Minardi PS05 Cosworth

[Steven]

Still without colours but nonetheless very interesting. Purely from an aerodynamic point of view this car may be well faster than their current PS04B.

[walter]

the sidepods kinda look like what ferrari had 2 years ago.

[joseff]

True, but remember that Minardi's 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005 budget all put together still don't add up to Ferrari's 2002 budget alone

[joseff]

Is it just me or the engine cover really is asymmetric?

[Reca]

It indeed looks like but it shouldn’t. In fact rules require that in that area the bodywork is symmetrical. I prefers not to imagine what would happen with Paul Stoddart if at the debut in Imola the car was considered illegal because of non symmetrical bodywork...

Anyway the whole engine cover looks unfinished and I also remember I read, a month or so ago, rumours about the car having something radical idea in the engine cover area, something I fail to notice from these few pics. I know that would be a waste of money, especially for Minardi, to make an engine cover only for the shakedown, but maybe it’s not definitive.

Here the rule.

3.16 Upper bodywork :
3.16.1 With the exception of the opening described in Article 3.16.3, when viewed from the side, the car must have bodywork in the area bounded by four lines. One vertical 1330 mm forward of the rear wheel centre line, one horizontal 550 mm above the reference plane, one horizontal 925 mm above the reference plane and one diagonal which intersects the 925 mm horizontal at a point
1000mm forward of the rear wheel centreline and the 550mm horizontal at the rear wheel centreline.
Bodywork within this area must be arranged symmetrically about the car centre line and, when measured 200mm vertically below the diagonal boundary line, must have minimum widths of 150mm and 50mm respectively at points lying 1000mm forward of the rear wheel centre line and at
the rear wheel centre line. This bodywork must lie on or outside the boundary defined by a linear taper between these minimum widths.

[Steven]

Anyway the whole engine cover looks unfinished and I also remember I read, a month or so ago, rumours about the car having something radical idea in the engine cover area, something I fail to notice from these few pics. I know that would be a waste of money, especially for Minardi, to make an engine cover only for the shakedown, but maybe it’s not definitive.

Well if you read that it wouldn't surprise me if they came up with something else then by the time they reach Imola. It seems to me the carbon is somewhat different from the other parts (may be the car is painted black except for the cover).

Maybe they have just quickly done something to cover it up. I remind you of stoddart saying he repeatidly rejected the request from some of his engineers to delay the introduction of the new car until the Spanish GP.

[Reca]

I’ve found the article, it was in an Italian weekly in mid February (time is faster than I would have thought...) the relevant part is :
“The PS05 will have a different nosecone, but the main detail is an original airbox that, according to the first rumors, should also include a series of little wings incorporated on the engine cover.”
Well, the nosecone in the pics isn’t visible (although “different” could simply mean different from the PS02->4 one) and the engine cover looks provisional. Let’s wait and see if the rumors were reliable or it was just cheap talk.

[Guest]

so if someone got the front pics we'll be happy.

[Guest]

heres the front end

[Guest]

dont see much differents then on other cars

[Guest]

I remember once seeing that the nose cones of the three previous models were interchangeable. Maybe this one is not...

[Reca]

On the current issue of the same weekly, published Tuesday, there’s an article about the car, and the reference is to an innovative concept for the new wing, that Minardi is developing and must be verified on the wind tunnel. So probably the rumor was, also in mid February, related to the wing and not to the nosecone although the word used on the article at the time was “muso”, (literally “mug”, “muzzle”) that usually indicates the nosecone or, sometimes, the whole assembly nosecone + wing. On the current article the word used is ala = wing.

As for the engine cover, on another Italian weekly, published it too on Tuesday, there’s an article with a couple of drawings by Piola. In the drawings there were already the winglets behind the chimneys fitted on the car in Imola, better pics will surely follow, for the moment I found this one :
http://f1.racing-live.com/en/photos/200 ... _131.shtml
As you can see they are similar to the ones on the other cars but with a further, lower, horizontal element. I don’t remember if someone used something similar or not but I wouldn’t call them a revolutionary thing, I hope the article wasn’t referring to them while talking about the original engine cover.

[Guest]