So, is Mercedes that good? or is Ferrari that complacent?

For sure. Major effect. This was due to Uncle Sweater's meddling in the F1 team.

 

Ouch, you are probably right. God help sweater if he was callous in anyway towards Allison.

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Yes and errm Yes.

 

CFD is only good for 'clean air' evaluation, and any results aft of the front wheels is probably suspect. At least in a wind tunnel you could have two cars. The myriad of variables that occur on the track cannot be represented in a computer. It'll get you close, but close isn't good enough. Hopefully that is not their (Ferrari's) strategy.

edit: as an example, The airplanes that Boeing or Airbus end up delivering to customers is not the same airplane that the computer designed. Flight testing results in a lot of little changes to tweak the aero and account for things the CFD could not predict.

 

Since I run the official fan club in Denver for Scuderia Ferrari I was lucky to spend some quality time with Jock Clear in the paddock on Thursday before the race.

As Jock explained it to me, Mercedes are that good, and since they wrote the rules for this power unit they started their development 18 months before everyone else did. Put that in with the fact that James left, and most of the senior people like Luca Marmorini, Aldo Costa and others have left Ferrari are basically left with a young team and a lot of catching up to do.

As Jock told me, Ferrari will catch them, but at the time the rules will change again and it will start all over so it's best to focus on the next set of rule changes and make sure you lead the development there while trying to remain competitive and win with the current rules.

So the answer is yes, Merc is that good, they have a ton of old Ferrari talent there from Aldo Costa, Alberto Gallo and others, and Renault now have Luca Marmorini and other ex Ferrari talent too so it is an uphill battle!

 

Woah, so maybe Nico H got a good break bu going to Renault? Fitting for a winning Le Mans driver.

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I totally agree with you: the only impositions should be the engine size and the consumption.
Everything else should be left to the engineers to find the perfect formula to win the races with the least amount of fuel used.

Another oxymoron is the Constructor Championship: besides Ferrari that builds 100% of its race cars in house, who else does that?
How can a car using an engine sourced from another MFR built in a different Country (UK for the most part) qualify for a constructor championship?

 

I believe here is the root of the problem: "and since they (MB) wrote the rules for this power unit, they started the development 18 months before everyone else did".
And probably even earlier than that, if as I suspect, they knew they were lined up to write those rules.
How did they managed to be "insiders" in developing the rules?
Was Ferrari snoozing at the time?

 

Not everybody has the same weight in deciding the rules, and with Mercedes threatening to leave and supplying engines to half the grid, their opinion was definitely important for the rule makers. But I think that the main factor was that as Mercedes was not a title contender in 2012 or 2013 they were throwing more cash than everybody else at the new engines. The token system did the rest.

 

Uh the PU was originally supposed to be an I4. It was Renault that pushed for the V6 and influenced the rules more than any other team. The rules were written jointly between Merc, Renault and Ferrari. They all got the rules at the same time, only Merc started work early. Anytime you have this kind of dominance, it's a case of one team approaching rules spectacularly and others simultaneously having dropped the ball.

As far as Ferrari lacking talent because the Aldo Costa's, Luca Marmorini's, etc have left the team.. who's to blame for that? Ferrari fired them! In the case of Costa they incorrectly promoted someone who was a great engineer to a leadership position and then canned them when the results were lacking. Technical ability and leadership even in an engineering setting are different skillsets. Sam Michael at Williams is another example. In Marmorini's case, the chassis dept forced a turbo config that limited output for the sake of aero, and then tied it around his neck. The culture at Ferrari has been toxic for sometime.

ALL of it comes to do leadership quality and all of it comes to down to the organization. Back in the day Luca did a good job of hiring Todt who hired Brawn who set up a great technical structure at Ferrari. He then did the same at Honda which allowed BrawnGP to win, and then again built back up as Mercedes. Luca blundered promoting Domenicali and keeping him around too long, and the current leadership has completely **** the bed.

If you want to know why a team is prosperous or failing, look at the quality of leadership. Same as any other organization.

 

Actually the original I4 idea was from Renault. It was Mercedes and Ferrari who wanted the V6, Ferrari having not built an inline 4. The rules were brought to the table by Merc and adopted by Renault and Ferrari after discussion. You might notice that Renault are now up again and that is because Luca Marmorini is over at Renault heading up their V6 design efforts, Mercedes already had a V6 prototype design which they used to create the specs for the V6 and that's why they fought against the I4. Of course Jock was there during this time, having come over to Ferrari this year. As for someone dropping the ball, well I disagree, especially since i work with these guys. Yes Luca was tossed out due to Nicholas's politics, Luca is a friend of mine and I know the story, first hand. I agree with you that the team was in need of good leadership, but I think they have it now, and they are in rebuilding mode. Mr. A is very well liked within the team and the guys will do anything for him and they will get back on top under his leadership.

IMHO the real problem has been they never did rebuild after Michael left, they just kept getting by and now they have to rebuild.

my comments may sound nutty but you can see me at Scuderia Ferrari Club | The Official Ferrari Passion 2/3 of the way the page, back row left.

 

Alberto Ascribed won Ferrari first WDC driving an I4, and the v6 Ferrari last used as a turbo charged engine has absolutely no relevance to this current engine.

Surely a marketing decision as an engine is an engine, doesn't matter how many cylinders Ferrari could design one. Also half an F40 engine is a turbo I4 thanks to flat plane crank.
Pete

 

Alberto Ascari, yes, thanks for correcting me above, but the I4 is not an engine Ferrari are familiar with these days and the V6 was easier to obtain given the configuration of the 056 V8 being used at the time. It was however quite common for Renault and Mercedes.. For Ferrari is was the middle of the road, a good place to start where they could make good gains and not be stuck starting completely from scratch.

One of my favorite artifacts:
https://scontent.fapa1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/38401_1446442113655_3544238_n.jpg?oh=ed18522313bc7cc6189707cdbfd552cc&oe=58C53B56

 

Stupid phone auto correction.

Cutting the 056 v8 in half would have produced the needed I4 ... anyway Renault and Mercedes road I4 engines would not help them at all.

Marketing decision still makes more sense.
Pete

 

Thanks. I was gonna ask who Ascribed was and what championship (also thinking perhaps the WDC was the mistake).

Nice artifact indeed. How'd you acquire it?

 

Don't forget about the crankshaft and internals, having a I4 would require a whole new crank and rods since each cylinder would have its own crank journal, not a shared journal as used by the V configuration. The connecting rods have to have both sides with a chamfered edge where as in the V configuration, only side of the rod has to have the chamfered edge. Its' not as easy as just cutting something in half.

An interesting quote:
"“Ferrari wanted a V6,” says Ulrich Baretzky, Audi’s race engine development chief and a former member of the committee. “Montezemolo pushed, saying Ferrari cannot build a four-cylinder car. So F1 ended up with a V6 that is too heavy, too expensive and sounds bad.”

 

A friend gave it to me when I went to visit back in 2010. I even have a copy of the original race notes from the team from their first race victory in 1951 at Silverstone.

https://www.facebook.com/Ferraristi/media_set?set=a.1128451564090.2019922.1011232329&type=3

 

Allison moving closer to future with Mercedes

Allison moving closer to future with Mercedes F1 team




Allison to Mercedes, and Lowe to Ferrari ?

 

As I said marketing. Of course Ferrari could build a I4 but as Ferrari likes to have road cars with (loose) connections to their race cars, Luca's comment means, Ferrari cannot produce/market/sell a 4 cylinder road car. But of course they can market another v6 road car as they have done this successfully before.

So Ferrari could make any engine it wants, even a damn good single cylinder one, an I2, a v2, I3, I4, I5, etc but they want to be able to market road cars with similar engines and would you buy a 4 cylinder Ferrari? No and neither would I.
Pete

 

I don't know about you guys, but I don't want Ferrari building 4 cylinder engines for F1. It's too much like the Japanese rice rockets. If you think they're bad now (the oil can exhaust crowd), they'll be even worse if 4s become the norm in racing. Let's bring back the those gorgeous sounding 12 cylinders and acknowledge F1's lack of judgement for the last few years.

 

Admittedly not up on my Ferraris but the last I remember with a V6 (let alone a turbo V6) was the Dino. So what's the "road cars with similar engines" they're marketing?

And yes, I'd "buy a 4 cylinder Ferrari"...if it was down around 30 grand...

 

Uncle Sweaters greatest failure. They should Musolini his ass for this.

 

Thank you..... the difference in culture between the Italian teams and the big British teams is accountability...When something goes wrong at McLaren, RedBull or Williams etc they fix the problem and then put in procedures to stop it happening again. In Italy you spend 2 weeks pointing fingers and finding someone to blame, then fire his arse and then carry on as normal. and seem surprised that doing things the same way doesn't yield different results.. Every now and then you hire competent people, Todt, Brawn etc things go great then you piss them off and they leave.. and we are back to pointing fingers.... oh and when another team develops technology you cant get to work you go to the FAA and get it banned. Can you imagine if John Barnard had been with McLaren when he introduced the paddle shift transmission... it would have been banned with in two years, just like active suspension...but no, Williams and McLaren saw the advantage and build a better mouse trap.... its not about how much money you spend but how you allocate funds and to whom

 

I guess Luca was future proofing ... or didn't want Ferrari associated with 4 cylinders?
Pete