It's not a good comparison. The Mercedes is rubbish.....for both drivers. The ferrari was only rubbish for one driver.
Huh? What's got Williams to do with this? Yes they had a single victory too but both drivers are fairly close in points (43 to 30). Not like MB where Nico has more than twice the points. moretti's comparison is valid
If that was really the issue the drivers would be releasing the DRS button in qualifying 50 metres out from a corner to solve this issue. Pete
One theory by an outside expert looking in is still just a theory. Ferrari needs to 1. Get their wind tunnel correlations in order 2. Fire Pat Fry Monte's patience will run out soon enough, if not already, if his engineers can't get their shiet together...
Why aren't people discussing the power output of the engine? Should our team have a more powerful engine?
Winning in F1 has not be related to power output of the engine for many tens of years. It's all about aerodynamics and driveability once you get the aero bit sorted. Look who is dominating; RedBull, who are running the Renault engine. Many agree it is not the most powerful. Pete
`the Ferrari engine seems quite good off the line where FA makes good use of the acceleration and then uses the top end speed with DRS to pass where the RB often seems to lack top end due to gearing which seems silly, why limit the top speed when it is a "simple" matter to gear it for long straights ?
Anderson can see the sympthoms, but that doesn´t mean that he necessrily knows where´s the cause. But you´re probably right in that at this point they know where the problem is but don´t know how to fix it. They have been using another wind tunnel for some time and there have not been big improvements, so I´m not sure that the wind tunnel is the cause of all their problems.
John, top speed does not equate to fast lap speeds, corner speed does. Top speed is only required for passing but if you are leading the race that is not an issue. Thus RB setup their car to be fastest and win. Pete
I've noticed that both RB and McLaren have large openings at the rear of their body work and Ferrari doesn't. I wonder if that helps with backpressure inside the engine area and provides better aerodynamics. Just a thought.
wouldn't want any of that to win a race There would be nothing worse than to know you have a faster car everywhere BUT the long straight and you have someone like Button who can hold you up for many laps and then you only get past because Button is a gentleman driver unlike Maldonado or Grojean. I think it was last year the RBs were hitting the limiter at Spa ..... great place to run out of top end
+1 Ferrari has been using the Cologne wind tunnel for weeks now and have stopped using the Maranello one. Perhaps the F2012 is maxxed out?
I think it is....IMHO no major breakthrough is forthcoming. Cliffy is in the best shape of his life but RB has wings!!!
Ferrari is in second place in the WCC despite Massa's woeful performance for most of the season. Car has been very reliable. As I said quoting Mario Andretti earlier in the year "a race horse with three good legs and one bad one will never beat a horse with 4 good legs, regardless of how hard the horse trains." The Prancing Horse needs to fight to the finish but I'm afraid its as good as its gonna get...the Gods need to cast some ill looks RB's way....
Still trying with this garbage? By agreeing with posts that don't make a modicum of sense you are losing more and more credibility every day. I'd love to see you explain your reasoning here, for comedy's sake if nothing else.
It is the famous catch 22 situation. You can't have the best lap time and thus qualifying performance if you just concentrate on top speed and you can't have the best race passing performance if you set your car up just for cornering speed. It has been like this for over 30 years. All the F1 engineers spend many hours in the wind tunnel trying to make downforce without causing loss of top speed ... some master it better than others BUT I know if I was a driver I would prefer more downforce and corner grip than top speed. Without corner speed you haven't got a hope of been competitive and importantly making your tyres last. Pete
I was only alluding to Felipe having similar bad luck this year to Michael, I would never put Fm in the same class as MS. And due to FM having similar bad luck he has not contributed to Ferrari's WCC points tally as much as Webber has to RBR
a bit like the Lotus Cortinas and Ford Galaxies of the 60s ? The Cortinas handled better but the Galaxies had more top end speed, without Clark driving the Galaxies won all the time. Look at Webber and Alonso last weekend, once pass Webber Alonso had no problems staying ahead ... ask Mark if he would like to have some more top end speed to fight off those battles or be able to use DRS to get back his lost position. I'm not saying great corning is not the way to go but if you look at the modern F1 cars they mostly all go around corners frighteningly quick but it is the cars that accelerate quickly and have good speed that lead the show in wheel to wheel racing when the corning ability of the cars is so close