Ferrari F60

[andartop]

Water in the electrics? What was he driving, a Hillman?

For God's sake, he was driving a FERRARI!!! Old man's cars were never famous for being waterproof, hell, ALL Italian cars for that matter! It's part of the beauty !

Have to admit though, when I saw him pulling over I almost broke the TV as I thought he was out of fuel!!!

[alelanza]

But how different will the '10 cars be? As i understand it the major change would come from having to start out on a full tank, which of course is no small feat, and i guess the funky diffusers may get the axe, but what else is there? Sounds like the best way to develop the '10 car is still to work on the current one no?

Different tires next year too... they supposedly will be smaller in the front but they might have to be stronger(more durable) to handle the extra weight from the ban on refueling.

It would make more sense if they went bigger in the rear than smaller in the front, but when has the FIa made sense.

KERS might be mor powerful next year too.

Oh yes the tyres, i had forgotten that thanks. Which btw for whatever reason McLaren were already testing back in Feb or so, odd....
IIRC the increase for KERS power is slated until 2012 or so, that being said at this rate with only 3 cars in china using it the FIA may be compelled to increasing its usefulness for '10.
So all in all i don't think it makes that much sense to write the current season off, a lot of the progresses being made should translate and carry over to '10 methinks.

[donskar]

Lucas electrics. For those unaware of Lucas, they had a reputation, known by some as "The Prince of Darkness".
http://www.kitcar.com/articles-kitcar/h ... rince.html

Getting back to Massa's excuse, it sounds like one more "well, we can't tell the truth, so we'll just point to something else and tell everyone that was what failed".

Q: "Why do the English drink their beer warm?"

A: "Because Lucas makes refrigerators, too."

[jddh1]

Did anybody notice that Ferrari were using the lollipop dude in the pits, instead of the lights system? Could it have been because it was raining and the "electrics" malfunctioned?

[DaveKillens]

Don't forget that after Malaysia, the Ferrari brass held an emergency meeting to address their shortfall in the first two races. My assumption is that they decided to abandon anything but necessary systems to simplify and eliminate potential problems. What good is a KERS system if you make a dumb decision for rain tires? Actually, that's why Schumacher won't be in China. Rumor is that he was part of the decision making process to change Kimi's tires.
The same goes for KERS. For Ferrari, right now, they desperately need to get things right, and get their focus on winning. KERS, although probably mature enough to be used, only adds a fraction in performance, and is just one more system that could go wrong, and distract the team from it's present goal of just finishing well.
Heck, I wouldn't be surprised to see them using the lollipop system.

The Brazilian says electrical problem which forced him to stop in China was "a failure we had never seen before".

"At the factory, we continue to push very hard to overcome these reliability problems. The electrical fault that forced me to stop at the side of the track was, once again, a failure we had never seen before.

"It has to be said that luck doesn't seem to be on our side at the moment, as it was a very small and stupid problem that made the car stop, because it was simply a faulty reading within the on board data that indicated to the control unit that the throttle should be shut down.

"So, even though there was actually nothing wrong, the car's computer decided to shut down the throttle and I had to park it."

http://planetf1.com/story/0,18954,3213_5221550,00.html

[timbo]

Ferrari is set to introduce a new lighter-weight chassis for him in the next race in a bid to improve this situation, with the chassis undergoing crash testing yesterday.

from http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/74714
I wonder how much crash-test has to do with weight reduction or with rear crash structure modification in effort to build efficient DDD.

[ISLAMATRON]

I belive the rules require them to resubmit for crash testing whenever the crash structures(front, side or rear) are modified.

could be some of both

[donskar]

Bring on Mike Gascoyne.

[ISLAMATRON]

Bring on Mike Gascoyne.

Then they can be behind the Force Indias too

[Giblet]

Is Gascoyne still a good designer in this day and age?

I mean the Jordans were basically a fluke as they had good Honda engines, wet race luck, and aero was not such a huge part yet, compared to today. Designers could 'luck out' more often with a good set of parameters.

His work at Renault helped a dismal team come back to be able to get an occasional win, then fired.

he goes to Toyota after/during (cant remember) their best season in 2005, and then Toyota fell behind with the V8's and ther cars packaging. He was insisting on no barge boards when all the faster teams used them. Fired.

Then he goes to Fif1, makes a slow car, then gets fired.

Are his days done, or has his luck ran out? Is there some quality to Gascoyne still that I don't see?

Now he wants to be an "Aero Consultant" for Ferrari. Maybe he could help tweak it? But I would imagine it would take more then a few minutes to sit down and understand all the intricacies of the Ferrari aero, even if he had Mike Coughlan's personal Ferrari library (ZING!!!).

[Metar]

he goes to Toyota after/during (cant remember) their best season in 2005, and then Toyota fell behind with the V8's and ther cars packaging. He was insisting on no barge boards when all the faster teams used them. Fired.

IIRC, he joined them from Renault after Renault's most successful season to that date (2003). That'll mean he was at Toyota for two years until the TF105 - so that one's probably his own work.

[jddh1]

Please, Gascoyne can't design a FIAT 500 anymore, let alone a Ferrari F1 challenger. Somebody send him to the stables to clean up after the horses.

[jddh1]

After a bottom 5 finish on Friday, can anybody doubt that we really, really, REALLY suck now?

[ISLAMATRON]

and i am loving every second of it!

[PNSD]

Long run times do not look that bad though... its not over yet this weekend, points are deffo up for grabs.