zac510 wrote:As I understand Ferrari's new nose has already been tested in Bahrain but pictures were not released.
I heard that no press was allowed on the circuit in Bahrain when Ferrari was testing! And on their site, even the media room, no pictures from testing in Bahrain. Not much pictures of the new car at all...and certainly no pictures from aero adjustments!
Racing is war, and you don't want to give your opponents any advantage. In the past, there have been times when a team has shown up with new and novel concepts that gave them an advantage. For instance, in CART racing Roger Penske's team showed up with the built in pneumatic jacks that everyone now has. For a few races, they enjoyed that advantage.
These days the rules make it hard for anyone to comeup a new innovation, but even the slightest advantage has to be protected until the moment you use it in battle. With CFD being so refined, teams can make a good estimate on what works, so they may make a, say for instance new front wing, and not allow it to see the light of day until race weekend.
As well they test parts individually, before they integrate them into a complete package. So we may see a team test new chimneys one day, then a new diffuser design. And so on and so on, each component being tested individually to determine it's effectiveness. Only when the first race of the season will we see all the go fast parts finally on the car.
Case in point, In the San Marino GP Renault placed those downforce winglets on top of there front wing, everybody thought it was there for stability on the car, later on F1 teams realized it was placed there for additional downforce, now a lot of teams have these winglets. The one thing that puzzled me last year was that nobody copied the Horns from the Mclaren Car?
Simon: Nils? You can close in now. Nils?
John McClane: [on the guard's phone] Attention! Attention! Nils is dead! I repeat, Nils is dead, ----head. So's his pal, and those four guys from the East German All-Stars, your boys at the bank? They're gonna be a little late.
Simon: [on the phone] John... in the back of the truck you're driving, there's $13 billon dollars worth in gold bullion. I wonder would a deal be out of the question?
John McClane: [on the phone] Yeah, I got a deal for you. Come out from that rock you're hiding under, and I'll drive this truck up your ass.
this is the ferrari's new aeropackage
what i've noticed is a whole new front wing, the rear one as well, new bargeboards,and some small fins in front of the front upper wishbones
this is the only pic i could get, does anyone have any other?
Last edited by allan on 28 Feb 2006, 15:00, edited 1 time in total.
The wraps are slowly coming off the Ferrari. Obviously a very new nose configuration. They must have figured that the other teams have an idea of what the new parts are like, you can have "secret" test sessions, but that can't stop a low flying aircraft with a good camera.
Everyone has horizontal fins on top of the engine cover though. They must find that the vertical section makes no difference and with no angle of attack there is no vortex shed off it.
Racing is war, and you don't want to give your opponents any advantage. In the past, there have been times when a team has shown up with new and novel concepts that gave them an advantage....but now....no advantage is given....1 slight advantage may cost a team dearly...
m3_lover wrote:The one thing that puzzled me last year was that nobody copied the Horns from the Mclaren Car?
You know, I thought the same thing, does anyone have a reason for this?
It's probably a combination of factors that made last years McLaren fast. It's light tyre wear rate compared to other teams was a part of this. If teams are say three years into an evolutionary design path then simply abandoning that and trying to copy major aspects of another teams car is most likely going to leave them seriously uncompetitive in my opinion. Of course if something can be taken straight from the competition then I'm sure it will be.
