Not sure if this is true or not..... German press New 2010 Ferrari lacks aerodynamic efficiency German Press Thumb Ferraris new single-seater, predicted to be named the F2010, and set to compete in the 2010 Formula 1 championship will officially debut later this month on January 28 in Maranello. However, some are suspecting that its quest for the championship along with Ferrari drivers Felipe Massa* and already two time world champion Fernado Alonso may be over before they begin. The car has yet to see pavement, but an article in German publication Motorsport Aktuell written by none other than regular and respected contributor to the Italian magazine Autosprint; Alberto Antonini has claimed that the new Ferrari design lacks aerodynamic efficiency and has come short of achieving set design goals.* The author writes that a B-spec version of the car is in the works at Maranello set to be introduced in June, near round eight of the championship. Snapshot of the German article The news is hard to digest given that Ferrari has started work on the 2010 challenger mid 2009 season and is expected to be a force to be reckoned with. If the rumors are true, (and at this point this cannot be attributed to anything else but rumors) and Ferrari do plan to introduce a b version in June, then the season might as well be written off as its unlikely Ferrari would be able to compete with its rivals if the a version is not up to par. Ferraris standard procedure for the past few years has been to introduce a few significant upgrades to the release version of the car by the start of the European season a few round in.* This news brings up some serious questions especially given that all official word from Mranello has been positive.
Why oh why do people jump on these rumours and start writing off Ferrari before the bloody car's even been assembled!. It's ridiculous!. How do we know Ferrari hasn't set it's targets too high for the car and that in reality they're achieving pretty much what every other team is achieving?. Frankly, as far as I'm concerned it's a bit too early to be all doom and gloom about a car that barely exists yet. I suspect the next headline from the German press will be how Schumacher's Mercedes is setting new records for speed and reliability and that he will have won the Championship by round six of the season!.
Hmm, that's a bit strange, since I'm checking the motorsport aktuell website regularly and haven't seen such a story. Granted the print medium has more information than the teaser website, but such a story would be headline news, wouldn't it? The tough part is, that motorsport aktuell normally gets it right. If they air a story, it often holds water, so that would be bad news for the Ferrari. OTOH how on earth would they know this already?
Put the freakin' car and the track and then let's talk. I have complete confidence in Massa and Alonso is well known to be able to drag underperforming cars to the podium. What will be great is when they say to the rest of the field: eat my red dust.
If this is true.... it could be a situation similar to McLarens last year; one mistake in CFD and they are screwed. With so little testing done on track (8 days); they have to rely on cfd more.... Guess we'll know more on Feb 1st
That's all true, but I cant imagine they would be in trouble: - Without testing the real car, these are merely rumors based on somebody's opinion. - How could have Ferrari screwed up that much? This year we don't have the revolutionary rules changes as in 2009 but rather a mild evolution: The tank has to be bigger and that stretches the wheelbase, but that's about it. How can you screw that up? And how can you screw that up so much that somebody can already predict you're in trouble without the car running a real test? So given that the changes are merely incremental, I call BS on this rumor. I would listen to such rumors if everybody had a super diffuser except Ferrari (kinda like the situation a year ago), but not when pretty much every F1 car will be a carbon copy of the Brawn GP with a bigger tank.
These are the words from Stefano Domenicali on the 2010 car taken from the bbc website. "I'm not expecting to see Ferrari at the beginning (to be) straight away there (at the front) - I want to see Ferrari back again competitive and then during the season step by step to grow the development to go back to the place where we should be." http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/8459061.stm
Which is a reasonable statement to make. After all lets not forget that 2009 wasn't just a bad year because the F60 was a dog, but also because the team itself was not performing at its best: Remember the times when they didn't bother to send out the drivers and they didn't make it out of Q1? Or the times they put the wrong tires on Kimi's car? I think Stefano is including that as well in his statement: The overall team performance has to get better. Even a super car doesn't put you on top automatically.
OK, fair enough but my question is which one of the drivers will Ferrari listen to more in terms of developing the car through the 2010 season?
I would say that's a sensible statement and is "keeping things real". Basically he's admitting what everybody knows and that's there is alot of rebuilding to do and it's not going to happen overnight. It doesn't read to me in any way as: "We've gone wrong with the car design and it's a pile of junk that needs replacing as soon as possible", as was suggested by comments in the initial post. (Unless Stefano's choice of words in english were incredibly poorly chosen and that which I've written is exactly what he mean't to say, but I can't see it somehow).
Who's to say that both drivers won't want to develop the car in the exact same direction?. In that situation, they will take all the information from both drivers on board. If the drivers have opposing views, they will simulate both options, assess which route offers the most gains and follow that one. Wherever possible they will tailor the car to suit each driver individually. As a last resort, they'll ring Schumacher, see what he suggests and then do the exact opposite!.
Badoer. Probably they will listen to their computers and CFD experts, they have more to say than any driver.
That's why they run the races boys. At the beginning of last season Brawn was nothing. FORZA FERRARI!!!
If Stefano said that Ferrari would be a WCC out of the box, it would have been the most stupid thing any one in F1 said since someone said Mosley would make a great boss of FIA
if there's validity to the report then the new car has some interesting features and will very much resemble the RBR car that Newey designed. The new front and rear wings won't be shown until the test at Valencia. For the launch they are doing basically what Mercedes is doing. The fuel tank capacity is said to be 240 litres necessiting the longer wheel base. Here's the link with diagram: http://www.anf1blog.com/2010/01/11/ferrari-2010-challenger-in-gazzetta-dello-sport/ Carol
Of course the internet is an excellent source of rumour and a great place for positive/negative propaganda. Don't read too much into most internet sites reporting these kind of things. the truth will out in late February, nobody will be showing their hand early this year.