2012 F1 Car Launch Thread

The new Ferrari ?!



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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/2012 08:44PM by exqo.

with a lot of the teams trying a different approach to the design of their cars, I tempt to assume that some will get it really really wrong. Ferrari announce different innovations on their car almost each week. Mclaren will have some kind of a special car with narrow radiators like the '96 jordan. Only RBR keep developing their 2011 car without huge design improvements, mercedes as well actually. I know it is super early and there are no facts whatsoever to base my assumption on, but i'd say RBR and MERC. will be the most reliable and safe cars, if not the fastest.

What mademe think so, was that almost every innovation : mclarens 2011, reanults blown diffuser etc. was a complete disaster last year, so it is not that unrealistic for the teams to screw again. keep in mind i'm a schuey fan and hope for a very competitive merc. so maybe this also affects my judgements :P



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/2012 09:19PM by mitadumapaga.

I'm definitely looking forward to seeing the new Ferrari and McLaren cars. Both will probably be radical designs, and pretty different from the 2011 cars.

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Evolution usually works to be honest and the Red Bull was overall the best car of the past 2 and a bit seasons, the changes to the regs are relatively small... Just the exhaust layout really further restricting how the diffusers can be blown.

Therefore it'd be logical to assume that Red Bull will have a quick car certainly capable of at least winning races and more than likely the championship. The Mclaren wasn't at all bad either and you can normally reley on them to have a car capable of winning races so I expect them to the thorn in the Red Bull rose again.

The question mark is Ferrari, you get the feeling that they'll either dominate or simply wilt as there isn't much of an in between for them in their post Schumacher era. They should be safe in the top 3 though.

As for Merc I don't really see them challenging the top 3, perhapps they ought to be closer but they still have the whiff of BAR-Honda about them. Heck! They even have Geoff Willis back. No I think they'll be in no mans land again behind the big 3 but possibly comfortably ahead of the mid-field pack.

Head of the mid-field is anyone's guess, who ever comes up with the most work friendly car I guess. I suspect the form will ebb and flow between Force India, Toleman (Lotus F1 ), Sauber and Toro Rosso. The question is will Williams pull their finger out and return to this group and can Loony tunes (sorry.. Caterham ) join it?

There's just one near certainty... no matter how laughably rubbish HRT are, I bet they still beat Virgin Marussia Manor to 11th in the championship.

hey Jim,

just read your´ post and i certainly agree with many of the things you said. Especially about ferrari, I really get the feeling they are doing everything wrong in the past couple of season, mainly since 2009 and the big rules change. They couldnt adapt to the new regulations and they werent able to use even the chance that opened itself with the new tyre supplier in Pirelli. Still, no matter how many races Macca win, and how faster they are on pure pace basis, they still only have a single drivers title in
2008 with a whole load of luck (not only because of glock and interlagos, but also because of races such as hungary and singapore). So really, i'd actually say that macca and maybe ferrari in the last 3 years have this BAR HONDA pattern of being up there with the rest, but doing nothing more than from a few to several race wins per season.

Mercedes on the other hand... well you dont have a single thing you can say about them not being up there, dont you. Brawn, Willis, Costa and Bob Bell, Haug and Schuey and of course Nico in there as well. To be honest i think they are the best team package after red bull, looking at the names of course, not the results


However you cant really assume they will be top quality either. I havent got the slightest of idea how the hell will they get out of that no man's zone between the top 3 and the rest. o.k. they brought a few people in, but what i think will make most of the difference is another the car designer. And right now i cant see anyone challenging Newey for designing a better car. Blindingly fast in qualy, super fast in races, very easy on tyres and absolutely 100 percent reliable (at least the last season).

In the end i'd only like ti give you another point of view on the things... no matter who dominated the season in modern formula one, was newer on that untouchable TOP performance level in the next season. a few example are:

brawn 2009, 2010
ferrari 2004, 2005
ferrari 2002, 2003.
mclaren 1998, 1999.
williams 1996, 1997... and so on.

P.S. in the past some teams used to beginn the season with their last years car, and were introducing an aboslute cracking car after that, e.g. ferrari in 2002 or 2003 i dont remember. Why are all the teams introcuding their cars before the start of the season nowadays ?

I cant decide whether Virgin delaying the launch is a good thing or bad thing?

It either means they want to ensure everything is good to go when they do run, or that they havent passed the crash tests and/or running seriously late. Ideally you would want to run the new car asap because you will run into problems, and given the limited testing the teams do it becomes quite important. They did the least amount of testing with their new car last year other than Mclaren, and of course HRT.

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL

mitadumapaga Wrote:
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> P.S. in the past some teams used to beginn the
> season with their last years car, and were
> introducing an aboslute cracking car after that,
> e.g. ferrari in 2002 or 2003 i dont remember. Why
> are all the teams introcuding their cars before
> the start of the season nowadays ?

That was never commonplace. It happened occasionally yes but it was not standard procedure.

The year with Ferrari you're referring to was mainly becuase they found aero fault and the rules changed so little from one year to the next that it didn't really matter if they had the old car with bells on or a new car. Those were shite days tbh glad they're gone.

In the late 80s and early 90s Benetton used to do it year in, year out

Since then the ony time I can remember anybody doing it were the times mentioned above

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Races: 163 - Wins: 23 - Pole Positions: 24 - Fastest Laps: 22
Season 9: Constructors' Champions

I think the Caterham nose is one flowing shape and the bump we see is just like a speed bump caused by the suspension arms bit, not a drop in level.

Edit: Still super ugly



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2012 03:35AM by Guimengo.

As it turns out Mita is right about Ferrari - they started with the previous year's car in 2002 and 2003.
Yeah, in the late 80s and early 90s there was a tendency to start the season with last year's car. The last year several teams did it was 1992(Williams, McLaren, Benetton and others too IIRC).

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A lot of teams did not start with their new cars until Imola, the 1st European race.

Mclaren only bought the 1992 car out later, Brazil but they used to start with a new car from the start of the season.

Williams in 1989 did not start with their new car until Portugal and used the same car in 1990.

It was mainly the smaller teams that only used new cars from Imola tbh.

The case of Williams in 1992... It was basically the 1991 car "with bells on" all year, 91=FW14 & 92=FW14B hence essentially the same chassis. The biggest difference was probably that the active ride height system was properly sorted out by 1992. They had tried it on and off for a few years before hand with little success. Traction control may have helped as well though I'm not sure if the 14B had that though the FW15 range certainly did so, that and ABS plus all kinds of gadgetry.

Back in the day teams used to use the same essential car for several seasons, though obviously they'd still develop it throughout it's use.

I think that today thanks to modern simulation tools the technological side advances faster than it has ever before and new cars are practically out of date before they've even ran for the first time since developments are well underway already.

Even so.. There are a few examples of old cars being raced in the next season during the 00s. As has been pointed out Ferrari used the stable regulations to increase development time in 2002 (the new was only available for Schumacher at it's first race) and a similar tactic was employed in 2003. Mclaren used a honed version of their 2002 throughout 2003 though that may been more because the MP4/18 was never deemed fit to race. Plus going off on a slight tangent, Super Aguri used an modified Arrows from 2002 in 2006 and year old Hondas from then on, whilst STR had a refined yet year old RBR in 2006.

And, if you listen to a few cheeky souls, Force India still use an old Jordan chassis.

Lol... That would indeed be surprising

Does HRT's F111 count? It was just a F110 with DRS and a different front nose really...

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GPGSL: S6 - TafuroGP Tester (14th) /// S7 - ART Tester (6th) /// S8 - Demon Driver (13th) /// S9 - Demon/Snake Driver (13th) /// S10 - Snake Driver (???) ///]
"My ambition is handicapped by laziness" - Charles Bukowski

So Mclaren are expecting many teams to question if their car is legal or not. Sounds interesting looking forward to seeing it.

They have also gone for 1 lap pace so they dont keep losing out and starting further back than they should.

On reflection of the Caterham Nose, could be worse.....



Actually i don't know lol

that was sexual, that walrus nose!


Jenson drives it like he owns it; Lewis drives it like he stole it

Lol the Walrus. That must have been one of the most awkward moments in f1 launch history.

it looked great on track