How to build a car - by Adrian Newey Essential reading from a great British genius, super book. and / or The Perfect Car - An biography of John Barnard by Nick Skeens Another good read about another British genius, for those that complain about how Ferrari is run nowadays, reading this book will highlight nothing has changed since 1989. A real eye opener on how Ferrari internal wrangling has / will implode. For F1 fans who can remember the early 1980's these are a must read. Tony
Yeah, neweys book is a must read, it’s a shame he never spent time at ferrari as I’d be interested to know whether he wouldve been able to change the dominance of Mercedes over the past few years with a better engine at his disposal. Then again, we’d probably have pissed him off like we had many before him!
the interesting bit (which I didn't know about) was that the 639/640 car was seriously delayed because Harvey Postelwhaite & Piero Lardi was developing a secret car behind his back and delaying the V12 (in preference to a turbo) and consuming all the wind tunnel time, all unbeknown to the Old Man. When he found out he was brutal & sacked everyone inc his son. Captivating reading
I´ve always thought that Barnard could have achieved the same success than Ross Brawn at Ferrari if he had moved to Italy; after all, Brawn only was Todt´s second choice. But some time ago I read an interview with Barnard (probably I´ve found around here so try a search) and I realized that he would have been failed. The image I got of Barnard from that interview was of a moaner: he was always complaining about that someone (the guys who made the engine or the plumbing or whatever) spoilt his great ideas. He constantly talked about "me" and "them". He also said that he stayed at UK because "he didn´t want to loose time dealing with people so he could focus in the car". He was no longer interested in modern F1 because now was more about "managing people". I understood that, no matter how big he was in the 80s, by the mid 90s Barnard´s work methods were already outdated. Ross Brawn didn´t need to design a single bolt of the car, he already had people for that and he focused on "managing people" and ensuring that all the bits bolted together. Barnard already didn´t have that "holistic" view of building a F1 car, so he sucked at Ferrari and at everything he tried later. He now just designs furniture: I suppose that´s simple enough to make all by himself.
Mod actions: Immediately trolling and derailing the thread. 1-month thread reply exclusion. Perpetuating the situation instead of reporting the trolling. 1-month thread reply exclusion. Perpetuating the situation instead of reporting the trolling. 1-month thread reply exclusion. Trolling the thread. 1-month thread reply exclusion. If you guys cannot leave each other alone, more thread reply restrictions will be imposed and you run the risk of loss of access to your accounts. Either exercise some self control or make use of the ignore feature. Regards, Andrew.
Or. a less generous moderator (ahem, me) will give you site bans instead of thread bans that will carry you beyond the end of the F1 season. Put each other on ignore if you can't be at least marginally civil. You're lucky Andrew got here first. (And I know you're reading this, even if you can't respond. If you're troubled, send me a PM.) 0 D
If you haven't read the book then it will be worth the money to get it. He was basically undermined throughout the whole process and was doomed to leave, I wouldn't say fail as he set in place a lot of procedures and new equipment that others following took the credit for. He had to start from a clean sheet. When the old man died there was a huge power struggle in the Ferrari / Fiat empire the likes of Ross Brawn / Todt never encountered. eg. Victorio Ghidella was adamant the semi auto box was going to be a complete failure and the car could not be adapted for a manual box as there wasn't room for the gear lever and linkage through the fuel tank and engine. Ghidella wanted Barnard to cut a hole in the side of the car and run a linkage system on the outside, the driver would have to put his arm over the cockpit to change gear, that was how extreme some in Ferrari where, he was serious too as chief mechanic Joan Villadelprat testifies. He had water tight contract that he was solely in charge and only Enzo himself could override him, that all changed when he passed away. the problem was that he was a perfectionist (is it?) and sloppy manufacturing techiques could not be tolerated. when he arrived they were making carbon lay ups next to the lathes and most of the oil was all over the moulds.... The reason he stayed in the Uk was that the best engineering expertise was here and not in Maranello.
I´ve read too many "genius autobiographies" to like them: the "genius" often omits the brain farts that only appear in the "non-authorized" biographies. But as Barnard was my only F1 "hero" of the 80s (in an era of restricting rule books he was one of the few who was inventing brand new things) maybe I´ll give it a chance. As I´ve said, Barnard was at his best in the 80s and his contribution to Ferrari was relevant. But from then on, maybe he lost the plot. At Benetton he made good cars but in the interview I read he blamed Tom Walkinshaw for his departure of Benetton. I know Walkinshaw was not the most friendly character, but again we find Barnard talking about "me" and "them". Others said that he left because a dispute about money with Briatore, so he could be lying: after all, he worked for TWR again in the late 90s. At his second stint at Ferrari, he described his 412T as an "aerodynamic marvel", but that the guy responsible of the cooling wasted it: man, you´re the technical director, you should know what the guy of the cooling system is doing! He didn´t talk too much about his latest Ferraris. I suppose he didn´t want to admit that he screwed it up, specially with the F310, that was plain wrong from the beginning. I think that Todt was aware of these problems and wanted to have Barnard under tight control. His refusal to not move to Italy because of lack of expertise was another bad excuse, as Ross Brawn and Co. later proved. Then he made another dud for Arrows, while at the same time he was being technical advisor for Prost!! Again, he looked "alienated" from the teams he was working for. Everything he made after that was a failure.
Re: The semi-automatic gearbox in the 640...I had always assumed this F1 innovation was an end in of itself (better efficiency, performance etc.) when in reality it basically all came about in the quest for better aero packaging.
The departure rom Benetton was more complex than that from what i have read, it was basically a major disagreement (politely put) over the accounts & Benetton not providing the correct funding under the joint venture agreement signed by them. He was basically used to get the team to the top and then forced out. I also get the feeling he was a really hard person to work for and was nicknamed by his own staff as the Scud, in reference to the missile. I don't think it was a mistake as the factory in Italy was in no way able to build the cars in those early years as Postelthwaite proved with how Gilles V car broke up at Zolder, it was a result of not understanding how to put a semi carbon car together. Look at Bergers car when it crashed at Imola, far worse the Villeneuves crash. He states that he would be dead had it not been for the technical design of the car. He moved to the USA under the Chapparal proect so he could have moved to Italy but I guess he had his own reasons and they wanted him, not the other way! The cooling issue was down to the factory getting it sums wrong for the 639.
As we know only to well today, the aero package is a major key to a successful car. Incidentally the semi auto gearbox never failed once in its operation, the problem was that Ferrari designed the V12 with a 4 main crank bearing and under load or high revs the whole unit flexed causing the pulley and alternator to flex and not charge the battery, thus resulting in loss of power for the ECU. This was only found out by high speed photography. The engine was changed to 7 bearings and the unit never failed afterwards.
The 126 of Villeneuve was all aluminium. They only added carbon reinforcements after Villeneuve´s death; maybe that saved Pironi. Anyway, the technology moved a lot between 1982 and 1989. When he moved to Chaparral he still was not a "star" and could not set his terms. Also at McLaren he had to work within their structure, with sucess, until he clashed with Dennis. Maybe he got too "famous" for his own good. Actually I was talking about the 1994 car. While Barnard started working in next year´s car, Gustav Brunner had to redo the 412: the car looked worse but worked better.
The cars inlet ducts were created on another British invention, the Supermarine Spitfire. The cooler on the spitfire was ingenious but simple solution, cool air would rush into the small aperture, once inside it would expand rapidly, as the duct got bigger and therefore reducing in density as it went through. Energized even more as it passed through the rad core it would exit at the same speed it came in. i.e. Zero drag. Every aero guys dream. The system was based on that scheme, unfortunately the engine department blamed Barnard and he blamed them, it was resolved some months later The problem with the cooling was due to the poor set up of the car cooling flow rates. The car had two rads, one full size and the other smaller (1/3rd) with the oil cooler above it. Consequently the factory didn’t balance the flow through each rad in proportion to their load and most was going through the smaller one. This was only discovered once G. Brunner modified the side inlet at the request of Todt, only to get the same issues. Effectively all the changes were for nothing but he did conced it was a better solution and with the introduction of bargeboards it did help. The book intimates that McLaren or Project 4 was a rather “amateurish “ set up when he started with Dennis in which he had to change substantially. The back of the 126 had a seat back bulkhead that was overlaid with carbon fibre over the aluminium honeycomb in an effort to give extra torsional rigidity, it was poorly executed and the result was that the whole bulkhead broke off with the seat and GV in it.
Yep - that was the big break between Piero and Enzo. At the time Piero saw himself as the natural successor to run Ferrari Corse ( as it was back then) and he and Harvey & Brunner wanted to keep everything in Italy. Piero did not like Barnard being in England and basically subservient to him. Barnard did not like going back and forth to Maranello and London ( Guilford ) .... it was never going to work. Marco Piccinini was on Enzo's side and was the conduit to Barnard. so when Enzo found out - he literally dis owned Piero almost till he died. and sent him packing to the Road Car side, and Ghidella the Pres of Ferrari SpA had to take him if Fiat wanted to exercise its options. the speculation is that Enzo and Angelli talked in early 88, about succession and Piero was not to be given presidency of the company nor director of the F-1 team.... however he would be the 100% heir to the shares Enzo had given him, but would not be eligible to buy back any shares from Fiat for 10 years. this comes / came from Franco Gozzi. Enzo wanted to move forward with a Atmo V-12 more than a turbo because he wanted the V-12 as the racing engine for Ferrari and never quite liked the turbo's - un less they won.... the other delay was that after Enzo died - Ghidella and the rest of the team wanted Barnard to fit a manual gear change to the car... and the tub was not built to accommodate it.... he basically had to threaten contractual breech etc... I think McLaren was sniffing around him at the same time. ( he ended up at bennetton... )
he also did not want to upset his family by moving to Italy. I agree the politics post Enzo was almost critical... they could have easily killed Ferrari F-1 if was not for Angelli and Montezemolo... mostly Angelli for clearing the path and giving 100% control to Montezemolo.
the funny thing was that Barnard says when he talked about it, Ferrari said - oh we tried that, got out the drawings for their design back in the early 80's where it had a button on the shift knob. they said that Villeneuve did not think it made him any faster. Barnard came up with the paddles and the solenoid change mechanism.... he was trying to maximize the coke bottle shape of the Ferrari...
And won in its debut at Rio. I remember that race thinking there is no way Ferrari will ever win figured it would be Prost all day or Senna. also remember Mansell coming in to change steering wheels - as his had come apart with the screws falling out!
My impression from the book is that JB was /is a creature of habit almost to the point of being OCD, especially in his attention to detail. Also his daily routine was to go home form lunch everyday, much to the delight of his staff, he didn't suffer fools easily and was rather harsh when stupid mistakes were made. Would he have been so inventive had he been taken away from his "comfort" zone and surroundings......who knows but I do think he deserves a lot of credit. Montezemolo deserves a lot of praise for seeing that this was the way forward and sent engineers over to Guilford to be trained, they met a lot of resistance from JB but eventually won him over with dedication and good engineering minds. The talent is there in Ferrari and Patrick Head when interviewed cannot fathom out why they haven't won more. The internal power struggles of the racing team and the entire empire is questionable at best.
[QUOTE="spirot, post: 146257939, member: 27540 . ( he ended up at bennetton... )[/QUOTE] He thought Ferrari were bad until he joined that team, their wind tunnel was a 1/4 scale model and a plywood case.
