-44% Stroll

Williams was a pole position and race-win challenger to Mercedes in 2014, so its slide downwards has been hard to believe. The car has never really worked on slow or low-grip circuits, but back in '14 its fast-circuit performance compensated for that.

I often say you need to understand where your problems are before you can fix them, but Williams seems to have kept developing in the same conceptual direction blindly and retained, or even made worse, the poor slow and low-grip performance. At the same time, its fast circuit performance seems to be being lost.

Something is fundamentally wrong with its engineering understanding and direction, and this will give new chief technical officer Paddy Lowe something to get his teeth into.

For this season, Williams needs to identify what is wrong quickly and put developments in place to reduce the risk of Toro Rosso and maybe even Renault leapfrogging ahead. If Williams can do this, it will learn a lot for 2018.

Driver-wise, Massa is as always doing a strong job, and Williams knew what it was getting into when Stroll came on board. He is doing a reasonable job and has brought Williams its only podium finish of 2017, so there is potential for the future but drivers need a better car before they can show their true talent.

7 Toro Rosso - 102.625%
Change from 2016: 0.425% loss
Points: 39
Pure speed: Sainz 7-4 Kvyat
Races: Sainz 5-0 Kvyat
Points: Sainz 35-4 Kvyat
Points share: Sainz 90%-10% Kvyat

This year has been a bit of a struggle for Toro Rosso. Carlos Sainz Jr has finished in the points seven times - every race he's seen the chequered flag in. Kvyat has only got points on two occasions, both ninth places, so not really big points-paying finishes.

Normally Toro Rosso is very consistent, but this year seems to be more of a challenge than in the past. The car looks OK, but it seems pretty difficult to extract the full performance from.

The drivers could do with learning that a team expects them to respect each other on and off the track. Just as with the Force india drivers, banging their heads together wouldn't do any harm.

Toro Rosso isn't far behind Williams, but it also needs to keep an eye out for Renault. Points are available to Toro Rosso in most races, but it's too close to being a one-car team - as the numbers show.

8 Haas - 102.657%
Change from 2016: 0.063% gain
Points: 29
Pure speed: Grosjean 7-4 Magnussen
Races: 3-3 Magnussen
Points: Grosjean 18-11 Magnussen
Points share: Grosjean 62%-38% Magnussen

Usually a team drops away in its second year because for the first season it has the unfamiliar challenge of having to race the current car and design a new one at the same time. Haas has proved it has the infrastructure to cope with this.

Haas is close to standing still, but that can be looked at in two ways. It's either disappointing, or encouraging for the future. I'd go with the latter, because the team has had to deal with the 2017 regulation changes as well, so to do that while standing still is a great achievement. Other than Ferrari and Renault, who both underachieved in '16, all the others have fallen away.

One of the biggest problems has been the brakes, as we hear fairly often on Grosjean's radio. It's time Haas was on top of this, and if that happens the points tally would benefit.

Haas has a good driver pairing, but a little more professionalism wouldn't hurt and would put the team in a better position.

9 McLaren - 102.811%
Change from 2016: 0.594% loss
Points: 11
Pure speed: Alonso 11-0 Vandoorne
Races: Alonso 2-1 Vandoorne
Points: Alonso 10-1 Vandoorne
Points share: Alonso 91%-9% Vandoorne

McLaren and Honda were hoping to build on what had been, by their standards, a positive 2016. But they soon realised that they had slipped dramatically down the cliff face and that '17 was going to be even more challenging than the previous two seasons.

The car is a fairly decent package, but because of the lack of running - owing to reliability problems on both McLaren's and Honda's sides - optimising the set-up and evaluating the developments has been difficult.

Alonso is an old hand at driving an under-performing car. The off-track decisions he has made during his career have put him in that position on more than one occasion, but Vandoorne, being a new kid in town, has struggled with it because he had the frame of mind that every lap might just be the last lap. So initially he tended to overdrive the car.

The package has come on in leaps and bounds over the past couple of races, and in Hungary McLaren took its first double-points finish. The rest of the year is going to be as difficult as the first half, but at least reliability is improving and this will give the drivers the chance to show where the car is performance-wise. And it will allow McLaren to set its development direction for that last big push at Honda's home track, Suzuka.

10 Sauber - 104.060%
Change from 2016: 0.543% loss
Points: 5
Pure speed: Wehrlein 7-2 Ericsson
Races: Wehrlein 5-3 Ericsson
Points: Wehrlein 5-0 Ericsson
Share of points: Wehrlein 100%-0% Ericsson

Sauber has had a dismal season with a car that lacks grip, a performance deficit compounded by running a year-old Ferrari engine. It's seldom in the mix for anything other than propping up the back of the grid.

Staffing wise, Sauber needs to build in the areas it's currently weak in and it needs to keep developing. Since the regulations for next year are very similar to what we currently have, Sauber can carry that knowledge forward into next season.

Sauber has a good facility, and if it does become a Ferrari junior team then it will do a strong job. Ferrari isn't going want to invest in drivers that are no-hopers and is definitely not going to invest in a team without having a major say in how it is run.

The future could be bright for Sauber, but for now it needs to just bite the bullet and learn as much as possible in preparation for 2018.
Performance swing 2016/17
Who has gained (left) or lost ground (right) compared to last year

To come back to the original point of how teams have responded to the challenge of new regulations, it's the performance swing that tells us the most. I'm surprised that one of the smaller teams didn't luck in and get it right and Ferrari, Haas and Renault improved relative to the outright pace.

Some of the teams are close, but when Mercedes gets it right, I'm afraid it will have the upper hand. But with Hamilton and Vettel both winning four races so far, perhaps we will see a close battle to the end of the season. If Red Bull can improve on pace and reliability, it could emerge as the spoiler in the drivers' championship mix.

Roll on the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa, a real racers' track.

[jgonzalesm6]

Can anyone who is technically minded assist:

The monkey seat is designed in such a way that a low pressure area is present under the rear wing to increase the "suction" effect of the low-pressure zone...

If they cascaded the winglets of the monkey seat in the reverse order (downwards) would it have an affect on the performance of the diffuser? For example, could that pocket of warm air increase the low pressure zone created by the diffuser? I'm assuming the answer is no otherwise the teams would have done it... I ask after watching the scarbs video and someone said the rear wing is much less effective than the diffuser... so I wondered if there was a way to increase the performance of the diffuser with the monkey seat, instead of having it interact with the wing. Or is it simply too far behind it to make any difference??

So the monkey seat in the 2015-2016 cars was to aid the exhaust flow and "kick it up" underneath the "higher" rear wing to aid in the laminar flow underneath the rear

wing. In the 2017 cars the rear wing is lower, however the diffuser in the 2017 cars are wider and the diffuser vanes are longer thereby creating stronger vortices in the 2017

car than in previous years...hence way more suction by means of the rear diffuser. In fact, there is more donwforce generated underneath the 2017 car than on top of the

car by means of the new front wing, SLEBBA (Side Leading Edge BargeBoard Area), new floor and new wider and longer rear diffuser. So while somewhat effective in DRS,

the rear wing is less effective than the rear diffuser for 2017. If you were to make a comparison between the monkey seats position in the 2016 car compared to the 2017

car, the 2016 cars monkey seat was positioned right over the exhaust while the 2017 cars monkey seat is positioned further away from the exhaust.

[Stormy]

According to what we know so far, Merc should have an advantage in Spa because it's a power track and we lack some power compared to them. However, i was wondering in which parts of the track we have the advantage? The bus-stop chicane?

Nevertheless, Ferrari might've improved a lot after the testing in Hungary and we will be competitive even in the power parts of the track.

[zike]

According to what we know so far, Merc should have an advantage in Spa because it's a power track and we lack some power compared to them. However, i was wondering in which parts of the track we have the advantage? The bus-stop chicane?

Nevertheless, Ferrari might've improved a lot after the testing in Hungary and we will be competitive even in the power parts of the track.

I really hope so

[Brembo]

If Ferrari has improved the car to be fastern better than Merc , it will deter from either Seb or Kimi's ability to win. It will be the car that won , not the driver. Anyone can win in the better car. No chalange no real champions driving skill needed.

[Stormy]

If Ferrari has improved the car to be fastern better than Merc , it will deter from either Seb or Kimi's ability to win. It will be the car that won , not the driver. Anyone can win in the better car. No chalange no real champions driving skill needed.

Well if the difference between cars is 0.2, and you got inferior drivers, you can lose the title. But yeah, you are right, everyone in F1 are good it's the car that dominates whether someone wins the title or not. However, this season looks special, the driver needs to get out the maximum out of the car, no doubt about that.

[JPBD]

So the monkey seat in the 2015-2016 cars was to aid the exhaust flow and "kick it up" underneath the "higher" rear wing to aid in the laminar flow underneath the rear

wing. In the 2017 cars the rear wing is lower, however the diffuser in the 2017 cars are wider and the diffuser vanes are longer thereby creating stronger vortices in the 2017

car than in previous years...hence way more suction by means of the rear diffuser. In fact, there is more donwforce generated underneath the 2017 car than on top of the

car by means of the new front wing, SLEBBA (Side Leading Edge BargeBoard Area), new floor and new wider and longer rear diffuser. So while somewhat effective in DRS,

the rear wing is less effective than the rear diffuser for 2017. If you were to make a comparison between the monkey seats position in the 2016 car compared to the 2017

car, the 2016 cars monkey seat was positioned right over the exhaust while the 2017 cars monkey seat is positioned further away from the exhaust.

Thank you! Very interesting! :)

[nani_s23]

If Ferrari has improved the car to be fastern better than Merc , it will deter from either Seb or Kimi's ability to win. It will be the car that won , not the driver. Anyone can win in the better car. No chalange no real champions driving skill needed.

In my view, Ferrari is strong at some tracks n mercs is strong at others.
But at earlier tracks, Vettel missed couple of pole positions even though car is strong. Sochi is one of them.
For me this year vet is not at his best in quali, but in race craft he improved alot near to perfection.
Earlier in RB days Vettel is known for perfect quali driver.

Where as Lewis has best car for seasons, also he has that edge over others drivers in quali say around 0.2ths.

I had a moment of laugh in last race, where he was trying to overtake mad max n gave it up and complaining on radio saying "this guy is dangerous, I can't take any risks"

Where as Vettel gave it try n fought against mad max in Silverstone.

So this shows mentality of Lewis when in traffic etc.

[f150italia]

i don't know why horner and redbull underestimates ferrari.
http://www.crash.net/f1/news/872171/...ressure-horner

[springfield]

He never learns. It was same for the last few races. But come qualy they are nowhere. Let him talk, we'll let our results talk for us