Ferrari F2007 Has Become Faster....

[LabradoRacer 2]

http://www.paddocktalk.com/news/html/modul...c=8&catid=0

Bahrain grand prix winner Felipe Massa has enthused about the even quicker Ferrari single seater that he tested last week at Barcelona.

The Maranello based team's 2007 car was already the pacesetter this year, but Brazilian Massa, 26, said a heavy update made a significant difference to the pace at the same venue for Sunday's Spanish grand prix.

"Before the update the F2007 was good enough," he is quoted as saying by La Gazzetta dello Sport, "and we could prove it by already winning twice.

"But this (updated) car is even better. I hope that we can repeat our competitiveness of the test in the next race," Massa added.

Massa last week revealed that he thought the new package had taken five tenths off an average lap time, while some observers now estimate the advantage over McLaren to be a full second.

Massa said: "I have a great car and am ready to win again."

He rubbished David Coulthard's lap record on the final day of last week's test by saying a Ferrari driver could "easily" have gone quicker if he had wanted.

"Coulthard's record?" La Gazzetta quotes Massa as saying. "It does not interest us."

He also commented on McLaren's radical new front wing, and confirmed that something equally as visually impressive will not crop up on the red cars in scrutineering later this week.

"They attract a lot of attention with their wing but we have many innovations and our car is faster.

"I am sure McLaren will still be competitive but we hope to be in front," Massa said.

[goferrarigo 0]

Schumikonen allready posted this and kimi's remark in The Be scared he will be back thread...

[dribbler 6]

You never would have got this immature Ferrari showboating in Michael's day, he was to canny. Why are they saying publicly that the car has gained more pace? If it hasn't, they will look stupid. If it has, it just gives the competition more information.

Michael would have demonstrated any car superiority on race day, with a result, not hot air. Massa smacks of a kid who has a big new shiny bike and has to brag to his friends about how much better it is than theirs.

[Jean Todt 4]

You never would have got this immature Ferrari showboating in Michael's day, he was to canny. Why are they saying publicly that the car has gained more pace? If it hasn't, they will look stupid. If it has, it just gives the competition more information.

Michael would have demonstrated any car superiority on race day, with a result, not hot air. Massa smacks of a kid who has a big new shiny bike and has to brag to his friends about how much better it is than theirs.

[goferrarigo 0]

Massa smacks of a kid who has a big new shiny bike and has to brag to his friends about how much better it is than theirs.

Why is kimi doing the same???? Are they jealous of each other's ride???

[F1 FANatic 1]

You never would have got this immature Ferrari showboating in Michael's day, he was to canny. Why are they saying publicly that the car has gained more pace? If it hasn't, they will look stupid. If it has, it just gives the competition more information.

Michael would have demonstrated any car superiority on race day, with a result, not hot air. Massa smacks of a kid who has a big new shiny bike and has to brag to his friends about how much better it is than theirs.

Very true, MS would have shown the cars dominance by qualifying on pole by.150 secs, then the first 2 laps would be .150 secs faster then everybody else and then he would throw the car into gear and win with a 20 second margin

[Jem of the Shire 0]

Massa is bound to make these comments, i dont take it as an indicator that ferrari have actually made a signicant peformance gain, in fact i expect the general pecking order to be unchanged in spain

[Autumnpuma 0]

itv recently quoted Tombazis as saying that Ferrari ran the first few races of the season without any major aero fine-tunings (especially the diffuser area) to better evaluate the car with the new spec Bridgstones. Now they have enough data to apply major aero changes. I don't think the second-per-lap is impossible, but I hope it is--for the sake of racing.

[F1 FANatic 1]

Yes ITV was right the F2007 didn't run with any major updates in the first three races, actually the exact same car used by Kimi was used in Sepang, then in Bahrain they added one small winglet they designed with the data from Sepang.

[BradSpeedMan 6]

itv recently quoted Tombazis as saying that Ferrari ran the first few races of the season without any major aero fine-tunings (especially the diffuser area) to better evaluate the car with the new spec Bridgstones. Now they have enough data to apply major aero changes. I don't think the second-per-lap is impossible, but I hope it is--for the sake of racing.

"How can Ferrari pull away from the opposition?

Ferrari dominated last week's Barcelona testing during which Felipe Massa was quoted, saying that the development of the F2007 was "at least half a second faster than before". This is bad news for the opposition and there have been suggestions that when practice begins in Spain later this week we may see Ferrari as much as a second ahead of everyone. And this has been achieved even with Ferrari having redesigned the floor of its cars to withstand the FIA's flexibility tests.

The opposition has been working on a variety of new aerodynamic devices, notably Honda's "Dumbo" nose wings and McLaren's new "bi-plane" front wing. These may make a difference but no-one seems very confident that they can keep up with Ferrari.

The question being asked is how Ferrari has managed to pull off such an improvement, which is huge in modern F1 terms. The answer, however, seems to be that the team started the year with a package that was deliberately not as efficient as it could be - because the team wanted to see how the new tyres behaved.

When the F2007 was launched Ferrari was very careful to make sure that there were few photographs of the rear of the car. This may have been because the team did not want expert eyes to figure out that the rear end was not really changed from last year. The only remarks made were that the rear suspension was similar to that of the 248 and that there was still development ongoing.

"This year the tyres were not known to us until very late in the process as Bridgestone had a new specification of tyre to supply the whole field and did not want to give any team an advantage by letting them know the specification any earlier," said chief designer Nick Tombazis at the time. "We had to leave a bit more margin in some areas of the F2007's adjustability in order to be able to adapt to that."

After three races the tyres are now much better understood and with the evolution in the rear suspension the designers have been able to alter the rear of the car with a reshaped engine cover, a revision of the cooling system and therefore smaller sidepods.

Thus, it may be that Ferrari's impressive leap forward is because the team was not starting from where its rivals thought it was."

www.grandprix.com article

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Right on Puma....

'nuff said!

[Player(1) 0]

If thats true then Massa's chances of a WDC will skyrocket. No pressure from any other cars so he wont be pressured into mistakes (from Hammy)....he'll just walk the races from pole.

Could be worse

[ykickamoocow 0]

Every team i has been developing their cars during the break. Here is what Red Bull have been doing.

RBR: No-one will match our development effort

In common with all of its rivals, Red Bull Racing will be introducing new parts for this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix but, while most of the field brings just aero advances to the opening European race of the season, the RB3 will also feature a revised transmission system.

[F1 FANatic 1]

the same thing with RBR as Ferrari though, they were the only team to start without a seamless 'box but now they bring it to spain, it looks like they are ahead but really they started behind and now are even

[ykickamoocow 0]

the same thing with RBR as Ferrari though, they were the only team to start without a seamless 'box but now they bring it to spain, it looks like they are ahead but really they started behind and now are even

The fact that Red Bull didnt have the seamless shift gearbox (which is worth at least 2 tenths) and were able to keep up and sometimes go faster than the Renault's, Williams and Toyota's shows how good the RB3 truly is.

[Niall McBride 0]

what exactly is the seemless gearbox like, does it shift and act as if it didn't shift at all or something?

[ykickamoocow 0]

what exactly is the seemless gearbox like, does it shift and act as if it didn't shift at all or something?

Its basically a type of gearbox which changes gears quicker and allows the power to be avaliable to the driver slightly quicker. Its generally believed that this gearbox is worth between 2 and 3 tenths of a second. Most of the teams are now running this gearbox as Red Bull are one of the last teams to actually put it in their cars.

[raikkonen_dominates2 0]

If thats true then Massa's chances of a WDC will skyrocket. No pressure from any other cars so he wont be pressured into mistakes (from Hammy)....he'll just walk the races from pole.

Could be worse

That is true, if he can be avoid mistakes and be no. 2 often enough. Would that be by the way his first constructors' championship?

[Player(1) 0]

That is true, if he can be avoid mistakes and be no. 2 often enough. Would that be by the way his first constructors' championship?

Nah, they would need a much bigger performance gap if they expected Massa to win the race, jump into the No.6 Ferrari then unlap himself and bring it home 2nd. proberly pesky rules against that kind of thing aswell.

[pabloh20 1]

Nah, they would need a much bigger performance gap if they expected Massa to win the race, jump into the No.6 Ferrari then unlap himself and bring it home 2nd. proberly pesky rules against that kind of thing aswell.

Damn FIA, they spoil everything!

[Player(1) 0]

Damn FIA, they spoil everything!

Damn physics aswell. I'd assume they would need a 90 minutes per lap advantage over the 2nd fastest team for it to be possible.

[Autumnpuma 0]

www.grandprix.com article

**************

Right on Puma....

'nuff said!

Well, I didn't remember the source to well....thanks for the post, Brad!!

I think Spain will be a Ferrari 1-2.

[raikkonen_dominates2 0]

Damn physics aswell. I'd assume they would need a 90 minutes per lap advantage over the 2nd fastest team for it to be possible.

Well they did some research in this area. As a result they hired Kimi...

[BradSpeedMan 6]

Well they did some research in this area. As a result they hired Kimi...

Brilliant!

[DOF_power 0]

>

^ It's good that Ferrari and also RBR have improved and esentially are saying they're giving Max ( ) and the slow_the_cars_for_the_sake_racertainment_safety_non-sense_budget_cutting the middle finger.

So the cars should be faster in corners that ever ( ) despite the aero & engine restrictions and crapy new tyres. He, he ... failed again Max (why don't you just stop this non sense).

I just hope others have improved equally or will do so soon, for the sake of spectacle.

[Autumnpuma 0]

I just hope others have improved equally or will do so soon, for the sake of spectacle.

Racentertainment or spectacle...what's the difference again?