Australian GP 2014 Race thread

[FerrariF60]

Whats more concerning for me is that roaberg did his quickest lapin lap 19 and us lap 56...showing that with all that fuel on board they were still quicker, now thsts scary

yeah, but rosberg was in CLEAN AIR, while Fernando was stuck behind teh Force India and could not get passed him....hence the slower lap times earlier

still no excuses though....we showed that we're too &%&$@#& slow, at least for now

[Gerhard Berger]

Guys two questions just of anxiety. .
...How much hp does our engine produce with ERS? And could that 900hp thing be true?

...Freezing of the engine mean that it is for 5 years??
Or just 2014?

engine is frozen for this year. Any performance upgrades to the engine can only be added at the start of 2015.

[Icon]

Whats more concerning for me is that roaberg did his quickest lapin lap 19 and us lap 56...showing that with all that fuel on board they were still quicker, now thsts scary

We did our fastest lap on Medium tyres while Rosberg did it on softs. We are slower than Merc but not by 2 seconds.

[Tony]

Whats more concerning for me is that roaberg did his quickest lapin lap 19 and us lap 56...showing that with all that fuel on board they were still quicker, now thsts scary

Keep in mind though that Ferrari appear to be having problems with their KERS (that's what I assumed they meant anyway when they said electrical problems and their engine mapping also needs improvement) so they were not running at full power... it's clearly troubling but we will have to wait and see what they can do on the development side first....

[Jas]

yh I guess so, but that's a lot of fuel and a lot of time as such in the bag! I don't know how much one lap of fuel is worth these days!

[Hornet]

engine is frozen for this year. Any performance upgrades to the engine can only be added at the start of 2015.

One thing I'm still unsure of. From my understanding, they agreed to allow small number of performance modification?

I guess this means we can't toss out our engine and present a new one. But how do they decide what can and cannot be changed

[wisepie]

If the reports about Mercedes power output are true, there appears to be such disparity in power units between Mercedes and Ferrari and Renault, that the FIA will have no choice but to allow further power unit development or be faced with a series totally dominated by the four Merc powered cars.

Didn't Renault already try to postpone the engine freeze beyond 28Feb when their teams were having problems in Bahrain? Presumably it got vetoed by FIA and Merc teams, but you're right Nick. I read somewhere that the Merc power advantage had something to do with the layout of the engine ancillaries (turbo/ERS etc), so would this actually constitute and engine part or just a component? If it's the latter, can't we change our layout? Difficult I expect, and no doubt would affect various other parameters, but the mind boggles if Merc's power advantaage is as big as they say. I don't see how it's technically possible or dare I say even legal?!

[Hornet]

Didn't Renault already try to postpone the engine freeze beyond 28Feb when their teams were having problems in Bahrain? Presumably it got vetoed by FIA and Merc teams, but you're right Nick. I read somewhere that the Merc power advantage had something to do with the layout of the engine ancillaries (turbo/ERS etc), so would this actually constitute and engine part or just a component? If it's the latter, can't we change our layout? Difficult I expect, and no doubt would affect various other parameters, but the mind boggles if Merc's power advantaage is as big as they say. I don't see how it's technically possible or dare I say even legal?!

Scarb mentioned this from photo taken this weekend. The Mercedes use a design approach he calls "split turbo". Here, the turbine is located at the back of the engine, but the compressor is located at the front of the engine. There's a crank shaft that runs from the turbine to the compressor of course, and this crankshaft goes through the turbo MGU. This means they are able to place the MGU inside the V shape. Scarbs didn't detail the advantage of this so I'm not sure what it is. But another advantage is that the intake air will be cooler, as well as shorter exhaust

Here's a picture of it. We can see the compressor located at the front of the engine.
35583_ecco_il_serbatoio_dell_olio_della_mclaren_mercedes.jpg

[Samcar222]

Guys, not wanting to start (another) debate, but would you agree our biggest deficiency from 2009-2013 was aerodynamic performance? If that was the case, considering our wind tunnel/aero issues *MAY* be solved for 2014, don't you think we can certainly solve some software/electronics issues?

[Jas]

Guys, not wanting to start (another) debate, but would you agree our biggest deficiency from 2009-2013 was aerodynamic performance? If that was the case, considering our wind tunnel/aero issues *MAY* be solved for 2014, don't you think we can certainly solve some software/electronics issues?

A completely new formula with new challenges...who knows, lets hope so, even still....aero still seems to be lacking co ared to the likes of red bull and mercades

[wisepie]

Scarb mentioned this from photo taken this weekend. The Mercedes use a design approach he calls "split turbo". Here, the turbine is located at the back of the engine, but the compressor is located at the front of the engine. There's a crank shaft that runs from the turbine to the compressor of course, and this crankshaft goes through the turbo MGU. This means they are able to place the MGU inside the V shape. Scarbs didn't detail the advantage of this so I'm not sure what it is. But another advantage is that the intake air will be cooler, as well as shorter exhaust

Here's a picture of it. We can see the compressor located at the front of the engine.
35583_ecco_il_serbatoio_dell_olio_della_mclaren_mercedes.jpg

Thanks Hornet, knew I'd seen it somewhere but not being very technical myself, is it likely that this would contribute so much to Merc's power, and why didn't Ferrari think of it? We are the engine masterclass, supposedly!

[Cheeseman]

Ferrari can take solace from the fact that both cars finished the race. Reliability is key, now they can start to tweak the performance and sort out software issues. Imo we didn't have such a bad race, both cars finished, we have a lot of data and we scored solid points. The season is long, it's still early days

[shamim179]

A completely new formula with new challenges...who knows, lets hope so, even still....aero still seems to be lacking co ared to the likes of red bull and mercades

I would say give it more time for the aero. We have a working windtunnel and we had to go through the lengthy process of validation and correlation. We will see some creative and aggressive solutions appearing on our car in due course on the aero side.

However, the biggest disappointment has been our PU. There's no easy remedy to this. Perhaps we were overconfident that we'd come up with the best engine? I'm hoping we can overcome all of our present problems quickly but we have a very steep mountain to climb!

[Grinsomx]

trend of the last few years.....very 1ST race = sack them all and bash each other for not agreeing on who gets sacked first.
what if we win the next 2 races....SD is a genius?

[Cheeseman]

trend of the last few years.....very 1ST race = sack them all and bash each other for not agreeing on who gets sacked first.
what if we win the next 2 races....SD is a genius?

Lol

[Suzie]

I like it when we are warned to talk nice to our team members and don't insult anyone from the team
on the other hand many of the glass-half-full good-vibe peole are free to insult journalist who see Ferrari behind Merc-RB-Williams-McLaren as idiots, Ferrari haters etc.

Well this isn't a forum for supporters of journalists, so people can say what they like about them (within reason, obviously).

No-one is saying you can't voice criticisms of the team or people within it, but if you're going to, at least do it constructively rather than calling people idiots or getting the burning torches out - I don't see what is complicated about this? Some of the team members getting slagged off were there for the glory years too and honestly seeing some of them torn to shreds all the time is just boring.

[ManFromMilan]

At least Vettel no longer seems to be the top dog.

Well the last couple of years i thought that Alonso was still the top dog in F1' even with Vettel's success, it is just very nice to see that his RB can also develop a problem and not just his Aussie team mate. Maybe he is not Marko's favorite son anymore? Who knows?

[tamburello]

We won't win the next two races.

Domenicali has failed again.

Ever since he took over, it is as though we are ashamed of the management methodology which brought us our greatest success. No more Mr Nasty from Ferrari, here is Media Friendly Team Principal.

And the results?

It would not surprise to hear Domenicali say that its the taking part that matters, not the winning.

Dennis changed things when they went South. Luca sits on his hands and does nothing.

[F2002]

I don't want to ride the 'sack them' wave, but we can't fail to notice (as somebody has already mentioned) that, immediately upon Dennis' return, Mclaren has started to deliver again.

Sometimes good leadership does pay off.

[Suzie]

What exactly do people wish Stefano to say?

[Cheeseman]

We won't win the next two races.

Domenicali has failed again.

Ever since he took over, it is as though we are ashamed of the management methodology which brought us our greatest success. No more Mr Nasty from Ferrari, here is Media Friendly Team Principal.

And the results?

It would not surprise to hear Domenicali say that its the taking part that matters, not the winning.

Dennis changed things when they went South. Luca sits on his hands and does nothing.

Give them a ring and tell them Tel +39 0536.949111

[Schumiklub]

What exactly do people wish Stefano to say?

Honestly, I don't want him to say anything, he's been talking too much in the past. I wish the team would deliver. Fingers crossed for upcoming races.

[ManFromMilan]

Luca sits on his hands and does nothing.

You honestly cannot know that as a fact....

I expected a one two today and where we ultimately ended up is nowhere near that. That is extremely frustrating.

But we do need to wait for all the gremlins to be worked out. Previous years the results and favorites changed massively from the first race to the second and even the third.

Especially this year with the massive regulation change we need to wait a while longer to see where we are going in this championship.

[Kiwi Nick]

Scarb mentioned this from photo taken this weekend. The Mercedes use a design approach he calls "split turbo". Here, the turbine is located at the back of the engine, but the compressor is located at the front of the engine. There's a crank shaft that runs from the turbine to the compressor of course, and this crankshaft goes through the turbo MGU. This means they are able to place the MGU inside the V shape. Scarbs didn't detail the advantage of this so I'm not sure what it is. But another advantage is that the intake air will be cooler, as well as shorter exhaust

Here's a picture of it. We can see the compressor located at the front of the engine.
35583_ecco_il_serbatoio_dell_olio_della_mclaren_mercedes.jpg

http://www.f1passion.it/wp-content/u...rbo_2014_2.jpg

This is a photo of the turbo/MGU-H/compressor on the Merc power unit. All parts are at the rear of the PU, but the MGU-H effectively isolates the turbo from the compressor making the charge air somewhat cooler. That could make for significantly more HP from the ICE. This unit accounts for 2 of the 6 components that make up the PU and it is homologated, so there is no changing its design and there is no possibility of Ferrari of Renault adopting the design, unless the FIA suspend the PU development rules.

A loop hole might be that Mercedes could sell homologated turbo/MGU-H/compressor units to Ferrari and Renault for use in their PUs, sort of like the McLaren ECU that is used by everybody in F1. But, something tells me that that isn't going to happen even if it were permitted by the FIA.

[Alessandra]

I don't want to ride the 'sack them' wave, but we can't fail to notice (as somebody has already mentioned) that, immediately upon Dennis' return, Mclaren has started to deliver again.

Well, it does [I]look[I] like that but when exactly was Whitmarsh sacked? Presumably some time after the development of the 2014 McLaren?

[Paulpg87]

Domenicali on italian tv said we behind mercedes teams by a lot and didn't expected such a difference and we need to work even more because we are very far

Personally, watching tests and reading rumors, i expected the car to bé bad.. But not that bad. Pretty sad

[Paulpg87]

New interview, always tv. Alonso said the gap is enormous the Real term in italian is abissale of u want to translate

[Ferrari Man]

didn't Alonso put in a lap as quick as rosberg when he got in clean air. he went a second quicker than his previous laps

[tamburello]

You honestly cannot know that as a fact....

I expected a one two today and where we ultimately ended up is nowhere near that. That is extremely frustrating.

But we do need to wait for all the gremlins to be worked out. Previous years the results and favorites changed massively from the first race to the second and even the third.

Especially this year with the massive regulation change we need to wait a while longer to see where we are going in this championship.

Can you show me what Luca has done?

I know he allowed his political ambition to cloud his judgment, and worst of all he used the Scuderia as his own tool in this pipe-dream.

That was why Domenicali was promoted, to fuel a hope of an Italian dream team.

I know this, as we all do.

Now is the time for change. Waiting two or three races is what we have done since 2010.

We are always going to be waiting, but the Italian Dream of Luca is now a nightmare.

Those responsible must go.

Cheerleading failure is not for me.

[tamburello]

Give them a ring and tell them Tel +39 0536.949111

I have, but the line has a problem....it has a very poor performance, much worse than the telephones in Brackley.

But a message does say that they are working hard on the solution to the faulty line.

I would have thought Stefano was too busy to do the Answer Phone voice, but obviously not.