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Are you referring to the concept that worked so well that they almost got beat by Merc after they had to fix the floor, post TD? The concept that, after 3 days testing and 3 practice sessions they were still trying to find the proper set-up? The same concept used by Haas to have a stinker of a race? Early days yet—and hope to see an improvement—but doesn’t sound good to me.
Ok, debunking time, buckle up. The concept was clearly the best of the field right up to the political TD that was aimed at RB. The car was more than decent on tyres, was able to run very low whenever the track allowed for it and the only downside was slightly too much drag that allowed Max to win in Jeddah and Miami (along with Ferrari taking conservative setups for the race). Ferrari lost Barcelona, Monaco, Baku, Canada (because Leclerc's penalty prevented him from fighting for the win), France and Hungary due to engine trouble, strategy errors and driver error. That's 6 wins, which could have been at least 4 without technical DNFs. Engine performance and/or reliability were not related to the car concept.
The fact a rule change exposed their exploitation of the rules shows innovation. No car that won a WDC/WCC in the last 30-40 years wasn't at least somewhat in a gray area, while some were actually illegal. And why are you even taking Haas' race with a bad luck start for Hulk and bad qualy for Magnussen? Do you really find it representative? You know what, better take this as a rhetorical question...
Also, I’m not alone in saying it. Here’s Autosport’s take:
“While others have ploughed their own furrow – like Ferrari with its in-wash solution and Mercedes with its zero-pod idea – the evidence appears to be mounting that the best design for the 2022 rules era cars is what Red Bull has done.”
I'm not sure it's worth replying to you after this part, but what the heck, maybe this time you'll take a chance to learn something new. Autosport is a magazine for laymen, not even technical, let alone technical magazine with utmost integrity. They published jewels such as this
Now, if they decided—like Aston Martin did last year—to go in a new development direction in-season (like Merc are doing) so as not to waste another year and the wind tunnel tells them a deeper undercut (like they did last year) is a big improvement, they won’t even be able to implement it because of the lower SIS location.
AM never went a new way mid-season mate, it's an evolution, pure and simple. Fallows is great at what he does and was able to guide the team in the right way. All the teams with tubs and waterslides copied from Ferrari. I feel you are leaving this out on purpose...
Lower SIS position is giving them an option to do whatever they want with the floor. Or do you think sidepod undercut is more important? Don't answer, another rhetorical...
Here's one more free lesson to wrap this up, Ferrari are using sidepods for big outwash, that's why their car was so predictable last year - no turbulence was entering the diffuser and messing up the floor performance. It still isn't, because of their innovative concept that no other team implemented in such a way on their launch car last year. AM did and it works brilliantly, doesn't it? It has as much to do with outwash undercut as it does with wide sides all the way to the rear, you can't just force the turbulence out, you need to keep it out with a literal wall. That's one of the reasons Williams and Mercedes didn't work so good last year.
Clear is trying to say that Ferrari don't have a degradation problem when they run at the car's actual level (slower than RB). It's when the drivers overdrive to keep up with a faster car, that the tires degrade.
I somewhat disagree with Clear because the Ferrari is very quick on Saturday. F = ma, and you don't carry high minimum speeds in the high speed corners without having the downforce to sustain it. It just suggest the downforce is in the wrong place, so while you can compensate over 1 lap, you'll destroy the tire in a race.
That's pretty much what everyone can see from the lap charts, the car wasn't fast enough for the race.
It's a problem of many factors, lack of downforce (wing setup compromise), lack of suspension setup time, lack of sufficient understanding of the car... As you said, Australia 2022 for RB was the same thing. There's also a thing that brought Ferrari 12 poles last year, the car is generating heat in the tyres quite quickly. They need to understand how to contain it during the race, it's not an unsolvable problem. Well, for Leclerc at least, not sure about Sainz...
I seriously doubt that they would let designers go if there was no one waiting in the wings or that they plan to promote capable people from within.
Remember how much of this same type of criticism happened when Binotto left. Ranging from; he needs to go... how can they let him go... who will replace him, there's no one available. Oh, okay they found someone...
Can anyone expect that someone new is coming in to keep the status quo? It's obvious that they might make changes otherwise why bring him in. Simply hire him as a consultant.
The people in place made the 2nd best car (there are some teething pains for sure but solvable) but if we observe the impatience even in this forum then 2nd place is not good enough. So if it's not good enough for the fans imagine Ferrari and their expectations. We haven't spent $100s of millions but they have and they expect results.
RB and Merc did not make many changes because they were on the way up or at the top. Let's see if Merc start shuffling people around now that times are tough. McLaren have had difficulties for some years, how stable and patient have they been? Comparing stability only to a number 1 team is unfair.
Are they winning because they are stable or are they are stable because they are winning?
The concept that, after 3 days testing and 3 practice sessions they were still trying to find the proper set-up?
As Vanja answered you already and covered all my thoughts and even more in his post, I only want to add that I don’t understand why you make 3 days of testing look like enough. Only in 2021 when teams pretty much kept their cars from 2020 due to Corona they had 3 days of testing. Last year and 2020 6 days and before that even 8 days. For fun or because it was necessary?
The concept that, after 3 days testing and 3 practice sessions they were still trying to find the proper set-up?
As Vanja answered you already and covered all my thoughts and even more in his post, I only want to add that I don’t understand why you make 3 days of testing look like enough. Only in 2021 when teams pretty much kept their cars from 2020 due to Corona they had 3 days of testing. Last year and 2020 6 days and before that even 8 days. For fun or because it was necessary?
The issue isn't even the 3 days the testing. The issue is they couldn't use the rear wing they wanted. The Ferrari was never going to work in Bahrain without the higher downforce rear wing. They wouldn't have found a setup in 100 days with the same tools at their disposal.
The concept that, after 3 days testing and 3 practice sessions they were still trying to find the proper set-up?
As Vanja answered you already and covered all my thoughts and even more in his post, I only want to add that I don’t understand why you make 3 days of testing look like enough. Only in 2021 when teams pretty much kept their cars from 2020 due to Corona they had 3 days of testing. Last year and 2020 6 days and before that even 8 days. For fun or because it was necessary?
The issue isn't even the 3 days the testing. The issue is they couldn't use the rear wing they wanted. The Ferrari was never going to work in Bahrain without the higher downforce rear wing. They wouldn't have found a setup in 100 days with the same tools at their disposal.
I think the more important factor was the lack of front, which cause huge compromises. The rear load wasn't bad, they just lacked a lot in traction zones(T1 and T10). Rear wing also played a part but I think the front limitation makes you setup the car much differently to get rid of the understeer.
Emergency meeting at Maranello: Vasseur and Vigna talk to the entire F1 staff
Frédéric Vasseur has gathered all the staff of the 'Gestione Sportiva' without forgetting the drivers, Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc.
Vasseur and Benedetto Vigna, Ferrari's CEO, addressed the entire staff, supposedly in a parliament to ask for more complicity, more involvement, as well as to raise spirits after the hard blow of the first GP of the season.
The French team principal is beginning to realize the hard task ahead and the multiple connotations that this entails. And so far one head has already fallen, that of David Sanchez, the head of aerodynamics and therefore of the vehicle concept.
It is time to discuss what happened in Sakhir, after the freezing shower that has meant the reencounter of reliability problems in the power unit, something that was thought to be overcome.
Vasseur does not want a witch-hunt, but he knows he must make quick decisions. It is barely two months since he took office at Maranello and he has to start making drastic decisions sooner than he would have liked.
The reliability problem on Leclerc's car has surprised everyone. Two batteries seem to have gone out of action and with it may come penalties at Jeddah. There was first talk of a defect in the first battery, then that the problem could be in the wiring of the electrical system. Finally Marc Gené hinted at a problem in the heat engine as the cause of all the disasters in the Frenchman's car.
But, obviously, that is not the only problem. Ferrari currently feels it is only the third force, having been passed over by Aston Martin.
There was no communique about the meeting, just a terse quote on twitter. "It was a useful meeting to discuss what happened over the weekend and the challenges we will have to face in the immediate future." But you can be sure that there were tense moments in that staff meeting, because what happened in Bahrain was not foreseen in the script.
I seriously doubt that they would let designers go if there was no one waiting in the wings or that they plan to promote capable people from within.
Remember how much of this same type of criticism happened when Binotto left. Ranging from; he needs to go... how can they let him go... who will replace him, there's no one available. Oh, okay they found someone...
Can anyone expect that someone new is coming in to keep the status quo? It's obvious that they might make changes otherwise why bring him in. Simply hire him as a consultant.
The people in place made the 2nd best car (there are some teething pains for sure but solvable) but if we observe the impatience even in this forum then 2nd place is not good enough. So if it's not good enough for the fans imagine Ferrari and their expectations. We haven't spent $100s of millions but they have and they expect results.
RB and Merc did not make many changes because they were on the way up or at the top. Let's see if Merc start shuffling people around now that times are tough. McLaren have had difficulties for some years, how stable and patient have they been? Comparing stability only to a number 1 team is unfair.
Are they winning because they are stable or are they are stable because they are winning?
But I don't if stability is always the best way forward if the results are always the same. If the team wants to win, but that is not possible with the current technical team, then things should change?
Doing the same thing and expecting a different result..
Alessandro Cinelli new Ferrari Head of Aerodynamics, speculation.
Previously worked at Ferrari Aerodynamics department for about 15 years, after Ferrari in A. Romeo.
Are you referring to the concept that worked so well that they almost got beat by Merc after they had to fix the floor, post TD? The concept that, after 3 days testing and 3 practice sessions they were still trying to find the proper set-up? The same concept used by Haas to have a stinker of a race? Early days yet—and hope to see an improvement—but doesn’t sound good to me.
Ok, debunking time, buckle up. The concept was clearly the best of the field right up to the political TD that was aimed at RB. The car was more than decent on tyres, was able to run very low whenever the track allowed for it and the only downside was slightly too much drag that allowed Max to win in Jeddah and Miami (along with Ferrari taking conservative setups for the race). Ferrari lost Barcelona, Monaco, Baku, Canada (because Leclerc's penalty prevented him from fighting for the win), France and Hungary due to engine trouble, strategy errors and driver error. That's 6 wins, which could have been at least 4 without technical DNFs. Engine performance and/or reliability were not related to the car concept.
The fact a rule change exposed their exploitation of the rules shows innovation. No car that won a WDC/WCC in the last 30-40 years wasn't at least somewhat in a gray area, while some were actually illegal. And why are you even taking Haas' race with a bad luck start for Hulk and bad qualy for Magnussen? Do you really find it representative? You know what, better take this as a rhetorical question...
Also, I’m not alone in saying it. Here’s Autosport’s take:
“While others have ploughed their own furrow – like Ferrari with its in-wash solution and Mercedes with its zero-pod idea – the evidence appears to be mounting that the best design for the 2022 rules era cars is what Red Bull has done.”
I'm not sure it's worth replying to you after this part, but what the heck, maybe this time you'll take a chance to learn something new. Autosport is a magazine for laymen, not even technical, let alone technical magazine with utmost integrity. They published jewels such as this
Now, if they decided—like Aston Martin did last year—to go in a new development direction in-season (like Merc are doing) so as not to waste another year and the wind tunnel tells them a deeper undercut (like they did last year) is a big improvement, they won’t even be able to implement it because of the lower SIS location.
AM never went a new way mid-season mate, it's an evolution, pure and simple. Fallows is great at what he does and was able to guide the team in the right way. All the teams with tubs and waterslides copied from Ferrari. I feel you are leaving this out on purpose...
Lower SIS position is giving them an option to do whatever they want with the floor. Or do you think sidepod undercut is more important? Don't answer, another rhetorical...
Here's one more free lesson to wrap this up, Ferrari are using sidepods for big outwash, that's why their car was so predictable last year - no turbulence was entering the diffuser and messing up the floor performance. It still isn't, because of their innovative concept that no other team implemented in such a way on their launch car last year. AM did and it works brilliantly, doesn't it? It has as much to do with outwash undercut as it does with wide sides all the way to the rear, you can't just force the turbulence out, you need to keep it out with a literal wall. That's one of the reasons Williams and Mercedes didn't work so good last year.
I know you’re big fan of the Ferrari concept and I hope (also for my sake) that your loyalty to defend it is rewarded with some good results soon.
But just a couple of random things about what you wrote…
- No one will ever mistake Autosport for an august technical journal, but doesn’t mean, in this case, they’re wrong. Let’s see what Mercedes and their army of designers and aero people do with their promised upgrade—I’m betting it’s more RB than Ferrari.
- Yes, Ferrari did a great job last year with the bathtub and the ridges on the side pods but you can’t equate this to all the others who—even using the ridge and high sided sidepods—drive the top flow to the floor where Ferrari and Haas do that little flick-up that maybe helps reduce lift on the sidepods but overall—and 7 teams with windtunnels, CFD and hundreds of aero people agree—maybe this concept gives something away to the downwash solution.
- Haas, disregarding poor quali, bad luck at the start had not much pace and poor deg unless you saw something to the contrary
- If you think that AM’s change last year from basically a flat, floating sidepod with horizontal rads to a downwash design was not a big change, well I’ll say it was an even bigger change than SF-75 -> SF-23.
- The lower SIS is already sticking out and requiring a blister to cover it so even if they want to make a similar change to what they did last year for France, the SIS will stick out even farther.
- About your last point, seems to me that by smoothing out the undercut and increasing the Coke-bottle area Ferrari have given up some of the mythical out-washing you’re on about in order to in-wash more air to the top of the diffuser. The same as other teams are doing with their downwashing designs.
Ultimately, you can try to defend and debunk criticism—and this is nothing personal, you know—the results will speak for themselves. I hope for Charles’ and the team’s sake, they win again soon but so far the fact the guy in charge of this concept quit or was canned is not a good omen for that.
I just hope this car will not only be remembered as a just a handsome design…
The concept that, after 3 days testing and 3 practice sessions they were still trying to find the proper set-up?
As Vanja answered you already and covered all my thoughts and even more in his post, I only want to add that I don’t understand why you make 3 days of testing look like enough. Only in 2021 when teams pretty much kept their cars from 2020 due to Corona they had 3 days of testing. Last year and 2020 6 days and before that even 8 days. For fun or because it was necessary?
Why? Because being an evolution of last year’s car and with all the simulation work, they should have progressed to a good race set-up more easily than they did if the car was good. RB and AM progressed well, the sign of a good car.
If indeed the RW was supposed to be the new single-pillar one—though not convinced of this as they said it was just a test item—why wasn’t it ready for the race? I think they actually intended to use the one they did and expected it to go well. And it didn’t.
Maybe this car is a bit of a diva, so let’s see what happens in the next few races. Hopefully it’ll be a 2021 Merc scenario. But seems it will need a bit of work, not just set-up changes.
I know you’re big fan of the Ferrari concept and I hope (also for my sake) that your loyalty to defend it is rewarded with some good results soon.
I'm always open about my subjective preference towards clean and tight engine cover. Both RB, Ferrari and AM (since it is something new, even if it did start as derivative) concepts are clearly very good and I love seeing different designs working so well. Each of those works in a different way and the best results will come from whichever is best perfected. So far it's RB, as was expected.
- Yes, Ferrari did a great job last year with the bathtub and the ridges on the side pods but you can’t equate this to all the others who—even using the ridge and high sided sidepods—drive the top flow to the floor where Ferrari and Haas do that little flick-up that maybe helps reduce lift on the sidepods but overall—and 7 teams with windtunnels, CFD and hundreds of aero people agree—maybe this concept gives something away to the downwash solution.
- If you think that AM’s change last year from basically a flat, floating sidepod with horizontal rads to a downwash design was not a big change, well I’ll say it was an even bigger change than SF-75 -> SF-23.
The reason 7 teams went towards downwash style is not the same for all of them. RB, ATR and Alpine started with it in 2022, while AMR had the B spec in WT in November or December 2021 from what I recall (that's also a reference to your other comment about AMR, original idea was scrapped for good even in 2021). McLaren and Sauber have a lot of centerline cooling and they wouldn't be able to make Ferrari concept work without big drag penalty, Williams too plus they already went to RB-Ferrari hybrid last year. Where Autosport just says - this seems to be the best solution - many people on this forum can explain this situation in far more detail and amend the statement to - this seems to be the best solution for the most teams.
- The lower SIS is already sticking out and requiring a blister to cover it so even if they want to make a similar change to what they did last year for France, the SIS will stick out even farther.
- About your last point, seems to me that by smoothing out the undercut and increasing the Coke-bottle area Ferrari have given up some of the mythical out-washing you’re on about in order to in-wash more air to the top of the diffuser. The same as other teams are doing with their downwashing designs.
SIS bubble is not a problem, I don't have a clue why you are stuck on that so much. You think it's much better to have a big bulge on the floor like RB and other teams than a small bubble on the sidepods? Those other teams have a limit to their floor design because of that, Ferrari doesn't.
The undercut is smoother to reduce drag, while making a small compromise on pure outwash. S-duct is also reducing the outwash a bit, but helps keep the engine cover tight. The rear is also smoother to reduce losses ahead of coke-bottle area and introduce even more air to the rear, it's two different things for two different reasons on their sidepods. This way they've tightened the footprint almost as much as possible compared to last year and the widest part of the sidepod footprint is where the radiators are, with room to tighten the rear footprint a bit more if needed from what I've seen.
Seemingly the first control electronics unit (the one that was swapped out before the race as a precaution) looks like it might be OK - which would avoid any grid penalties for Leclerc.
The article essentially says it’s been traced back to a wiring issue. You would imagine this wouldn’t be a ridiculously difficult thing to fix but the article seems to question the general quality control on the car (given the issues with the rear wing as well).
Still, positive if the engine issue is easily fixed and there are no penalties just yet.
A penalty at Saudi arabia would be a bad place to have it given on paper it would seem to be one of the car's best tracks, so very good news that the first units are saved
A penalty at Saudi arabia would be a bad place to have it given on paper it would seem to be one of the car's best tracks, so very good news that the first units are saved
Last year when Verstappen had a good car (Spa) he mowed the whole field down.
This is so incredibly risky in the budget cap era where there is no room for error. If they mess this up they've basically thrown in the towel until 2026. A good technical team is being dismantled and I'm struggling to see the positives, the F1-75 was fantastic until that foolish TD. Binotto also instilled confidence in the team, all these heads being chopped off will only lead to panic and disarray.
Autosport is a magazine for laymen, not even technical, let alone technical magazine with utmost integrity. They published jewels such as this
