2005 GP's - Minus Ferrari

[manwell]

So seeing that Ferrari are happy to go on making there own limitations for testing etc. even though other 9 teams have agreed to a 30 day test limit (http://www.f1racing.net/en/news.php?newsID=75140) (http://www.formula1.com/news/2560.html) should we at 10/10ths keep track of the 2005 championship minus Ferrari?

I mean when the season starts, the rest of the media will only concentrate on who is the current leader, and probably wont take into account the amount of testing that has be done.
Its got to be up to someone to point out that one team will have, due to their own choices, done a whole lot more testing than other teams when the rest of the F1 world is doing their best to agree to reduce costs.
I think that someone is us at 10/10ths.

[ralf fan]

I dont there will be a situation where one team has a testing advantage over the rest... it will be plain bad for the sports image...the FIA is not going to allow this for sure...
they'll reach an agreement IMO

[Kicking-back]

It's a gentlemans agreement, the testing ban, not a rule.

And as has been pointed out - Ferrari are unlikely to fit in more than 30 days testing into a 19-race schedule, rule or no rule.

[pitcrew]

very true

[Glen]

Ferrari are going to restrict themselves to 15,000km - which is 500 per day at the testing limit of the other teams. At these levels Bridgestone will have half, or a third even, of the testing time compared to Michelin - should we refuse to follow the Michelins teams with the unfair advantage?

When you express it from one side of the argument only it doesn't make much sense - the orginal post is just as non-sensical.

"The rest of the F1 world is doing their best to reduce costs." Oh yea, right. That's not at all naive. The other teams seek to reduce costs and gain an advantage at the same time - nobody in the world of F1 acts without ther own interests first and foremost in their mind.

[garcon]

Apart from the gentleman's agreement between the other nine teams, nothing has really changed. Ferrari have always pursued a different testing strategy to the others by virtue of having their own facilities.

[Lucylu]

You cant blame Ferrari for not agreeing with the limited testing, Im sure other teams if they had there own facilities would take the same position

[Kirk]

[QUOTE=Glen]Ferrari are going to restrict themselves to 15,000km - which is 500 per day at the testing limit of the other teams. At these levels Bridgestone will have half, or a third even, of the testing time compared to Michelin - should we refuse to follow the Michelins teams with the unfair advantage?

When you express it from one side of the argument only it doesn't make much sense - the orginal post is just as non-sensical.
QUOTE]

Glen that 15,000 km restriction sounds good but the Michelin runners (and accumulated mileage) are wide spread among different cars, different teams, with varying setups, characteristics, configurations etc.... while Ferrari's mileage is essentially on one car. It's like comparing apples to oranges really, with no side being absolutely right in their arguments. IMO, Ferrari is only contributing to the cause of a control tyre in F1. Something I'd like to see ASAP.

[Glen]

I agree, it is not an absolutely direct comparisson, because the Michelin cars differ slightly from each other. So a fair situation might be thought to be somewhere in the middle, so that Bridgestone have rather less time than Michelin, albeit all on one car. which is exactly what is happenning in effect - so what is everyone's problem?

You say Ferrari is contributing to the cause of a control tyre - why do you say that? The other teams are contributing just as strongly by so crudely trying to paint Ferrari into a corner. It is more fair and accurate to say that the growing complexity of the issue leads us ever closer to a control tyre - to blame one team only simply reveals rather obvious bias.

[Sodemo]

Then again, surely Bridgestone and Ferrari have only each other to blame for backing themselves into a corner with regard to tyre contracts / distribution.
If Bridgestone operated a equitable tyre situation instead of just pouring all their money into Ferrari's pockets then maybe the situation would be different?

[Gt_R]

That's right Kirk. People were all unhappy with Ferrari's proposal, slamming it for giving Ferrari effectively 5 times the amount of tyre testing more than other Michelin running teams....but turn the situation around..they also slam Ferrari for not agreeing to test cuts which effectively gave Michelin 5 times the amount of testing than Bridgestone. Don't you find them hypocritical?

The whole spin has been going out of control...the casual fan just buy into the lame stories on the media and team owners that what Ferrari do is absolute selfishness...but fail to look at what the 9 teams are doing..which is absolutely unacceptable either.

[Glen]

Certainly the subject reaches well into the territory of contracts and what happens behind the scenes - but yet again I say: why blame Ferrari/Bridgestone? Teams have moved away from Bridgestone because they are first and foremost seeking a competitive advantage over Ferrari - with Bridgestone making equal tyres for their teams Ferrari are going to win, because they have a better package all-round, and the other teams know this.

[ralf fan]

The other teams see an advantage to handicap Ferrari..because they are the only top Bridgestone team... and hence this fuss over testing...I think not long ago the teams were squabbling over the type of engine and the same teams that are trying 'sincerely' to reduce costs couldnt agree.... the teams are just trying to get the best deal for themselves....

On the tyre testing,i think an agreement with the teams on testing limits will only be reached satisfactorily if they switch to controlled tyres....

[Sodemo]

Originally Posted by Glen

with Bridgestone making equal tyres for their teams Ferrari are going to win

Do Bridgestone make equal tyres for each team? What actually do Bridgestone do for Minardi and Jordan? Surely they just give them the same tyres that have been developed for Ferrari?
But as Ferrari are the only team testing and putting any miles on their tyres they only work with Ferrari, as Ferrari have developed them.

Surely the reason why all the teams have moved from Bridgestone to Michelin is because Bridgestone have always seen Ferrari (since 2002) as their best chance of victory, so poured more money into their camp?

[Glen]

No no no. That is the case now - but merely because Jordan and Minardi can't afford to test. The situation developed after Williams went with Michelin - McLaren became frustrated and claimed that Bridgestone were biased toward Ferrari (there was a situation late in a season (no good on years) where Bridgestone shifted their focus to Ferrari, but that was because McLaren were already on their way to Michelin and they needed to shift focus to Ferrari to secure the win... so that would have been 2001?). Now - THAT (ie before McLaren jumped ship) would have been a good point in time to agree a tyre testing time limit, because McLaren could have been assured that the attention for them was equal.

[pole2pole]

Originally Posted by The Monster

Do Bridgestone make equal tyres for each team? What actually do Bridgestone do for Minardi and Jordan? Surely they just give them the same tyres that have been developed for Ferrari?
But as Ferrari are the only team testing and putting any miles on their tyres they only work with Ferrari, as Ferrari have developed them.

Surely the reason why all the teams have moved from Bridgestone to Michelin is because Bridgestone have always seen Ferrari (since 2002) as their best chance of victory, so poured more money into their camp?

Could'nt agree more Monster

[Sodemo]

Originally Posted by Glen

No no no. That is the case now - but merely because Jordan and Minardi can't afford to test. The situation developed after Williams went with Michelin - McLaren became frustrated and claimed that Bridgestone were biased toward Ferrari (there was a situation late in a season (no good on years) where Bridgestone shifted their focus to Ferrari, but that was because McLaren were already on their way to Michelin and they needed to shift focus to Ferrari to secure the win... so that would have been 2001?). Now - THAT (ie before McLaren jumped ship) would have been a good point in time to agree a tyre testing time limit, because McLaren could have been assured that the attention for them was equal.

That may very well be the case Glen, however if you were head of a company entering F1 and you wanted to choose between a "top F1 team" or Ferrari and there were no rules dictating what bias you could operate, which would you choose?

[Glen]

That's not really a relevant question is it? The point I was making was that what you perceive as being a wholly Ferrari-derived "problem" is in real life a situation that developed through circumstances well beyond one team and one tyre company. The current situation is that Bridgestone support Ferrari, but that is because of the rush of teams to Michelin which was more or less sealed when McLaren jumped ship - after McLaren went Bridgestone were on the back foot and decided to focus on their main team. If testing restrictions could have been gotten into place before McLaren decided to switch we may well have a very different landscape now.

What I am categorically saying is that it is plain wrong to see it purely from an anti-Ferrari point of view, especially if you argue that view based on a snapshot in time and ignore the build-up.

[Inigo Montoya]

Are we sure that this and other anti-Ferrari threads are not just (very lame) attempts at making excuses for the continual failure of the other teams to get it together and actually make a competative car? The excuses are coming in early this year, friends...

Perhaps if Williams didn't waste their money on technical blunders like their silly tusk nose, or McLaren decided to build only ONE car per year, they might save enough money to make a competative car.

[Glen]

Ferrari have raised the bar so high that the mantra HAS to be innovate or die. The walrus wasn't nearly as disasterous as the MP4-18/19 fiasco - but neither team should take either example as a cause to be conservative, because then the lap times simply will not be there.

What the Ferrari designs have had above all is integrity - they function superbly as a whole and have no weak points - no circuits that don't suit them, no reliability issues, no tricky setting-up or excessive tyre wear, or heavy fuel consumption etc etc. This is a very difficult quality to emulate, because not only do you need to produce radically light and stiff and well engineered bits and pieces but your concept has to run cohesively through every component in the whole damned car.

[Inigo Montoya]

Glen, I agree that innovations are to be encouraged... but NEVER at the expense of reliability (which is, I suppose, your point), which was the downfall of McLaren last year. What did Schummi do when he came to Ferrari? He DEMANDED a car that was, above all, reliable. And once they gave him that, they started to work on other innovations. If you introduce too many innovations at once, you are only inviting trouble.

[avsfan733]

This will not save a dime as is true wit most cost cutting measures...just means more computer simulations and more time on the test rigs. So many people complain about the ferari advantage and Ferrari pushing its own rules...well whats happening here is the other teams banding together to try and get an advantage over the Bridgestone shod ferrari...think about it, the only other bridgestone teams are Jordan and minardi if im not mistaken, they are also the only teams who will actually save money on this deal because they will not use those resources otherplaces. This is nothing more than an attempt by Michelin to slow Ferrari, and i can't blame them. This is sports use every advantage you can! I say proper gamesmanship is kinda fun, however the ripping of Ferrari for not following a gentlemans agreement to slow them down is a little ridiculous

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by Kicking-back

And as has been pointed out - Ferrari are unlikely to fit in more than 30 days testing into a 19-race schedule, rule or no rule.

How do you figure this one out K-B? Are Luca Badoer and Marc Gene going to be rested for the majority of the season? I doubt it very much! The other thing is, according to F1Racing, Ferrari get paid $38 million by Bridgestone for tyre testing, i doubt that the red team are going to let that go!

In all honesty, if it is only a gentlemans agreement and you had 2 private test tracks at you disposal and you were getting paid all that money to test, would you limit yourself?

[Kicking-back]

You're not allowed to test in the week prior to a Grand Prix in any case.

With 19 races on the schedule, that's 19 weeks of the year where testing is not possible.

The advantage of having two test drivers (as McLaren also do) is you can rest the race drivers and it also allows you to have more cars on track when you do test.

It doesn't necessarily mean more days of testing.

Ferrari will not end up doing much more than 30 days of testing.

[RWC]

Originally Posted by Glen

Ferrari are going to restrict themselves to 15,000km - which is 500 per day at the testing limit of the other teams. At these levels Bridgestone will have half, or a third even, of the testing time compared to Michelin - should we refuse to follow the Michelins teams with the unfair advantage?

When you express it from one side of the argument only it doesn't make much sense - the orginal post is just as non-sensical.

"The rest of the F1 world is doing their best to reduce costs." Oh yea, right. That's not at all naive. The other teams seek to reduce costs and gain an advantage at the same time - nobody in the world of F1 acts without ther own interests first and foremost in their mind.

Glen you are both right and wrong

ferrari have an unfair advantage over everyone due to their alliance with bridgestone.The real solution is -instead of putting a set number of days testing limit (or similar ideas)-the whole system should be changed so that an advantage can't happen.

But untill then don't expect any sympathy for your views from the majority.Ferrari need to be beaten down with a stick somehow