Minardi next year

[TotalF1 Jens 0]

Minardi are going to get a full works engine from one of the current manufacturers, and money wont be a problem with Paul Stoddart...

You know we never know, their aero package could be the best on the grid, its only their power unit. Also well have to see who they get as their designer after Brunner left. Maybe Sergio Rinland, the man that created this years Sauber C20?!

F1's lovable bad team may just become F1s lovable midgrid team......

[Milionis Leonidas 0]

That would certainly be a nice change.

Minardi have been on the last lines of the grid for too long.

I 'll be waiting for this and I'd like to see if they change their drivers. I know they don't want to part with Alonso, but maybe he wants to leave them. It's in his contract anyway that he may leave anytime he feels that the team's performance disappoints him. As for Marques they surely need to change him.

Also I'll be waiting to see who will fill the last grid after they move ahead. There's got to be someone there you know. Maybe Toyota?

P.S. I hope they change their colors too, why don't they paint it black?

[jagman 0]

I would love to see Minardi do well too, they are my second favourite team.

I have never been one to go for the best, I like supporting a team that has room to improve and in Minardi's case there is a lot of room.

The Minardi is currently black and white because Paul Stoddart is a Collingwood fan (Collingwood is an Aussie rules football team).  If you look at the white M in front of the c##Kpit, it looks like white stripes and Collingwood wear black and white stripes.

[TotalF1 SamB 0]

Where did you hear that, Jens?? I'm going for the Ferrari engine deal that Prost won't be needing...

[TotalF1 Jens 0]

Todays news says Arrows was going for the Ferrari engine deal, and they are trying to get General Motors to pay for it!!!

Minardi are just saying that it will be a full works engine, and from a current manufacturer, thats all they told me.

[GeoffandSandy 0]

General Motors to pay for Minardi's Ferrari engine?

Law suits here we come!

The Collingwood colours thing is a bit of a worry too if the other discussion about St George/Ferrari is anything to go by.

Could be what's wrong with them. The dreaded collywobbles!

[Milionis Leonidas 0]

Which Ferrari engine are you talking about?

The one Prost has now or this year's?

And if it is this year's will it be the new version of Montreal?

'Cause if that's the one we might see them quite high next year.

[TotalF1 Jens 0]

Well the Ferrari customer engine deal always has the engines from the prvious year, so next year they would have this year's engines, likely the newest one they can get. I think its a good start, but if they want to get to the top (same for Prost and Sauber)then theyre gonna need another engine, since theyll always be a year behind otherwise.

[GeoffandSandy 0]

I heard recently that the big breakthrough in engine lightness & technology occured about 12 months ago.

That being the case 2001 engines will only be a tad behind 2002 ones a opposed to the big margin between 2000 & 2001.

Probably a dumb question but can teams with customer engines attempt to improve them or do they have to use them as they come out of the box?

[Milionis Leonidas 0]

You have made a great point there Geoff+Sandy, about the evolution of the engines. We 'll most likely see this package for the next two or three years.

That's how enginnering works anyway, one great jump followed by slight improvements, till the next one.

As far as I know teams can improve the engines they buy. I believe, though that there must be certain bindings in the contract. It isn't like buying a CD, calling your friends to hear it altogether, selling it if you don't like it and all that.

[TotalF1 Jens 0]

They are free to do whatever they want with the engines Ferrari send them.

Sauber has their own engine people, their head being Osamu Goto and what they do is take that engine and do whatever they can think of to improve it, but they will never reach the performance of Ferrari's own engines since they are a whole new design (different exhaust systems, cranks etc.) and Sauber dont have that kind of money.

What they do, according to Petronas, is tweak the engine as much as they can, maybe change the valve setups or play with the fuel injection systems.

In todays press conference Peter Sauber says that with usually only one car at each test (they cant afford more) they cant test engines, and that they really dont need to. So whatever they do has to be just setup changes at each track during the practice sessions.

[GeoffandSandy 0]

Thanks Jens & Millie, it's pretty much as I thought but there are so many clauses in F1 contracts that I wouldnt have been surprised if you had told me that they couldn't even change the colour of the cleaners underpants.

Being within 107% of Ferrari's performance means that they don't have to improve much for their car to make a decent impact on the results.

I should imagine that Ferrari's engine was designed to run in a Ferrari chassis & as the Minardi is quite different most alterations should be for the better.

[TotalF1 Jens 0]

Good point GnS, the engines are designed for the Ferrari chassis, which means that Minardi would have to make a chassis to accomodate the power unit.

Everything in the car is built around the chassis, even the engine. I know that at least Adrian Newey has a major say in the size and shape of the Mercedes power unit since he designs the chassis along with his colleagues. But I would think that should Mercedes tell Newey, "Hey, if we make the engine wider/longer/whatever, we can make it quicker" then Newey would of course alter the chassis.

[TotalF1 SamB 0]

The guy at Sauber is also in contact with Paolo Martinello at Ferrari, because apparently some of his little tweaks on the Ferrari engines have been very useful for Ferrari themselves...

As far as I can see it, AMT are going to be supplying 2 teams - Prost and Arrows, and a customer engine deal from Ferrari will be going to Minardi