new enzo vs 918 marketing strategies

True.

 

It did but I do accept your apology.

Cheers

 

Werd.

 

The world does not end in F1 like Ferrari thinks.

Neither does in Nurburgring. Sometimes this ´Ring fever reminds me of the infamous Top Gear lap chart, as many people think that it´s the measure of all things. Some cars that have won at Nurburgring have not won anywhere else. And if the similarity to real roads is so important, then a Gr. N rally car in a rally stage should be the real benchmark.

I just can´t understand this attitude of the Resistance purists who think that "Ferrari does not give a dang about races, they only are interested in selling cars to fat millionaires, yadda, yadda..." They do care about races, but right now they have their hands full with F1. This has been like that since 1973, nothing new, and boy, you can bet that right now they NEED to focus in their F1 team.

Said that, they´ve doing quite nice things in Resistance lately with class wins at Le Mans, Sebring and LMS, and lots of national GT championships. Again, even the Resistance world does not end at Nurburgring. And the 599XX, you know, that expensive track toy based on a big, heavy and quite old luxury GT car desgined for fat millionaires, was not too much slower than the mid-engined-ultra-sophisticated-all-carbon-fiber Pagani Zonda R. And the Radical (not much more than a cheap British kit car) was very close to the Pagani, with street tyres!! So let´s all put in perspective all this stuff of "my dad´s car is faster around the ´Ring than your dad´s car".

 

Sure, test and develop, but I don't think that necessarily correlates to lap times or how good/fast a car is. If a car holds up on the ring and has good handling feel, it will be better than a car that can't and doesn't, but a good lap time at the ring won't necessarily have correlation to a good lap time anywhere else or on the road...IE an ultimately faster laptime at the ring doesn't mean anything anywhere else. The fact that you don't think an f1 car can lap as quickly as a Pagani street based car there just reinforces that - the f1 car will absolutely destroy the Pagani at virtually any other track, street track and/or hillclimb so the ring laptime becomes irrelevent anywhere except, well, the ring.

My point is that an ultimate nurburgring lap time is more a curiousity than any indicator of the relative speed of a car in 90% of conditions. Maybe Ferrari has the same thought, or maybe they're just chicken, I don't know. But, when looking at nurburgring lap times I think to myself "that's great, I'll be sure to try and get one of those if I ever go there". But it doesn't tell me anything about how the car will do at VIR, which is ultimately more important to me as that's my home track. If I look at Suzuka or other tracks that have a good smattering of high and low speed turns, quick transitions etc., I can get a better indication of how well the car will do at any of the tracks I'm likely to run - or indeed 90% of the tracks out there, whether it can get in and out of the carousel without destroying itself or launching itself into the trees, or the suspension overheats has no bearing at virtually any other track other than from potentially a longevity perspective.

I'll admit, the only endurance racing I do is in Lemons or Chump car, and I have no idea what kind of times our crap can 944 would do at the ring, but even if I knew it was 5 seconds a lap faster than a Saab 9000 because the Saab's intercooler heat soaks 3/4 of the way through, it wouldn't matter when I got my doors blown off every lap for 24 hours at every other track where that particularity didn't come into play...

 

Well said!

 

Or because only the very purists know who won the latest race at Nurburgrig so manufacturers prefer to spend their not unlimited resources in other series.

Do you think that BMW now races in the ´Ring instead of F1 because they think that it´s the real deal? Nope, it´s because they have their arsess seriously kicked in open wheel racing and a failure at Resistance races is cheaper.

 

I'm not putting the ring down as a development tool, merely the comparison of ultimate lap times there as, more than most tracks, the lap time is only meaningful there.

 

Can we get back on topic before Mr.G decided to come to a ferrari forum to bash ferraris and tell us inferior they are. This was intended as a marketing discussion, not a bashing of everyones arguments and how much better Pagani is in your opinion. Thank you

 

I agree that Ring times don't equate to other tracks but I still feel they are a good indication of how interesting a car will be to drive on the street.

 

I believe BMW beat Ferrari at Sebring and races other races than the Ring.

I think BMW races at the Ring for the same reason the the other Manufactures do. It sells cars if they are sucessful there. I think the tires manufactures race there for the same reason as the advertisments they take out if they win at the Ring show.

I think Sports Car racing does sell cars. I also think Porsche's marketing of their 918 will help them sell the 918. Ferrari doesn't feel they need to so they don't.

 

It sells a lot more cars winning a F1 race. Or the Rally Championship. Or Le Mans.

The difference is that a win at Nurburgring can be cheaper. But I´m sure that the guys at BMW know that they get what they´ve paid for in terms of awareness.

Why are we talking about marketing? I´m interested in cars!

 

Pure & simple !

Yeah , the place is very unique .Word craftsmanship really means something there !

I'm fine , as usual trying my best

Saluti !
T.

 

Dude, Ferrari has a copy cat car company right down the street in Lamborghini. If Ferrari were to leak details about styling, weight, engine ect ect you could bet your salary for the next 10 years Lamborghini would try to upstage and steal everything away.

I believe Ferrari does enjoy teasing the public with suspense but its also about keeping your "competition" guessing.

Secondly the 918 is going to be sold to the general public. The Enzo successor won't be, it will go to a few lucky Ferrari collectors and enthusiasts. The 918 has to really be "sold", the Enzo's successor will easily be sold to the lucky people chosen to get one.

 

Sometimes a picture...
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Think he is just P-off his car was way of the pace of the leaders...guess the bull stopped...

I realise you know a hell of a lot about cars, and 1000 times more then me.... but stating that Hancook Ferrari which raced last year had full support from Michelotto is laughable. Hankook Ferrari was never a top contender against top teams like AF corse in the ILMC, hell even JMW were better.

and even so they were able to take pole position...

When and if I see a full factory effort by Ferrari there with 4 factory drivers, on Michelin tires I would be happy to admit Ferrari failed. BTW all the things I just mentioned are present to all the cars you are singing praises for. Last year was a casual private attempt and it was great, but nobody ever though they really had a chance, because they were up against Full factory squads in multiple cars, for example, the wining crew actually drove two different versions of the car at the same time, to access which would do better. And you are calling that fair comparison, seriously?

 

Lets add a few facts to that statement shall we. That BMW that beat Ferrari at Sebring, is race build prototype built completely outside the rules of the category that it races in. While the 458 is 100% built to GTE 2012 regs.

Proof of my statement above, is that FIA never allowed the BMW to race in the GT2 class during the FIA GT championship. 24h Nurbergring runs the BMW in EXP1 class, basically meaning that it is racing by itself, since all the other cars are racing in their own categorys.

 

Glad I have somebody to point me in a correct direction

I'm doing well, Jim. Thanks! Looks like all is going well in the house of G/C too

 

In the rain where HP matters less we were running in the top five. As we're producing 100 less HP with our GT2 restriction it's not surprising we were off the pace of the GT3's. We still were able to beat all non German Cars which isn't too bad. We've asked for a bit more air so who knows.

As for a Full Works Factory Ferrari effort in Sports Cars I wouldn't hold my breath and if you're looking for an overall win in a major race I really wouldn't.

Let's move on to Sebring. The Factory supported Ferrari's lost to BMW and your spin remains spin.

How about the 24 of Daytona? As I remember it the Factory supported Ferrari's lost to the Porsches. Spin that.

Getting back on track I look forward to seeing how the next Enzo stacks up against the 918
and the new Macca. I do hope Ferrari thinks twice about their 55K paint jobs (post 66) and refrains from requiring them on the new Enzo.

 

The Ferrari engineers are certainly capable of making a 5-minute car for the Ring. But that's not their turf for now.

It's amazing how many people talk about the "overheated" Enzo suspension. Ferrari has no interest in fixing that little problem. I'm certain Ferrari can send a special Enzo to the Ring (if they wanted to) and break 7 minutes. There's just no reason for them to waste their time on that. They sell every car they make and F1 gives them plenty of publicity.

I'm sure the next Enzo will be breathtaking.. and it may still overheat the suspension when some owner takes it to the Ring and breaks 7 minutes.

BTW, I haven't seen my Enzo's suspension overheat yet, and we were moving pretty darn fast at Laguna Seca with Johannes van Overbeek for 10+ laps. The amateurs in their Porsche cup cars with slicks couldn't stay with us.

 

We try to get by...

 

Bill the chances of Ferrari making a car that can lap the Ring in 5 minutes are Zero.

Those P drivers should take a lesson or two. At the Ring the P 997 GT3 RSR is 20 seconds a lap faster than an Enzo.

 

Doesn't that also include the HGTE package? Not quite just paint, but point taken. I think the more salient point is who would spec out and buy that? There was one variant of the 60 f1 final edition that looked pretty nice (I think all red with none of the awful white), but that certainly isn't it.

edit: it's the 375f1 paint job with the darker red used on the early f1 cars. It looks very nice. The other 2 paint jobs with the white are horrifying.

 

You're right about the HGTE package but I still think the paint is VOM and that whole "Special edition" way overpriced but if the guy who bought that one is happy what's not to like?