Ferrari LaFerrari 'XX" Nordschleife test

Yeah, that's what I said, but doing it on the Ring with a lowered suspension and Lexan windows mean something more. The car is also very loud, more than you would expect from a regular street-legal LaF.

 

the standard cars all have carbon fiber body panels, this particular ring car is just unpainted. yes, they are testing 'something'. it is lowered, runs on semi-slick track tires, has extra gurney 'lip' on rear spoiler, as well as the 'missing' slat in nose vent, and as we all can hear, obviously a 'sport' exhaust of some sort. sounds even better than 'stock'. maybe it is a future 'track package' upgrade or a test of what will go into a future XX model.

 

This was vastly covered here back in its day and it was general consensus that it was a normal LaF with very minor tweaks, like the gurney flap. Of course jornalists are not to be trusted, these days they simply rely whatever will bring them more page views, not bothering confirming accuracy or sources.

 

next year ferrari will present a laf Spyder (less cars then 499) i am shure they will achieve some improvements over the laf today, mayby its the test car for the new LaFspyder still with roof

 

Did he also mean it was also NOT something else? Or something different? Something? Nothing?

What time? There is no time. "Onlookers", "We heard": are these your "journalists"? Young men hanging in the bushes and running with cameras after sportscars. Come on, wake up!

Can you read? "almost lost the car" and "nothing happened" does mean: no crash. Okay? No crash = no reports of crash.

 

Thank you. Finally common sense ... pay all that money, I'd want carbon fibre thanks.
Pete

 

Is that a fact? Like really?

 

4th Gear, you're on about one of your ridiculous theories again to try and prove you're right, when you're not.

The normal LaF has carbon panels but painted, this one simply doesn't have paint. It doesn't mean they made carbon panels instead of other materials.

The car has indicators, license plate holder, road legal tires and all that stuff that's unnecessary for an XX car.

There is a high voltage sticker on there to indicate a battery test.

Raffaele de Simone has even said that this is NOT an XX car, including some other members here who have inside knowledge.

The reports you pulled from the internet are from somewhat laughable sites trying to gain hits on their site.

IMO it's fairly obvious to me that this is a battery test to see how it'll cope with very fast on road driving (whether this is heat related and how it affects or something else I don't know), something more difficult to do on a smooth race track and more legal than on a nice back road.

 

4th Gear - listen to Toolfan and Marcel. They know more than most when it comes to these things.

 

Not sure but 'dreamcatcher' gets early cars like that red 16m (another open car) years ago. He seems well placed to know...

 

The car was definitely there for important reasons. Onlookers at the Ring also include experienced and professional watchers, journalists. They are not all silly persons. Come on, wake up!

Marcel said it was a 'very bad tire failure' on a 'very fast straight' - please re-read the words VERY, BAD, FAST, STRAIGHT. The 2 sentences make for a particularly nasty combination together. Yes, I can read.

It was a high speed accident that potentially involve some loss of control on a fairly narrow track. That's why I think it would have been noticed or reported even if Marcel said 'nothing happened' - nothing happened for an experienced chief test driver in an LaF is not necessarily the same as 'nothing happened' for an ordinary driver in an ordinary car.

Anyway, thanks for the comments.

 

Yes, I do appreciate their comments and their credibility and I also appreciate the other comments pointing out the use of CF on regular LaFs.

However, it looks to me this car was at the Ring doing some serious track testing. I'm not convinced it had nothing to do with the XX because this car was definitely there for the track. It had little to do with road testing.

I am also familiar with the paintless approach to reducing weight on CF body work. Lexan windows lower the weight further. And those wheels were undersized to get the suspension lower as well as provide a side benefit of lower rotational mass.

All this plus the admission that De Simone was involved at the Ring means it was an important factory track testing event. De Simone had piloted the 599 XX Ring speed record run. The regular LaF is not designed purely for track work. MAC also recently announced a track-only version for the P1. And 2015 is just 1 season away. If Ferrari wants to unveil a credible XX in 2015, they have to have done a lot of serious testing by now if not even much earlier.

 

I'm pretty sure the whole point of that test car was to test the new neutral button idea that was bandied about last year.

 

250 lusso,

can you tell me more about that neutral button idea of give references?

thx

 

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/ferrari-discussion-not-model-specific/403533-ferrari-should-offer-n-button-f1-steering-wheels.html

 

250 lusso, you must be extremely bored. Let me give you a word of advice. If you want to post out of topic - START YOUR OWN THREAD.

In the meantime, if you have nothing relevant to add, I trust you will allow the rest of the adults on this thread to discuss the upcoming LaF XX.

 

Take it easy. We're not talking about the XX, we're talking about the road legal LF that was testing at the Nurburgring.

 

lusso 250 is a troll. You are not aware of what he is referring to.

He and a number of his troll buddies made ignorant and immature remarks about a serious topic I created a thread on many months ago. That's what he's referring to and trying to dredge up on this thread. It's off-topic.

He has nothing useful to add and out of spite, he is trying to distract my legitimate comments on this thread. I have never met him and I have never made detracting remarks about any of his Fchat interests. He seems to have nothing better to spend his time on.

 

Oh come on mate, lighten up. It's the Internet.

Serious topic, eh? My troll buddies? Everyone who read that thread - everyone - thought the idea was silly. Please tell me that after owning a California for some time now that you aren't really still pining away for a "neutral button!"

As far as this thread goes, I brought the neutral button misfire up to remind you that you are like a dog with a bone whenever you come to a conclusion about something. You seem incapable of acknowledging that some of your ideas are simply wrong, even in the face of contra instruction from those more knowledgeable. Oft times MUCH more knowledgeable.

Case in point, you're in this thread telling Toolfan and Marcel Massini that they're wrong about this LaF test car? Do you not appreciate who these guys are? Either can pick up the phone and talk to insiders at Ferrari S.p.A. Insiders who may have turned wrenches on the very car you're speculating about. They have direct connections concerning these matters you don't. If they say this car has nothing to do with LaF XX, it really probably doesn't have anything to do with LaF XX.

Besides a silly habit of arguing with those in a better position to know, as other posters have noted, your basic observations are flawed. I.e., not understanding that all LaF's have carbon bodywork. I.e., asserting the car in question has "undersized" wheels where it clearly doesn't.

All that said I do happen to agree with you that the black car was at the ring for more than just battery cooling development. Given the unique lightweight configuration of that car (sliding windows, no paint, some small aero tweaks), what you are more likely seeing, in addition to battery testing, is Ferrari's quite unofficial, pretend its something else, effort to see where they stand relative to P1 and 918 at the ring. It's likely the car has been a little slower than 918, and Ferrari is trying some small things on an "optimized" LaF to see if they can close the gap.

Will some of what they learn make into the XX model? Probably. Is this an XX centered test car? No.

I'm curious what Toolfan might know about this car relative to the factory's interest in setting a time to compare with the competition.

 

Bas, you tend to have a penchant for drama that is sometimes unfortunate but at least you qualify your arguments and allow for debate. So you're off my ignore list.

Unpainted CF panels are also often used to reduce a significant amount of weight from layers of paint, just like the LEXAN window treatment and low ride height - they are trying to get the HIGHEST TRACK SPEED from this car, not just testing batteries for the regular ROAD CAR. If they were testing batteries for the regular LaF they would use normal ride height so as to match the actual height of the regular car. This is clearly for track applications. The only future LaF track development is the LaF XX, ergo, this is an LaF XX mule.

The use of street-legal lights can also be for practical reasons on a road track like the Ring. It can also be used to disguise the purpose of the car when it is seen by the public.

Testing batteries does not require it to be on the Ring, as TOOLFAN stated, "…battery cooling test beds just like the two yellow cars running around Maranello.". They may well be using and testing new batteries for the track car but they are not simply testing batteries.

De Simone said this was not an XX car. However, he did not say it was not a test mule for XX designs. No one would argue that no LaF XX car exists at the moment. But the XX will be unveiled in less than 12 months so do you really believe the factory would not even be running test mules in April? The Ring has become the public arena for competing cars from Porsche and MAC, where else would Ferrari test their XX mules?

Bas, you do make interesting and useful comments at times, it's unfortunate you can't see you were wrong to act like a troll in your unfair derision of an effective and commonly-used Winter driving technique. Most people here do not drive like hooligans on Winter roads. Using neutral to regain traction and steering control in a manual-transmission car may not be sexy but it will save you from a crash on icy Winter roads.

As for you 250 lusso, I've also taken you off my ignore list, temporarily.

Bas may be overly-dramatic but your comments border on stalking - yes, we are on the Internet but this is a professionally-moderated forum and I am a paying subscriber. Stalking may happen on the free-for-all Internet but Fchat is not the "Wild West". So I would warn you to stop the stalking because it clearly isn't on-topic and is a form of abuse of another member who is trying to carry on a well-meaning on-topic discussion.

As for your other comments, TOOLFAN made some interesting arguments but I have already challenged them in a fair and well-reasoned manner. Marcel forwarded interesting remarks from de Simone but they do not refute possibility that this car is a test bed (mule) for XX designs (not an XX car). At this point in the factory's testing, technically there are no XX cars, so de Simone was telling the truth.

At any rate, why would Ferrari admit this is a test mule for the XX? The answer is NO, they wouldn't. They would deny it in a polite and elegant manner, as de Simone and Marcel did.

Aside from behaving in a rogue manner with your stalking, this is another area where you fall down, you are so obsessed in vilifying a stranger that you don't actually bother to check your facts. You don't reason in an objective manner or respect independent thinking but rely instead on blind servile fan loyalty to others. Not everyone agrees all the time with TOOLFAN or Marcel.

I have set up visual comparisons between this XX mule using a photo from the LaF launch, a photo that closely matches the photo perspective of the mule. With the exception of perhaps some cornering lift on the right side of the XX mule from the high speed turn, the 2 cars are in almost identical physical alignment. Unless Ferrari changed the wheelbase of the LaF, the photo alignment technique I used to resize the photos to the same scale by aligning the hub caps is the best technique, as evidenced by the alignment agreements between various mid-body details, cut lines, door gaps, panel gaps in this morphing sequence.

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Since there is a severe file size limitation placed on uploads, I have purposely made blow-up details sampled from the same original full-sized morphing sequence. Here are the front wheels morphed between the 2 cars, look at the gaps between the brake rotors and the rims; look at the profile of the side walls, the lengths of the spokes and where they join to the rims:

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And here are the rear wheels, ditto. The wheels are compared in correct alignment, I've aligned the brake calipers perfectly:

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Based on this closer examination, I estimate the rims on the mule are 1 to 2 sizes smaller. I spotted the smaller wheels even with the grainy original image I posted. I imagine other visually-oriented people can also spot the same discrepancy.

Smaller rims (wheels) are faster than larger rims in a race. Big wheels look nice in a pose but they are heavier to accelerate and the tires are compromised by the lack of rubber. Bigger rims do turn more responsively but that can also be achieved by suspension tweaking. These smaller wheels allowed the car to test a lower suspension development for the track, a clearly stated goal from Ferrari sources for the XX.

And BTW, here's another interesting feature of the mule everyone missed, an extended lowered chin. This is similar to a track feature the Enzo FXX exhibited. The rear quarter panels also look different, longer, since the taillights are clearly set further back. This may be something done to reduce wake turbulence.

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Finally, a word about this bizarre obsession from 250 lusso.

When I posted my original question about the N button, I was concerned about wet weather and low temperatures when I picked up my car in April - it can snow here in April and May. As it turned out, the weather was fine. And yes, I have practised the neutral maneuver in my Cali30 just for the heck of it. 2-paddle activation of neutral is not as fast or convenient as the left foot approach but it works OK. However, unless I have the misfortune to run over a slick patch, I will not likely have to employ the maneuver in my Cali30 as I would not track this car, nor would I use it in Winter. But it's nice to know that unlike in an AUTO transmission, neutral can be employed in an instant to regain steering control in the DCT car.

 

So why did you a rendering to compare the car spotted on the ring instead of a pic of a real car? Very nice gif but they mean nothing. So because the drawing doesn't exactly match the real world car you conclude that your pov must be right? That last gif is laughable both images you used are from different angels. How could a visually orientated individual like yourself not see that? Keep up the fantastic tin hat routine.

 

+1 So much effort wasted because he based it in a heavily photoshopped launch pic. Epic fail.

 

Guys, you're right. Now that you point it out, I checked and I now realize the LaF launch rendering is very inaccurate.

I've been using this particular launch rendering to compare against the spy shot because their angles of incidence are practically identical and the launch image is very sharp. There is some small differences in parallax due to differences in apparent distances from the (photographer and artist) but the main problem is the apparent inaccuracy in the rendering of the wheels and proportions of the nose and tail of the car.

I dug around and found a close perspective of the LaF from a Japanese website as well as a photo of the opposite side of an LaF at the launch - the wheels are the same size as the ones on the car depicted in the spy shot. The same photos also matched the nose and tail sections of the car in the spy shot.

So this IS an "epic fail" on my part and I admit TOOLFAN, Marcel, Bas and even 250 Lusso were correct in their assertions regarding the wheels and the bodywork, even though the car did appear to have been performing track-specific testing. I also want to apologize for casting doubts on their credibility in the process.

This exercise has been sobering but I do appreciate your feedback and the learning experience. And BTW, this dog isn't fixated on any particular bone… I'll chew on whatever tastes good.

Good night and have a great week!

 

impressive graphics! appreciate your attention to detail. no issue with the mistake - still a great effort.

i happened to be at the factory spec'g my laf during the week when the nurb attempt was being made. i was staying in the same hotel as marcel and saw him at bfast.

my understanding is that the nurb car was a standard laf but for lexan windows, lowered ride height and more aggressive tyres. car was offered to a friend of mine to buy and i believe that is how the spec was described.

while i appreciate the arguments on what might or might not be an xx mule, my understanding is that the nurb car is not an xx mule as i would understand that to be. the xx will have more hp, not need to be road registered opening up many more possibilities on suspension, aero, etc.

 

4th gear,

Its painful to watch you in this thread. Just stop it. There are at least 3 people in this thread, with vast ferrari knowledge, even inside knowledge, that no one can get a hold off - and you keep going. Why are you pressing this issue so hard? This is NOT anything related to an XX, just because a lot of amateur auto sites THINKS it is. And I stress the think part, because they are doing exactly what you are.. Speculating. And then you keep eachother going in circles, feeding on eachothers own made up information.

It really is painful to watch you in this thread. Like a child saying 3+3 is 7, and keep doing it while the teacher and the rest of the class is laughing, because they have proven and all know it's 6.