Well what's the rumor? I've heard something about $20mil for the redesign? any more info?
Likely Spain. But, the difusers are not the cure all. Its the entire package, Brawn got it spot on, whether anyone else, including Ferrari can match this is questionable. I believe it to be Brawn's year, and I am not upset by this. In fact, this is quite good. Ferrari needs to get over itself, and then it will start winning again.
The press reports have made it sound like the teams are just now starting to develop the new diffuser. I doubt this is the case however. The teams would be stupid to not have started developing them from the first rumblings of the row that came out in Jan or Feb. With that said, I still have no idea how long until they have them ready to go.
Nobert Haug : 'It took the teams 3 months to develop and ensure the diffusers were sucessfull, we can't afford to do it within 3 weeks' I suppose Spain would be the earliest date, but other teams like Renault have publicly said that they've been developing those diffusers in case they are ruled to be legal.
Majority of teams has DDD under high priority from development point of view ever since it was confirmed as legal back in Australia. However, DDD had been under the research by other teams weeks before first grand prix of the season.
Can someone explain to me why it will take Ferrari "$20 - $30 MILLION" (THEIR quote) dollars to develop Brawn-style diffusers? I just don't understand that - 2 cars on track with 2 backups for each.... how in the world can it cost that much to match the Brawn style of diffuser? I could see a few tens-of-thousands. Or $100K. Or even $100k per car ($400k total). But where in the world does the $20-30 MILLION DOLLARS come from??? Maybe I'm just naive, but I simply cannot connect these dots... help me understand... ???
Most of the cost is development cost, so you really cant think of it in terms of cost per car. The prevailing opinion is that you cant just replace the diffuser with this new design. It really requires a full redesign of the rear of the car. Apparently the gearbox housing must me shaped differently for it to fit properly. This itself would be costly. The rear suspension mounts to the housing so that will also be redesigned. Plus the hundreds of hours of wind tunnel work for the diffuser, things add up quickly.
Might as well consider an entirely new car. That's probably the reason for the initial protest, not that the diffuser style chassis is illegal. The people iin Ferrari tech blew it. Big time.
I although heard Ferrari won't be using Kers. Diffuser by the Turkish GP ? why don't they wait untill the last gp ! Renault is almost ready.
I'd say by Spain or Monaco. Depends on how long it takes them to re-design the back of the car, and how much they have to change.
Yes it requires changes to the rear end of the car; as monaco has no long high speed sweepers the performance advantage of the trio of teams should be somewhat diminished.
