Ranting

[RH1300S]

I don't really want to defend Ferrari....................BUT, just listen to the engine, worth every penny

[DaveKillens]

Now the issue is flexing of aero surfaces. A purely passive response. The latest raft of measuring systems were introduced mainly on safety grounds because they were worried about potential failures. If a wing passes what is effectively a strength test it is deemed strong enough & safe enough to race with.

It is fair to argue that teams are, in fact, not cheating.

OK, the waters have been muddied because there is a clear overlap between flexing and moveable aero - even so...........

The original concept (which I agree with 100%) is that any moveable aero device becomes a serious safety issue if it breaks or becomes damaged. It's true the rule was a knee-jerk reaction to fatalities many years ago, and the science of technology has advanced a lot since then. But a line had to be drawn that decides what is or is not allowed. The FIA decided to err on the side of safety and made any movement illegal. The thing is, once you start to allow parts to move or flex under aero demands, eventually they will fail. It's the nature of racing, every component is stressed to it's maximum limit. It's not like the aviation industry where flaps and spoilers and everything else is used as a matter of course. In that situation, everything is designed and built to a high level of fault tolerance, where nothng is allowed to come even close to it's designed limitations. On aircraft, safety factors of 300% and multiple load paths are very common.
But in racing, it's the team's job to push the limits of technology and the rules. Every team does it, every team wants to win. And if Ferrari or Honda or anyone else find a grey area in the rules that gives them an advantage and is so vague that it's arguable whether the FIA should do anything about it, then personally I give my respect to the team that does it. They are just doing their job, and doing it well.
Do politics and favoritism and everything else exist in Formula One? of course, there's big money and big egos involved, get used to it and get over it. It's always been that way since day one of motor racing, and it will always be there. We may not like the fact that sports are tainted, but it's just a fact of life. You don't have to like it, but please, don't believe that one day it can be removed. The Olympics have scandals, professional bicycle racing, motor racing, name any sport, and you have some dirt somewhere.
I don't want to lose sleep arguing forever on who cheats when and where, I just want to enjoy great motor racing, with exciting action and interesting drivers.
Yea, sure F1 has it's dirt, but it's not that bad, in fact it's a great sport.

[West]

Yeah, when my mum drove the new Ferrari 599 GTB she said the ride was uninspiring and the handling was not as good as the Ascari KZ1 [-( :^o

Well my mom drove the McLaren F1 GTR and she didn't like it because there wasn't DVD navigation.


I came to F1 Technical to avoid this boy racer sh*t but I guess it's unavoidable in any car forum.

[saam]

well, west the kids on these forums comes out fairly quickly, in fact it gets quite boring when all you hear is I HATE FERRARI. Bring it on i say, the are so many people to cancell the haters out its not funny.

Besides i cant blame them for not feeling close to a prancing horse. Maybe they wernt loved by their parents enough...

[Tp]

Yeah, when my mum drove the new Ferrari 599 GTB she said the ride was uninspiring and the handling was not as good as the Ascari KZ1

No need to be angry at me, with your sarcasm. Blame Renault for giving us a car that would be more durable if it was made out of plasticine.

[wazojugs]

So what you're saying then is that you paid £15K for a car which was beaten by a "red skip with wheels"? Must be crap car you bought then!!

You really have missed the point here, it was plain to see

[dumrick]

Are people seriously defending here than italian cars are more reliable than french ones? And that Ferrari are reliable cars? People, get a life and look at the statistics, if you want (any national organisation of buyer's defense must have that info...), I won't bother loosing my time with such questions on a serious technical forum...

[f1.redbaron]

Are people seriously defending here than italian cars are more reliable than french ones? And that Ferrari are reliable cars? People, get a life and look at the statistics, if you want (any national organisation of buyer's defense must have that info...), I won't bother loosing my time with such questions on a serious technical forum...

There is a company out there, called J.D. Power & Associates, that should be able to help us in put this argument to a rest. JD Power will, in the next couple of weeks, publish its most recent "Initial Quality Study". There, based on the surveys filled-out by the actual owners of the new vehicles, we will be able to see which car manufacturer has the most dependable vehicles. Until then, we'll have to go by this:

These were the last years results (for N. America):

http://www.jdpower.com/news/releases/pr ... ID=2005069


And the most recent European IQS results that I could find (2003):
http://www.jdpower.com/awards/industry/ ... tudyID=747


I would like to point out one thing about these European IQS results:

http://www.jdpower.com/presspass/pr/ima ... 8afull.gif

Read the footnote underneath the graph.

[Tp]

So what you're saying then is that you paid £15K for a car which was beaten by a "red skip with wheels"? Must be crap car you bought then!!

You really have missed the point here, it was plain to see

You said it, not me.


And Dumrick I'm pretty sure no-one has said that Ferrari's are more reliable than Renault. All that has been said are opinions about which is best, a Ferrari or a shopping trolley...I mean a Renualt Clio.

[Tp]

Okay I've made my point that Renaults are unreliable, now here's the proof-

http://www.topgear.com/content/features ... /01/3.html

'The top of the table is filled with Japanese car makers and the bottom is predominantly French'

Renault are third to last!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 34th out of 36, in the UK's biggest independent car satisfaction survey

[kilcoo316]

The serious bit: Can I meekly point out that:

1. Owning a Ferrari is not viable for 99% of people.
2. A fast car does not necessarily mean a fun car.
3. Comparing a £15K car to a £115K car on performance alone is stupid.



The not so serious bit:
And of course the Yanks can't build engines who was silly enough to suggest otherwise

500 bhp from a 7 litre engine? Thats a crappy 71 bhp/litre. My old A4 diesel gets near 60 bhp/litre [If I chipped it, I could get near 73 bhp/litre ]

The RS4 gets about 100 bhp/litre
The F430 gets near 105 bhp/litre

[zac510]

Nobody has asked the real question though:

Clio or F430..

Which one will pull the ladies?

[Reca]

I agree that additional checkups can be conducted if demanded by stewards or technical delegate but I'm not sure that they have any real freedom to actually act without someone’s permission. Imagine CW deciding on his own to strip down gearbox because he suspects something (such analysis means revealing technology too).

They have freedom to do everything they want. Read scrutineering reports you’ll see a quantity of verifications.
Additionally you’ll also see that sometimes it happens that a team change one of the gears (or any other part of the car) between qualifying and race, during parc fermè. They can do it assuming the new part is identical to the one removed from the car and FIA stewards are there, following the whole operation, to check it.
BTW, when they make scrutineering or operations in parc fermé, only present people are from team and from FIA, so there’s no risk of revealing technology, FIA is allowed to know, I would say must know actually, everything about the car.

About those reports of wing deflection “test”... First of all that is part of scrutinizing using static load which means that it can detect fraud only if wing flexes as expected by FIA method which is something whoever designes flexing wing keeps in mind. When I said detail analysis I meant wind tunnel testing just as for example suspicious material or fuel would be tested in a specialized lab.

What we said all along since this whole issue started is exactly that FIA defined the tests to establish maximum flexibility and teams know every detail about them so they design the wing to pass the test. That’s part of the game, actually that’s The Game, design a car to pass the tests, following letter of the rule, the so often invoked spirit of the rule is something that simply doesn’t exist, to follow spirit of rules in F1 equates to shoot yourself in the foot. An example ? Compare head protection structures of Ferrari/Benetton and of Williams/Jordan in 1996.
For the wings FIA will not make wind tunnel testing because they never said, till now, they would do it and it’s not required for certify legality of car.
Same thing happens for material and fuel, FIA specify the limits and the tests and teams have to respect them. Fuel, in particular is compared with the sample “homologated” by the fuel supplier. And it’s a test FIA does during the Event, relatively often.

Another interesting thing is that in those reports before hint given to Ferrari no tests were conducted on their front wing so I wonder on what was FIA’s hint based?

Did FIA really give an hint to Ferrari and what kind of hint was that ? After all the modification Ferrari made to the wing, the fairing on the nose, doesn’t look like it’s there to stop flexing, more likely to “hide” to the airflow (and to camera eye ) the gap.

It is fair to argue that teams are, in fact, not cheating.

Not only it’s fair, it’s the only logical conclusion.

On aircraft, safety factors of 300% [...]

Actually safety factor in aeronautical industry is typically 1.4-1.5.

[m3_lover]

The serious bit: Can I meekly point out that:

1. Owning a Ferrari is not viable for 99% of people.
2. A fast car does not necessarily mean a fun car.
3. Comparing a £15K car to a £115K car on performance alone is stupid.



The not so serious bit:
And of course the Yanks can't build engines who was silly enough to suggest otherwise

500 bhp from a 7 litre engine? Thats a crappy 71 bhp/litre. My old A4 diesel gets near 60 bhp/litre [If I chipped it, I could get near 73 bhp/litre ]

The RS4 gets about 100 bhp/litre
The F430 gets near 105 bhp/litre

The vette is faster then both and is beats both of them on the Nurburgring and Top Gear track. 71 bhp/litre is a statistic, check bhp per tonne.

[m3_lover]

The serious bit: Can I meekly point out that:

1. Owning a Ferrari is not viable for 99% of people.
2. A fast car does not necessarily mean a fun car.
3. Comparing a £15K car to a £115K car on performance alone is stupid.



The not so serious bit:
And of course the Yanks can't build engines who was silly enough to suggest otherwise

500 bhp from a 7 litre engine? Thats a crappy 71 bhp/litre. My old A4 diesel gets near 60 bhp/litre [If I chipped it, I could get near 73 bhp/litre ]

The RS4 gets about 100 bhp/litre
The F430 gets near 105 bhp/litre

The vette Z06 is faster then both and is beats both of them on the Nurburgring and Top Gear track. 71 bhp/litre is a statistic, check bhp per tonne. Everybody knows the vette makes them wet.