Ferrari F1
 

Anybody else notice that Ferrari's early season pace and development has dropped since the "flexible floor" regulation change ? Here's another interesting rumor (from grandprix.com):

"We hear on the grapevine that about a month ago Ferrari suffered a failure of its rolling road system in the Maranello windtunnel. The rolling roads in the modern F1 windtunnels are made from a steel belt, which circulates at around 180mph. If a rolling road breaks, the damage can be considerable as lumps of metal fly around at 180mph. The word is that this may have been what happened. And that Ferrari has been in trouble ever since."

I believe Kimi hasn't lost as much pace as everyone thinks - they just haven't been able to develop the car for his style....

(ps. Excellent post number - ironic it's about Ferrari, tho !)

That would explain a lot.

Well I don't know what happened but obviously MB/McL has the best car out there right now (No disrespect to Hamilton) but I fully expect Ferrari to step it up.

A simpler explanation would be that Ferrari was still the car to beat at te end of 2006.

Unfortunately neither Felipe nor Kimi are the best at developing the car. In Kimi's defence it has to be said thar Ron Dennis held him to his contract until the end, basically preventing Kimi from driving the car for the first 3 months.

Also a couple of key staff left Ferrari (read Ross Brawn and MS).

On the other side McLaren has improved dramatically not only compared to Ferrari but to all the other teams. Alonso is better than Kimi at developing the car and I bet Hamilton yields more in that department than JPM.

Also I think at McLaren last year the progress was hampered by the announced departure of Adrian Newey. Most things probably remeined on hold, especially as they did not have a say in the WC.

So it could be that they broke something in their wind tunnel, or that one of their gizmos was declared illegal.. but for me it is esaier to think it's just the evolution of how things were set in motiton at the end of last year...

Didn't they say that Kimi had only a handful of professional races before joining F1? It would seem that he doesn't have a lot of experience related to developing the car...

I read a very interesting article about the impact the tire rule change had on McLaren. You see McLaren developed its car to take advantage of the 1 tire rule and was set to pounce in 2006. Then at the last minute the rule changed leaving them with a car they developed for 1 tire.

So they were basically screwed in 2006. McLaren was the fast car last year too, when the car did not break. I am still amazed this year how dependable the car has been. I was sure it would fall apart from Alanso's abusive driving style.

I predicted that car would be a mess in his hands and I was totally wrong. They have done a lot during the off season.

KR drove 21 junior formula races (mostly F-Renault) before signing with Sauber. I've heard that he actually gives great feedback to his engineers and so did JPM. The main thing is too be consistant in description and feedback after changes - they don't expect drivers to be designers. Wurz and PDLR did most of the develoment grunt work.

Alonso and Hamilton are probably a bit easier on the cars than KR and JPM - they are real slammers and hammers - they both love bouncing off curbs and a lot of throttle oversteer. Mac has benefitted from the KR and JPM driving school, tho - their car is now the best over the curbs and very strong!

Good points Jim and Scott abt the 1 tire rule change and the curbs!

Alonso is anything but easier on a car. This is a guy that fractured his knee cap last year pounding over the curbs.

I am not saying KR is easy on a car but compared to FA he is.
I am really amazed the MacLaren has held up so good this year, they made a lot of ground over the off season.

Being a Ferrari fan I hope they can get their act together soon. Kimi showed he had the pace at Indy, if he could just get off the line and qualify better he might be up there with the rest of them.

Ferrari hadn't won in the 20 years before Schumacher arrived, and it may be another 20 before they win again.