A crisis at Ferrari?

[johnnoble1990]

It's certainly interesting, I really couldn't see a team like Ferrari being this down about their chances, depending on how Mercedes are, Ferrari could be the 4th fastest team if they don't make a very quick turnaround

You never know, I don't want to get too carried away, but the whole field seem so close it could be worse than that. Then again, this is the excitement of a new season. We don't really know anything. The first real clue shall be qualifying at Melbourne. Till then, we can only speculate, which is half the fun I guess.

 

[jez101]

Does anyone know precisely what problems Ferrari have? Unless they do they are not likely to know how much work needs to be done to provide a solution. I would have that that with their resources Ferrari will be in at least as good a position as any other team to fix their problems.

I don't know what the cause of the problem is but the symptom is the tyre degradation on the Ferraris is way higher than RedBull, McLaren, Lotus & Force India. The Ferrari seems to go fast enough on new tyres, it just loses grip faster than its competitors and that is going to really hurt on Sundays. I don't know if this is the front or the rears or both ends but the tyres are not working for as long on the red cars.

Can they fix it? Mercedes couldn't fix their tyre issues last year, so maybe yes / maybe no. With Ferrari what would have to worry you would be their ongoing struggles correlating their wind tunnel / CFD and actual performance. If they are flying partially blind, fixing a problem is going to be a lot harder. By the sounds of things, they moved the exhaust mid test and expected X but got Y - I don't think they are going to be fighting for the title until they can nail that problem first and foremost...

 

[Road of Bones]

James Allen has quite a good take on Ferrari's issues here:
http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2012/...rari-disappointed-as-testing-comes-to-an-end/

Basically they seem to be struggling for traction on corner exit, and are consequently later on the throttle than anyone else.

I still think that Ron had a quiet word with Pat Fry just before he left Woking for Maranello...

"...make sure it's ugly and slow to start with, and almost impossible to develop thereafter..."

 

[FB]

I still think that Ron had a quiet word with Pat Fry just before he left Woking for Maranello...
"...make sure it's ugly and slow to start with, and almost impossible to develop thereafter..."

Now there's an original conspiracy - well done RoB, makes a change from the usual "Whitmarsh crapped in Hamilton's helmet" or "Marko pissed in Webber's fuel tank" stuff we normally have

 

[canis]

There are two main symptoms Ferrari are looking into. The first has already been mentioned, the traction on corner exit, this is also hurting the tyres and causing them to loose grip quicker than on the other cars so hurting them twice over.

The second, which to me would be a lot more worrying, is that the car is inconsistant in the way it handles. There have been rumours around that you can put th car in indentical set up, same tyres, same fuel load, same use of the pedals through the same corner and i will handle differenly one time to the next. The issue here is that it makes it very difficult to judge how to set up a car for a race or qualifying, it also means that something must be changing between each attempt at each corner, and this is something which apparently they have not defined as yet. A car which will handle inconsistantl is not only one which could produce some very slow results, but also one which could end up in the wall a lot

 

[Marc]

Last years was an evolution, not a new car.

I know, hence the sarsasm of "No .. wait"

 

[Andy Karter]

Pardon! The entire cars is innovative which is why they will take time to develop it.

In so much as none of the component parts will fit any other car yes, but have they come up with anything like the f-duct, double defuser, blown defuser, flexible wings, trick exhausts or whatever else, or has it been the other teams and they've just made a poor copy after the event?

 

[Kewee]

In so much as none of the component parts will fit any other car yes, but have they come up with anything like the f-duct, double defuser, blown defuser, flexible wings, trick exhausts or whatever else, or has it been the other teams and they've just made a poor copy after the event?

Even the great Adrian Newey has said just weeks ago, "its very very difficult to do anything radically different now, the regulations have been tightened so much". Many ideas that you consider innovative haven't survived long have they. The mass damper of Renault, banned. The f-duct, banned. Flexible wings, banned. Blown diffuser, banned. Ferrari have always tried to achieve the best results within the regulations, others have pushed the envelope just a bit too far which is why all these so called innovations have been banned. I can imagine the accusations of cheating that would have been thrown at Ferrari if they, rather than McLaren had introduced the f-duct for example, much like Renault had leveled at it with the mass damper.

 

[Cookinflatsix]

As was said earlier, without the special FIA help Ferrari are clearly unable to innovate and compete on technological innovation

Their forte is the amount of money and testing they can bring to bear as well as extra help because of their history

This is a great chance for them to prove otherwise, they have introduced ( for them) a radical car

Let's see how they make it compete without extra testing sessions etc etc

 

[ExtremeNinja]

Mass damper, won a championship; double diffuser, won a championship; flexible wing, won a championship; blown-diffuser, won a championship; F-Duct, won fair few battles. None of these were pioneered by Ferrari. They will be kicking themselves to have not been the ones to come up with any of these concepts. Despite the narrowing of the rule books we still see the teams doing different things with varying success. Just look at my avatar for McLaren's Monaco spec car.

I'd love to see Ferrari get on terms, but they don't seem to be getting it right at the moment. The talent and competence appears to be elsewhere. Thier spaniard has got to be top of thier list of assets at the moment as far as personnel are concerned. He's barely put a foot wrong behind the wheel for the past two years.

 

[Andy Karter]

Even the great Adrian Newey has said just weeks ago, "its very very difficult to do anything radically different now, the regulations have been tightened so much". Many ideas that you consider innovative haven't survived long have they. The mass damper of Renault, banned. The f-duct, banned. Flexible wings, banned. Blown diffuser, banned. Ferrari have always tried to achieve the best results within the regulations, others have pushed the envelope just a bit too far which is why all these so called innovations have been banned. I can imagine the accusations of cheating that would have been thrown at Ferrari if they, rather than McLaren had introduced the f-duct for example, much like Renault had leveled at it with the mass damper.

I agree in as much as innovation isn't exactly encouraged but the fact remains Ferrari haven't (of late) been at the forefront of what innovative ideas there have been. I just think they've been far too conservative given their resources.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

...or unimaginative, even.

 

[Cookinflatsix]

Or simply useless

 

[Andy Karter]

... or groundbreaking!

 

[ExtremeNinja]

In saying all this, what was it that they were trying to do at the front end that they had to abandon at the beginning of the the test? They did try something more radical at the back with the exhausts but have abandoned that too. Perhaps "lack of imagination" is not the problem, perhaps it's a lack of good ideas or an ability to make them work.

 

[Kewee]

Mass damper, won a championship; double diffuser, won a championship; flexible wing, won a championship; blown-diffuser, won a championship; F-Duct, won fair few battles. None of these were pioneered by Ferrari. They will be kicking themselves to have not been the ones to come up with any of these concepts. Despite the narrowing of the rule books we still see the teams doing different things with varying success. Just look at my avatar for McLaren's Monaco spec car.

I'd love to see Ferrari get on terms, but they don't seem to be getting it right at the moment. The talent and competence appears to be elsewhere. Thier spaniard has got to be top of thier list of assets at the moment as far as personnel are concerned. He's barely put a foot wrong behind the wheel for the past two years.

My point was not whether these innovations had been successful or not, just that they had been deemed to be at the very least against the spirit of the regulations, which was why they were banned so quickly.
I agree the comment you made regarding Alonso. If anyone can contribute to getting the new Ferrari up to speed Alonso can. Time will tell.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

Well, I think Alonso will drive it as fast as it will go, but the engineers are the guys charged with making it faster. They have been much flattered by thier no.1 driver over the past two years. It's elsewhere in the team that they need to look if they want to find the performance and balance that they have recently been unable to produce.

 

[Kewee]

To certain contributors here. When a British team come up with an exciting new development it's called innovative, if a French or Italian team were to do the same it would be called cheating.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

Hmm. Who are you talking to? Ghosts?

[Edit] Perhaps this "ignore" feature is working and I'm missing that.

 

[Andy Karter]

To certain contributors here. When a British team come up with an exciting new development it's called innovative, if a French or Italian team were to do the same it would be called cheating.

Ask yourself whether elements of the Ferrari have been season making or extensively copied by the rest of the grid?