Nando wrote:shelly wrote:and Giorgio Piola works for them.
Same guy that designed the Ferrari "Jet fighter" that never showed up.
Giorgio Piola is also the same guy who anticipated that f2012 would have front pull rod, or that discovered slots in merc w02 front wing back in October 2012, or that talked about reactive front ride height device on renault /lotus in winter 2011.
I agree with you that sometimes he is wrong: for example last year he wrote on formula1.com that rb8 had slots on the rear wing that were not there, or this year also he wrote about redbull drd -but they did not have any drd on their car.
My point is that it is always worth keep an eye on these anticipations, because sometimes they are true and interesting.
Some weeks ago, after the shark-mouth ferrari picture, he was forced by harsh criticism to write on blogf1 (or maybe someone wrote using his name):
http://www.blogf1.it/2013/02/12/focus-s ... /#comments
"My it is not to make a race to see who's fastest, but try instead to make the minimum number of mistakes, and even with that aim they can always happen. I have never written in my articles (to quote the recent past) that I was the first in drawing the mercedes front f-duct, the banned lotus front suspension or ferrari's front pull rod: tha bad thing is that some internet sites (not blogf1, which i respect) at the time tried to play down my intuitions or openly copied them and showed them as a result of their abilities. [...] That said, I do not think it is nice to mock others' work. We all share the same passion, let's try to contribute together in spreading technical content for f1 followers, without looking at the worthless competition at who's first or who's smartest. I do not care about that, I just hope to be regarded as an honest worker"
I have criticized Piolaìs work in the past, and sometimes I still do, but I think what he wrote there is true anis a good lesson