Ferrari 2017 Contender Speculation Thread

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turbof1
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Ferrari 2017 Contender Speculation Thread

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This is the speculation thread about the 2017 car. Rumors, articles, ideas and fantasies about the car can be posted here. Once the car gets officially launched, this thread will be closed and discussion continues in the official thread.

Topic will be unlocked after the season finisher in Abu Dhabi.
#AeroFrodo

Phsyklone
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Re: Ferrari 2017 Contender Speculation Thread

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According to this article. Ferrari are reverting to pull rod suspension in 2017.

http://www.automoto.it/formula1/formula ... -2017.html

Peter1919
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Re: Ferrari 2017 Contender Speculation Thread

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Phsyklone wrote:According to this article. Ferrari are reverting to pull rod suspension in 2017.

http://www.automoto.it/formula1/formula ... -2017.html
Well Raikkonen is going to love that if true as it is noticeable he has done better this season with the push rod system,

FerrariHeart
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Re: Ferrari 2017 Contender Speculation Thread

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Phsyklone wrote:According to this article. Ferrari are reverting to pull rod suspension in 2017.

http://www.automoto.it/formula1/formula ... -2017.html
Those info are wrong.Ferrari will maintain a push-rod suspension on the front.Moreover according to F1AT,that is a really reliable source,Rory Byrne is working hard(from a cuople of weeks) on the chassis side and helping Simone Resta on the mechanical side,in particular on the rear suspension,which was the biggest problem of the sf16-h.I'm sorry about my bad english but i'm italian,i hope that all of you can understand what i have written.

ENGINE TUNER
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Re: Ferrari 2017 Contender Speculation Thread

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the push pull tug-o-war continues at ferrari... its almost comical

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Paul
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Re: Ferrari 2017 Contender Speculation Thread

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Keeping Ferrari speculation threads busy since 2011...

basti313
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FerrariHeart wrote:
Phsyklone wrote:According to this article. Ferrari are reverting to pull rod suspension in 2017.

http://www.automoto.it/formula1/formula ... -2017.html
Those info are wrong.
Yes.
Paul wrote:Keeping Ferrari speculation threads busy since 2011...
But not this year. The main point of the suspension design naxt year will be the hydraulic third element to control the vertical movement like Merc is doing it. This is already a problem with the push rod and Merc exploited a loophole in the rules to fit the element to the chassis.
There is just no way to do the suspension magic with the more space consuming pull rod.
On the other hand it may come back in 2018 when the FIA bans the hydraulic third element.
Don`t russel the hamster!

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iotar__
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ENGINE TUNER wrote:the push pull tug-o-war continues at ferrari... its almost comical
Recycling Rory Byrne for marketing purposes as a throw back to good old times is even better. They never blame him if it doesn't work though :? .

Love those threads (non sarcastically). At least there can't be "it's last year's car!", only "last year's car with new tyres and wings".

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FrukostScones
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yeah.. as said before. guess who's back.

https://translate.google.com/translate? ... rl&act=url
Finishing races is important, but racing is more important.

bhall II
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Re: Ferrari 2017 Contender Speculation Thread

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Here's something I started a while back. I lost interest before it was done, and I don't intend to finish it. But, maybe there's still something useful here. (Read: I'm not even remotely qualified to do with it what I originally intended.)
[url=http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=578777#p578777]bhall II, Apr 27, 2015[/url] (edited for clarity) wrote:Fernando Alonso is widely reputed to favor a car that tends to understeer rather than oversteer. From his perspective, that means the front suspension isn't quite as important to his overall setup as something like throttle response, or driveability, because he expects the front-end to give up on corner entry, and more so than using the steering wheel, he uses his right foot to rotate the car around the apex.

That also means he may not be particularly sensitive to potential flaws in the suspension unless something goes horribly wrong.

Kimi Raikkonen, on the other hand, is much more sensitive to the front-end, because he wants it to be as planted as possible...
Kimi Raikkonen via ESPN, Nov 13, 2014 wrote:Since the go-karts, if it doesn't turn and the front doesn't bite I've never liked it. My driving style is more about trying to carry the speed into the corners and keep it up in the mid-corner. It's the way I'm used to doing thing but obviously it changes every year and with every car, but I still think it's the fastest way and when you get the car working for you as you want the fastest maximum speed - for me at least - can be found that way.

It's something that's lacking from [F14 T] right now and if you cannot put the car where you want and brake where you want because of locking or sliding the front then it becomes a guessing game about where you are going to be. And if you miss a little bit the corner you are going to miss a lot of speed on the next straight. It sounds like a small thing, but around one lap when you keep guessing every corner it creates quite a big deficit. A few races it has been pretty okay and then most races it has been like that where you fight every corner and then the time difference is quite big.
I think it might be somewhat telling that after three years of pull rod layouts that more or less looked the same, SF15-T's layout appears to feature substantially more robust components. Since designers tend to want such components to be as thin as possible for aero purposes, there must have been a compelling reason to change.

Image

Enter: installation stiffness.
DaveW, Nov 19, 2013 wrote:"Installation stiffness" affects the efficiency of a vehicle suspension. I have yet to see a pull rod suspension that doesn't give away installation stiffness compared with an equivalent push rod layout (mostly F1 & Indy). I'm not completely sure why, but I did invite a FFord designer to bring his pull rod car (he claimed better c.g. height with no loss in suspension stiffness) to my rig a couple of years ago (I think). He didn't, but I haven't noticed too many pull rod cars in UK FFord grids recently.

F1 designers always insist that no lap time was ever gained by mechanical suspension changes, and they have biased regulations to ensure that is unlikely to happen soon. This is stark contrast with teams running junior series who pay great attention to mechanical set-up - but their ability to make aerodynamic improvements is limited.
bhall II (continued) wrote:
gato azul, Apr 11, 2012 wrote:...one issue here is, [with poor installation stiffness] that you end up with a spring at "end of the chain", over which you may don't have any control in terms of damping. Now if you manage to get this spring into resonanz, you can face a complete loss of control over contact patch loadings, leading to a massive, sometimes sudden reduction in grip, under certain condition ( for example in a certain (car/bike) speed range through corners).

Another issue here, is that with a spring element you always induce some lap/delay in your overal system response, and this may shifts with exitation frequencies.

In simple terms the difference in time (lag or lead) between the peak of your spring force and the peak of your damping force, in a simple mass, spring, damper system.
Autosport on the 2014 USGP wrote: Kimi Raikkonen says he hates the situation he finds himself in with the handling of [F14 T] at the moment, following a disappointing US Grand Prix.

The 2007 world champion came home 13th and one lap down on race winner Lewis Hamilton at Austin on Sunday, as his race was marred by front-end problems that plagued him all weekend.

"Here was again one of the most difficult weekends," Raikkonen told reporters after the race.

"Japan was similar - we fight with understeer the whole weekend and whatever we do we can't seem to get rid of it.

"Then you can expect in the race to destroy the front tyres.

"Obviously I hate the situation the way it is and the way things are going, and I cannot solve it by myself."

Raikkonen added that the main frustration with his problems was that he and Ferrari have been unable to pinpoint what is causing them.

"To try to drive slowly in certain places didn't make any difference [to the life of the front tyres] so I don't understand it really," he said.


"Wherever we finished it's pretty disappointing. Not being able to solve certain issues is frustrating.

"Hopefully something comes up and we find what the issues are.

"I appreciate some help and obviously we try to help each other to fix these issues, but if we knew the issue it would be easier to solve."

The Finn said that team-mate Fernando Alonso - who finished sixth - is not as sensitive to the front-end difficulties with the 2014 Ferrari.

"In certain places, yes, it's the same issue, but I think [Alonso] doesn't mind too much when the front is sliding," he said.

"So the effect is not so big then. It's a bit of a different story
."

ALONSO BATTLES VIBRATIONS

Alonso only just held onto sixth at the end of the race, beating Sebastian Vettel to the line by half a second after his car developed a serious vibration in the closing stages.

"I had huge vibrations on the tyres for the last two laps," said Alonso. "I could not even see the track, basically.

[...]
At the time, I didn't realize James Allison had already confirmed the existence of a fundamental problem...
Sky Sports, Aug 23, 2014 wrote:Speaking to Sky Sports F1’s Ted Kravitz at the Belgian GP, Allison said that even though the Scuderia have worked to minimise the Finn’s discomfort with his F14 T, the issues are a consequence of the car’s design and therefore inherent.

“We’ve improved things throughout the whole year,” Allison, Ferrari’s Chassis Technical Director, said. “The car is much more to his liking now than it was then, but there are certain fundamental characteristics that are sort of ‘baked in’ to a car when you lay down its architecture.

“That architecture is not really modifiable in a given year. You can make it better, and we have made it better, and we continue to make it better. But there are limitations.”
And Alonso recently all but confirmed problems with the front suspension during his tenure with the team...
F1T, Sep 6, 2016 wrote:“On the other hand, some odd things happened to me. Some blamed me for everything, for example that the front suspension did not want to work,” concluded Alonso his honest assessment and recall about his time at the most successful F1 team.
Rewind back to 2011, when Ferrari was apparently unable to reproduce Red Bull's anisotropic front wing...

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In order to be effective, flexible bodywork such as this has to be constructed so that neither drag force (horizontal) nor downforce can independently flex the wing. A wing that responds to drag force would be mostly pointless, and a wing that responds to downforce will flutter (as seen in the image).

Fast forward to this season...
bhall II, May 28, 2016 wrote:The implication is that the team was unable to come up with a structural design that's light enough to be competitive while also retaining the properties needed to pass the test. By extension, it's very difficult for me to believe that problems like this are isolated; on the contrary, it points to structural design and/or manufacturing woes that have the potential to screw up everything.

Incidentally, one of the hallmarks of poor chassis rigidity is setup difficulty, because undue flexing introduces variables that are difficult, if not impossible, to control.
motorsport.com, Aug 1, 2016 wrote:“You have two types of downforce [grip], I don't have to teach you,” [Arrivabene] said. “One is the aerodynamic downforce and the other is mechanical downforce [grip].

"We have to work in both areas because they have to talk together because sometimes they talk different languages at the moment.”
Recall that Haas makes substantial use of Ferrari technology and "expertise," especially as it relates to suspension components.
Autosport.com, May 16, 2016 wrote:"We've been struggling since China with something we don't quite yet understand so we're going to change everything for the test," said Grosjean.

"It's been hard for everyone because in terms of work everyone has been doing a great job of looking at the data and finding a solution - making the car on paper better - and we always underline that these are problems that Esteban doesn't have.

"It's quite strange that it's only happening in one car and that's why it's going to be very important for us at testing to change the chassis and put the set up in and see if things get better."

Grosjean said that Haas made changes on Friday night at Circuit de Catalunya, but they weren't as successful as hoped.

"We changed the philosophy of the set-up we'd made for China so this should bring the car back to where it was but actually it didn't happen as much as we wanted," he said.

"We went in a good direction that's why I'm saying that everyone has been working well.

"But under the table there's something that we don't see or understand.

"That's why we want to change the chassis to see if there's something weird in terms of torsion or something that's creating issues."
Also, the team recently parted with, or reassigned, its Head of Production, Corrado Lanzone. (I can't read Italian, and Google apparently can't translate Motorsport.com.)

Examples of problems that can be caused by insufficient or erratic stiffness:
  • Chronic setup difficulties
  • Inconsistent development, both mechanical and aero
  • Poor low-speed traction if the suspension is stiffened to correct high-speed balance issues
  • Bizarre race strategy born from an inability to understand the tires
Any of those seem familiar?

I believe Ferrari's technical problems are structural.

Naturally, I can't confirm if any of this is right or wrong. However, it's 100% plausible, even though it would seem to be a failure of something so fundamental that most folks probably wouldn't expect it to happen at "the pinnacle of motorsport." (It still wouldn't be as bad as screwing up a fuel cell, though.)
Pierce89 wrote:
bhall II wrote:[Monumental wall of text]
That's a monumental wall of text.

Image

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Pierce89
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I stand corrected.
“To be able to actually make something is awfully nice”
Bruce McLaren on building his first McLaren racecars, 1970

“I've got to be careful what I say, but possibly to probably Juan would have had a bigger go”
Sir Frank Williams after the 2003 Canadian GP, where Ralf hesitated to pass brother M. Schumacher

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Vasconia
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Re: Ferrari 2017 Contender Speculation Thread

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iotar__ wrote:
ENGINE TUNER wrote:the push pull tug-o-war continues at ferrari... its almost comical
Recycling Rory Byrne for marketing purposes as a throw back to good old times is even better. They never blame him if it doesn't work though :? .

Love those threads (non sarcastically). At least there can't be "it's last year's car!", only "last year's car with new tyres and wings".
Every year is the same thing, Rory was a genious but now he is not focused on F1 and only for working "some weeks" he is not going to make a great change on the car.

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ME4ME
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Re: Ferrari 2017 Contender Speculation Thread

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bhall II wrote: .....

Examples of problems that can be caused by insufficient or erratic stiffness:
  • Chronic setup difficulties
  • Inconsistent development, both mechanical and aero
  • Poor low-speed traction if the suspension is stiffened to correct high-speed balance issues
  • Bizarre race strategy born from an inability to understand the tires
Any of those seem familiar?

I believe Ferrari's technical problems are structural.

Naturally, I can't confirm if any of this is right or wrong. However, it's 100% plausible, even though it would seem to be a failure of something so fundamental that most folks probably wouldn't expect it to happen at "the pinnacle of motorsport."
I too believe that at least some of Ferrari's problems are structural. The question is, are the problems caused by engineering mistakes, or by managerial mistakes? I think it's the latter.

Let's look at Red Bull. They aren't perfect, but what did catch my eye is how strong their suspension has been over the last couple of years. Their drivers have banged wheels with rivals and walls many times, yet they've come away unharmed (undamaged) on almost all occasions. The exception was Ricciardo's suspension failure in 2015.

I think it's probable that Red Bull intentionally build their front suspension extra robust, beyond what is optimal according to traditional values such as (semi-unsprung) mass, CoG and drag. I think that they have understood the importance of the structural rigidity of the front suspension, given how sensitive the Pirelli tyres are. Robust design and rigidity will give them higher accuracy, more reliable data, better suspension characteristics, greater setup fine-tuning opportunities and most of all prolonged tyre life and performance and ultimately more a more stable aero platform.

I think Ferrari has failed to adapt to modern requirements, and still use traditional performance measurements. It's the Ferrari way of doing things, trying to be efficient while failing to be effective. Their recent history is filled with examples of them failing to adapt, the most prominent one being the transition from track testing to CFD & Wind tunnel testing.

It's the failure of senior engineers and managers to steer the engineers towards doing the right things, caused by the pressure applied from above and the requirement of immediate results. You've probably explained that better yourself than anyone here in the forums. In the end I don't think Ferrari lacks the engineering expertise, capacity or resources to build a great car. They just needs to adapt more quickly, be more effective in their work and realize what makes a car quick with today's regulations and equipment.

This isn't to contradict your carefully build wall of text though. I think you're right, but ultimately it all leads back to top management.

BanMeToo
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Re: Ferrari 2017 Contender Speculation Thread

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If Ferrari don't see long-term (I agree btw, just playing devil's advocate) then why can't they even develop a car mid-season?

bhall II
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Re: Ferrari 2017 Contender Speculation Thread

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ME4ME wrote:...it all leads back to top management.
Of course. The cars don't design themselves.

Here's a fun one...
grandprix.com, May 24, 2011 wrote:In a technical restructuring, Pat Fry, who joined Ferrari from McLaren, will become director for the chassis side, with Corrado Lanzone responsible for production and Luca Marmorini in charge of engine and electronics, all three reporting directly to team principal Stefano Domenicali.

Nobody, therefore, has been directly appointed to the role of overall technical director to replace Costa.
Autosport, Jan 1, 2012 wrote:"We try to look ahead and change the organisation in order to make sure in terms of ideas and teamwork in the technical office, the work of the windtunnel and simulation, we are more prepared. I'm [Domenicali] optimistic because of this.
Fox Sports, Dec 16, 2014 wrote:Engineering director Pat Fry and chief designer Nicolas Tombazis are both leaving Ferrari as part of a reorganization under new boss Maurizio Arrivabane.

Meanwhile, James Allison’s position as the overall technical boss as been strengthened in what Ferrari calls “a flatter structure and clear assignment of responsibilities.”
ESPN, Aug 3, 2016 wrote:Ferrari and Allison parted ways ahead of the German Grand Prix, which came just before it fell behind Red Bull in the constructors' championship. Allison was replaced by former engine chief Mattia Binotto, who lacks experience of chassis development and was seen by many as a short-term replacement.

However, Arrivabene has suggested a new approach to staffing makes Binotto the perfect man to lead the team.

"He will work with the team to help improve the car," Arrivabene is quoted as saying by Motorsport.com. "All the technicians talk to each other, but the difference is very important: there will be no more of 'this is 'Mr X's' car'. There will be a car that will be the result of the co-operation between all the working groups involved in the project."
It's a minor miracle that Ferrari is able to regularly find its way to the track, let alone compete.
BanMeToo wrote:If Ferrari don't see long-term (I agree btw, just playing devil's advocate) then why can't they even develop a car mid-season?
A short-term focus tends to compound problems over time, because it promotes short-term solutions that are rarely adequate. That means fundamental problems just grow and grow and grow and...

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