InsideFerrari Valencia testing programme changed: two days Massa (MON, TUE), one day Alonso (WED). More details on Ferrari.com.

I was reading this next to what Brawn has to say about their car...


engine Back Pressure

Great, now Ferrari are saying they may have trouble with setup and tires? I'm a Ferrari fan, but all these excuses before racing has even started is starting to get a bit old.

Ferrari express doubt over setup

Massa is getting an awful lot of time (for a no-no)... first a few days in Barcelona, now two days in Valencia vs. Alonso 1... not good...

time for Ferrari to use test drivers in Valencia... 1 day Badoer, 1 Massa, 1 Alonso...

Why?

They are either in trouble or someone needs to calm the smoke machine down

I think this must be a general concern for all teams but it is intelligent that each team would have a built in "solution" that will accomodate these variances but no one is going to be 100% sure of how good these will be until they actually hit the track.

I think the guys were just voicing the obvious even if they do not sound as confident as some other teams.

Working link:

http://ferrarif1forum.com/2010/01/31/ferra...etup-and-tyres/

What is wrong with their words? AFAIR they tested early version of new tyres for only one day, so it's a big problem for everybody, as situation is different in comparison with introduction of slicks in 2009, when all teams had much more test sessions than now.

Exactly what Mastah said. As far as I can remember other teams had even more problems with Bridgestone tires in the past. Ferrari just said obvious. You have 4 tests to understand new tires having new car with significantly different balance. Understanding tires is crucial. They just raised their concern that teams won't have enough kilometers of testing to achieve this. That's all.

I don't understand you. I start to think some of you can only say bullshit. Ferrari didn't say that they are not able to set the car up. They say that they don't exactly know how to set it up perfectly because of the new factors caused by rule changes.

With these rummors, I'm starting to think ferrari has the worst car for 2010?

Come on guyes ferrari know how to make an F1 car....and a winning car too ;). Stop scaring tifosi with these rummours ;)

I am actually starting to worry.

What I cant work out is that everyone else is using a sharkfin (from what we've seen so far). It seems a little bit of a coincidence. Ferrari haven't gone down that route. It might be nothing, but I cant understand it. Why do all over the other teams seem to think there is a need for it but Ferrari dont? Then again I'm completely useless in that sort of thing. So if someone could probably explain to me, please imagine you are trying to explain it to a 10 year old (I'm not 10 but my understanding of it is about that level).

That was when you had Brawn, Bryne and Stepney. Its back to the dark ages for Ferrari. This I am sure about 100% I cant see them better than say the Toyota was. All in the money in the world wont help

How do we know Ferrari don't have sharkfin ready for their car? They used it before. They had both old wings and deflectors in the presentation fitted on F10. Maybe they had few more old aero parts fitted on F10 just to hide them as long as possible.

True.

lol ferrari. lol alonso. have fun looking at the back of pedro de la rosa and the KOBA next year.

Shouldn´t be a problem.

At the end of the preseason both Massa and Alonso should have had the same number of testing days with the F10.

I guess Ferrari thinks Massa´s feedback would be more valuable now since he knows last year car, then Alonso will drive knowing that info so he can really focus on what it needs to be fixed.

Alonso will see them couple of times next season per race. Hopefully De La Rosa and Kobayashi know what to do when blue flags are waved.

It's just Alonso's curse!

Did he really expect to blackmail, cheat, lie and force teammates to crash without getting away with it? Karma's a bit*h...


http://forums.autosport.com/index.php?s=&a...t&p=3881851

It seems that Ferrari after Brawn and Byrne are one of the more conservative teams. The quote from Ferrari below is either worrying or uplifting, depending on your relationship to SF:

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/81128



If they still are reluctantly accepting the DDD, that could be a major drawback in exploiting it to the full extent... Or maybe Ferrari will be succesfull with their protests of the more "extreme" DDD's?

And what's this about: "I expect a Ferrari worthy of the title, unless someone interprets the rules differently."

It's like admitting defeat and blaming the "cleverness" of the other teams and saying that "Ferrari should have won the title but unfortunately the other teams are smarter and understood the rules better than us. Even though the FIA have judged the DDD being legal, we disagree and won't exploit it in the same way as the other teams".

Yea, could be that ferrari have found something new and more 'extreme' for the DDD concept and they haven't implemented it in the F10 hence they have started work on F10 B-Spec? :/

And as for the shark fin. I heard ferrari will be using it for Bahrain included with a few other updates they'll try during the tests

You just stole my quote

I find it hilarious that people have written off Ferrari just by looking at the car.

Rumours are rumours, but not a single car has turned a wheel in testing yet :\.

To be fair, it is not just about looks; it is about what is rumoured and what is said by Ferrari team members - especially about the interpretation of the DDD rules.

Though there is now a similar rumour about the new Mclaren, that the windtunnel figures are apparently disappointing there, too. Hopefully we will get to know a bit more once testing starts, even if it is just from what the drivers and team say or from what the press manages to pick up from the atmosphere in the teams.

Remember the MP4-24? Not saying that it will be slow, but you get the same feeling by looking at it.

Well, on the same coin, the Brawn didn't "look" fast either, but it was.

People (like me) doubted their speed and thought they were showboating in testing, but it was all for real. Us, as observers, didn't really understand the diffuser much at the time, but now all the cars have their diffusers covered at launch, anyway.

Brawn looked like a very stable car from day 1. Let alone those lap times in testing when everyone thought they were running lighter car

No.

You have to look at it in context. The McLaren was showcased way before testing began, so a lot more time was spent judging the car on it's looks. We were able to absorb the design for a bit of time, before it hit the track. When it hit the track, we got indications that it may not be all that quick.

The first time we saw the Brawn, though, was on track. It went on track, and immediately produced results. No time to absorb the design for what it "looked" like.

So taking that into account, it's easy to say a car "Looks" fast, when the first time you see it, it actually is blitzing the field (even though it is testing), while you can claim that another car "Looked" slow, based purely on observation, way before it hits the track.

Most people doubted their speed because of what was happening to the team, not because of what the car looked like.

I just think it's easier to say that in hindsight, that's all.

Stay patient and just wait for the red cars to move out of the way?

I can understand where you're coming from, but when you did see the diffusor of the Brawn you understand the car better as a whole. Assuming the F10 was made to exploit the diffusor, it doesn't look too good when compared with the Sauber/McLaren

But we havent seen anyones diffuser yet.

I think it'll all become easier when these trick diffusers are banned in '11

But we assume every team has designed their car for a DDD, and that requires certain car characteristics

ah well we'll see soon anyway

The nosecone of the Ferrari reminds me a bit of the Jordan in 2000, it goes in a curve, halfway the curve sharpens, I think to throw air onto the rear wing while making downforce at the front.

who wrote it? I mean, how can you write a piece on the new Ferrari and not be informed they simply attached last year's wings to the new model for the presentation? and it's not like this is a new trick, it's been done in F1 for a while now

Looks fast, very fast. If it will be, that's an entirely other matter.

When I saw BGP01 for the first time I thought it won't even make it to the Melbourne. I was utterly wrong, as most of us was.
We know next to nothing about these cars, and yet most of us know who is going to have winner in 2010.

Stefano please hire me. I am great prophet.

My feeling is that Ferrari has his spec B having in mind that this could happen. When joined to Ferrari, Alonso stated that he would need at least three or four races to become the real Alonso with Ferrari. The tests in Valencia sound as a first contact. I think that in Jerez, next week, Ferrari will be using the shark fin too as expected.

A friend of mine who was in Mercedes tests in Jerez with Schumacher, was told that McLaren was not a real trouble for them. Schummy was really worried about Ferrari, which, likely, has two kind of cars to develope in a matter of days. That's the reason Ferrari team is so confident.

Let's see what happens, but for my info, the Ferrari which will be tested tomorrow won't be the Ferrari at Bahrain. Actually, it was scheduled that Fernando Alonso would be driving the Ferrari A Tuesday and Wednesday, and suddenly plans have changed, and scheduled that Alonso will be driving just on Wednesday, while Massa will be testing Monday and Tuesday.

Sounds, in my opinion, that Alonso will be on the simulator for the Ferrari B with the most spectacular diffuser... Just my speculations. But, on my basis that Alonso always wants to test the car as soon as possible -hence the famous 0.6ths- he seems to be working now on a new develop of the car from here to Bahrein.

And nothing to do with engineering, car design, et al... just to do with talks about understeering, oversteering, brake times, tyres deterioration, etc.

When Alonso tested in december 2006 the McLaren, he just said in Jerez. after driving it: "I understand now why this car couldn't have a win. It just needs 0.6ths being faster". In March 2007, the car was 0.6 tenths faster.

He never said: "I brought 0.6 tenths". It was McLaren team who said: "Alonso brought 0.6 tenths to McLaren". After two months of hard work with De la Rosa, Alonso gave his sensations to the engineers and mechanics. That was all.

This forum seems to be sometimes, a little bit strange. People doesn't seem to understand what is the role of a driver or a test driver. They usually misundertand what a driver is saying or what a test driver is trying to explain... The role of a driver is not to say: "Hey, hello, I'm bringing here 0.6 tenths". He just say: "I need more oversteering in the left rear tyre". "I need the front wing to be one milimeter slower for front downforce at the right". Etc. Nothing else.

This contradicts the above post.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL2535116920070825

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE....CAN WE STOP TALKING ABOUT 2007....

like that's ever going to happen. 2007 was probably the best show ever put on in the history of F1!

Just to counter all the negativity. I'm an Alonso fan (Australian) and will be following Ferrari for the first time this year. I hope they can give Fernando the right car to do the job this year. Its been hell the last couple of years!

That contradicts nothing. In december, 2006, Alonso said that McLaren car needed to be 0.6 tenths faster. I Australia, the Mclaren car was 0.6 tenths faster. According to Alonso style of speaking, he never says "I brought this or I did that". He always speak in a natural way, and he always says: "We", instead "I". It's a matter of style that you have to keep in mind. When referring to a team he always speaks using the pronoun "We". So hardly he could say "I brought 0.6 tenths to McLaren team". More likely: "We brought 0.6 tenths to McLaren".

It's difficult to explain for a non Spanish speaker, but it would be like saying that a football team player states: "I won the European football championship". "I brought to the British selection this championship"... It would sound really strange and egocentric. No way here. Alonso was, is and will be part of a team, so he never speaks in terms of "I did this" or "I'm doing that". He can say: "I feel confident with the team", "I'd love to work hard with the team"... But never: "I won the championship".

If some British journalists misunderstand Alonso words, that's their problem. Nothing else. But, when speaking in Spanish, his native language, Alonso is loud and clear. I never heard him saying "I won this or that". But always: "WE won this or that".

I don't remind him, never, saying: "I'm a two times world champion" or so. He always says: "We are this or that". Same for good and same for bad.

I'm a bit disappointed about that, sort of like the 'black art' the diffuser has turned into - all the mechanics covering up the back of their cars while others are trying to get a look underneath around etc.
You need a bit of mystery.

Just one thing, you can't compare lengths of cars via studio photos (unless to have a very vague idea), Mr. Giorgio Piola says Ferrari ones are always faked (additionally to the perspective distortion) so the real car does not match in proportions or dimensions suggested in these pictures.

They aren't banning ALL diffusers, just ones that have holes in the floor connected to them. Diffusers were an important part of F1 cars before last year and they will continue to be until the diffuser itself gets banned (if that ever happens)

If I were a Ferrari fan and the year didn't start too good, I wouldn't worry too much because they have the ability to recover. I would be very worried though if Luca M insist on calling the shots.