http://www.itv-f1.com/News_Article.aspx?PO_ID=38463
Yes, I think this is going to be one of the most competitive seasons in the history of F1. With everything so changed up, I don't really see one or two teams that will dominate everything. http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=137347
I hope BMW is the team to beat. Let's go back to the "old" days where McMerc, BMW, and Ferrari got podiums. And no one else. Well...except Eddie in the Jag. That was a crazy year.
I think what Massa meant is he is going to spend the bulk of teh season racing the BMW while Kimi is off challenging the McLarens. I'll wait until the cars are racing for real in a GP before I am ready to annoint a midpack team as the next WCC, thank you very much. I still remember the Prost pre-season tests from a few years back.
My money is on BMW being the surprise if the season and... finishing 3rd in the constructors championship.
Massa making excuses already................ he's gonna have to come up with a s**tload more by the time the seasons done and he's locked in as the no.2 driver in the team after kimi hands him his arse.
Apparently, instead of building a new wind tunnel facility, BMW invested in a supra computer. Word is they are getting very good result from this aero development. Other teams are considering purchasing one of these to catch up.
Thibaut, has got this 100% right. Bmw recently threw opens its doors to unveil Albert 2, their ground breaking new "supercomputer". It's bulit on intel processors and is the most powerful and fastest supercomputer in European industry (3rd most powerful in the world), its capable of of performing 12 trillion calculations per second and weighs 21 tons !!!!!!!!!!!! Its main purpose will be useing Computational fluid dynamics (CDF) to simulate, visalise and predict "fluid" flow.. You could say its a "wind tunnel" in a computer. The benefits of CFD is that it allows you to understand why something is happening, not just observe what has happened. CFD is also a much faster method of working, allowing constant modifications to component designs, but at present the results do need to be checked in a wind tunnel. Teams presently are placing there bets on two different philosophies. Ferrari, Honda and Toyota have built or plan to build 2nd wind tunnels, BMW have have opted to invest heavily in CFD technology. In saying that though, all the teams seem to be using CFD technology to some extent!
WOW!!! I read that Sauber already had the best wind tunnel prior to BMW buying them out, but the problem was that they only used it about 8 hours a day. BMW bumped it up it up to 24/7 when they bought them. Add that to a brandnew crazy computer--wow.
I think Toyota use the Supra computer;-) BMW use a supercomputer, and so does Ferrari: http://www.hoise.com/primeur/05/arti...-11-05-77.html. BMW have a pretty aggressive CFD program and like most other teams they use it for preliminary design concepts which are later tested in the windtunnel. For now, CFD is not good enough to replace windtunnel testing but many are predicting that will come. Another reason behind BMW's improved form is most likely because they've practically doubled their staff in the last year!
I think Sauber used AMD when they had the Ferrari engines. Intel sponsors BMW so I'm sure all the AMD products have been replaced.
