Ferrari F1 team under scrutiny for illegal underbody

An interesting article! Doesn't look like some of the main F1 sites have picked up the story yet. Reading this article reminded me of a bit of a story in Race Car Engineerings 2007 season preview. Ill quote some of it:

This only mentions lowering of ride height that is inevitable with a downforce producing car. As downforce increases it adds to the weight of the vehicle, compressing the tires and suspension. If this happens enough, then the underbody flow will be choked, causing it to produces less downforce and drag (enhancing top speed).

What Ferrari is accused of doing is taking this a step further. As the pressure under the car drops (the method of creating downforce) it pulls the floor of the car closer to the ground. This chokes the flow enough to keep it from producing any more downforce or drag.

Makes me wonder if Racecar had some inside information that was floating around the paddock, but didn't want to come right out and expose the concept (article was written a ways back now. It takes a few weeks for it to be delivered to me).

Thanks for the post Tifosi!

 

Hmm a very interesting concept indeed. You'd think that the stewards would catch any type of device or modification like this during inspection, but then again the 'movable' front wing last year wasn't caught for a few races in. If indeed Ferrari has somehow made the undertray flexible to allow for less downforce in a straight line the FIA would surely have to rule against it if they ruled against the Renault mass dampers last season.

 

So Massa "cheated" and still could only get 6th , he needs to take some "cheating" lessons from the expert aka Michael . .

 

I wonder if the criticism towards Ferrari for cheating will be as heated as the criticism levelled at the NASCAR teams in earlier threads...

 

There's further discussion of this on the SpeedTV.com forums. According to a writer there, this bottom has been in place since last year sometime. The rules specify a maximum upwards deflection in the floor of the car, but apparently do not specify a maximum downward deflection. Thus -- not illegal, yet, but perhaps in a grey area like the mass dampers were.

Seems the McClonken boys get pissed whenever someone outhinks them -- like Renault did last year, and Ferrari this year

 

Let me answer that with one word: NO

 

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/57511

Let the debate begin......

 

I hope those contributors who saw fit to bash the NASCAR teams in their pre-Daytona scrutineering sessions will now be a little chastened.

I don't think any of the teams, including Ferrari in this instance, were outright cheating (OK, Michael Waltrip aside!) so much as they were testing the limits of regulations. Occasionally they push a bit too far. I hope this doesn't turn into a big fiasco for Ferrari.

 

Keep in mind that Ferrari was using this system in 2006, with no problems from the tech inspectors, aka scruitineering.

A an aside, isn't F1 supposed to be about innovation?

 

Completely agree. McLaren crying foul, same crap as happened in the Barge Board incident in 99 at Malysia.

 

A part of me was hoping this would be a NSFW thread

 

how the heck a team like Mac knows what's happening under Ferrari's car?

 

I guess the same thing they see under a BMW.

http://www.f1-live.com/f1/en/headlines/news/detail/070321092905.shtml

 

If the F2007 was too low , the board on the bottom would wear too thin and as a result DQ the car !!

 

Didn't Massa start from the back of the grid? 6th place isn't all that bad when you take that into consideration.

 

Reminds me of the moving ballast in the Renaults last year. They were running that system for over a year without a problem.

 

Ferrari and BMW Sauber are likely to have to modify the designs of their cars' floors after a warning was issued by FIA technical delegate Charlie Whiting.

Apparently following an informal complaint made by McLaren Mercedes at the Australian Grand Prix, Whiting has sent a letter to all teams informing them that detailed checks will be carried out on cars' underbodies during scrutineering in future to ensure that teams are adhering to the rules about banned moveable devices.

The floor designs of both Ferrari and BMW passed the former flexibility checks in Melbourne, but the teams are likely to present modified cars to scrutineers on the Thursday of the upcoming Malaysian Grand Prix.

Spain's Marca newspaper, meanwhile, revealed that McLaren brought the matter to the FIA's attention with a letter from engineering chief Paddy Lowe, in which he asked the governing body for permission to apply a similar design to its own MP4-22 model.

2007 Technical Regulations: 3.17 Bodywork flexibility:


3.17.1 Bodywork may deflect no more than 5mm vertically when a 500N load is applied vertically to it 700mm forward of the front wheel centre line and 625mm from the car centre line. The load will be applied in a downward direction using a 50mm diameter ram and an adapter 300mm long and 150mm wide. Teams must supply the latter when such a test is deemed necessary.

3.17.2 Bodywork may deflect no more than 10mm vertically when a 500N load is applied vertically to it 450mm forward of the rear wheel centre line and 650mm from the car centre line. The load will be applied in a downward direction using a 50mm diameter ram and an adapter of the same size, Teams must supply the latter when such a test is deemed necessary.

3.17.3 Bodywork may deflect by no more than one degree horizontally when a load of 1000N is applied simultaneously to its extremities in a rearward direction 780mm above the reference plane and 20mm forward of the rear wheel centre line.

3.17.4 Bodywork may deflect no more than 5mm vertically when a 500N load is applied vertically to it at a point which lies on the car centre line and 380mm rearward of the front wheel centre line. The load will be applied in an upward direction using a 50mm diameter ram, teams will be required to supply a suitable adapter when such a test is deemed necessary.

3.17.5 The uppermost aerofoil element lying behind the rear wheel centre line may deflect no more than 5mm horizontally when a 500N load is applied horizontally. The load will be applied 800mm above the reference plane at three separate points which lie on the car centre line and 250mm either side of it. The loads will be applied in an rearward direction using a suitable 25mm wide adapter which must be supplied by the relevant team.

3.17.6 In order to ensure that the requirements of Article 3.15 are respected, the FIA reserves the right to introduce further load/deflection tests on any part of the bodywork which appears to be (or is suspected of), moving whilst the car is in motion.

edit : looks like RD wins after all...

 

Yet another complaint that Ferrari parts move ...

.... quicker around the track than McLaren parts.

 

Thanx Andreas. no wonder i coudn't find it

 

One good thing about a spec car is that we would be able to see who truly is the best driver......