Tires Aside, Is The Ferrari Good Enough?

[GP Racer]

The controversy over the Michelin tires continue to cast a shadow on this years championship. Ferrari believes it has given the Michelin shod cars a distinct advantage, and thats why they have fared so poorly as of late.

But if we put the tire contrversy aside for a minute, and ask the question, is the Ferrari GA2003 good enough to win the champonship this year? Is this car as good as they made it sound? Are all the problems with this car related to the tires or are there other problems here?
Is Ferrari looking for an excuse for this cars somewhat shakey performance?

For myself, I think this car has performance problems that go beyond the tires, it may just not be good enough. I think Ferrari has there hands full, and they have alot of work ahead of them to win this thing.

What do you think?

[neilap]

I think the car is better than any on the grid this year. It is impossible to know though. Even if Michelin loses pace and Ferrari wins we can then say, "its because of the tires"

I dont think they would have gone with a car that was worse than the f2002. It is highly improbable that Williams would have made such a leap over the course of a season to surpass the F2003ga's pace.

However, like I said no one knows.

[ralf fan]

Hard to say,Before the Michelin introduced the wider tyres in Monaco ,Ferrari were very fast,but Williams could have also made some breakthroughs in this time so even without a tyre advantage Williams could still have the best car.

[Mr V]

Imo, it's more than just the tyres, yes, they are a contributing factor, but not everything. However, it's an ideal thing to blame for Ferrari and Michaels lacklustre season of late.

Don't forget that, Rubens in a Bridgestone shod Ferrari managed to win quite convincingly at Silverstone. Rubens is driving better than Michael just lately, but, as usual, seems to be having more bad luck.

As is always the way with F1, Ferrari had their 3 or 4 years of dominance, but, as history as shown in the past, it goes in cycles and the Williams and McLarens seem to be coming to the fore.

As i said though, blaming the tyres is easier than blaming Ferrari and Michael.

[paulzinho]

I remember hearing that the F2003GA has a much narrower setup window than the F2002 but when setup correctly is quite an improvement.

Mind you after last year it became clear that Williams and Mclaren had to take huge risks to compete this year, Williams seem to have succeeded but the Macs failed badly with their new car which has seemingly been thrown in the bin.

[slicktoast]

Yes. Because it was designed to use BS tires that were narrower than the rules 270 max. The wider tread (270) was deemed inferior and of NO advantage due to aero performance loss.

[shiny side up!]

I wouldn't say the Macs failed badly... still with a championship hope and they're running last year's car! Whether the 18 is binned or not, they have hada successful season...

[paulzinho]

Sorry I should've said with respect to the new car.

Thing is they've been consistent, though haven't won since Malaysia, round 2, thats worrying when it comes down to the showdown.

[esorniloc]

Well one way to look at the Ferrari from a non-tyre view is to look at the gap between Ferrari and the next best Bridgestone car.

In the last GP, MS was only about 30 seconds ahead of Heidfeld's Sauber in 9th spot.

In 2002 Heidfeld was also in 9th spot, but was lapped by both Ferrari's.

If the Ferrari was all it should be, surely it should still be lapping the Sauber's of Heidfeld?

[cds_uk]

The Ferrari is just about the best overall car on the grid, Renault might have the best chassis (maybe), i don`t think there is any doubt that the BMW is the best engine, take the tyre issue out of it and you have got to say Ferrari just about sneak the overall package though.

[Splatz the Cow]

There is no doubt that BMW rewarded Williams with a fair bit more power after the contract signing, immediately afterwards the car was flying. The did succesful aero work and have been having absolutely mega pitstops. They have gained a lot of time over their performances per lap over last year at the same track. Ferrari have not been able to continue making the car better. It seems to have plataued.

However, I think there is a lot left in the Ferrari in terms of race results. For me, I was not surprised to see michael lapped at a circuit where it is difficult to overtake. If Michael was running directly behind Alonso from the start of the race Alonso would have never won it. Michael would have lapped Alonso by an even greater amount had Alonso been in 8th as Michael was. The Ferrari is definitely a faster car than the Renault.

The interesting thing woud be; could a Minardi win if it were in Alonso's position? Or a BAR Or Jordan Or Toyota. Was the Renault's win really so impressive? The moment Montoya got one lap of clear track, he destroyed Alonso's best lap time by more than a second.

Its great, he's young, he won. But the Renault is still clearly the fourth fastet car out there, and being attacked by the pace of the Webber Jaguar.

[Smokey 6 litre]

reading an old autosport (May 8 2003) which happens to be laying near my PC, it talks about the debut of the Ferrari F2003-GA and its design features, apparently due to reliability problems they had to replace certain revolutionary materials in the engine causing it to come in over the target weight, rougly 37KG over the btarget weight.
Add to that, less movable balast and the fact that the other teams gained ground and NO, i dont think the Ferrari is the best in the field, especially with the willaims improvements which obviously are'nt all down to the tyres.

[avsfan733]

total tire width is 270 + 270 = 540/ a additioin of 16mm to each side is 32mm which is a six percent improvement in width. A six percent improvement in a 1:30.00 lap is 5.4 seconds, thats a lot of an improvement, while they probably don't directly translate, its the realization of how much of a difference it is at this level of development

[neilap]

Originally posted by esorniloc
Well one way to look at the Ferrari from a non-tyre view is to look at the gap between Ferrari and the next best Bridgestone car.

In the last GP, MS was only about 30 seconds ahead of Heidfeld's Sauber in 9th spot.

In 2002 Heidfeld was also in 9th spot, but was lapped by both Ferrari's.

If the Ferrari was all it should be, surely it should still be lapping the Sauber's of Heidfeld?

Again, MS was stuck behind Trulli who himself was having troubles. MS was not able to take advantage of the cars superior straight line speed because the Renault was still getting out of the corners faster than he was. Furthermore Sauber had a miracle race in Hungary. They were also quicker than BAR which they have not been since the start of the year. If MS had gotten by Trulli surely the gap would have been much greater.

Also, if your tires suck they suck for everyone. It was not the cars limitations that slowed them down it was the tires. All the cars on BS have been suffering since mid season. So to say the Ferrari is the problem would also insinuate that Toyota, Jag, have surpassed BAR on merrit and that they are also faster than the Ferrari. Now that sounds absurd doesn't it? Well if we look at the lap times in the past few races then one would have to draw that conclusion. If it were only Ferrari falling behind then we could blame the team. However, since everyone is losing touch then we have to look elsewhere for the culprit.

The problem is that we will never know. We can discuss this till we are blue, we will never know. IMO this is the worst thing about this season. No one knows exactly how good their teams cars are. Even Frank Williams does not know how his car compares to the F2003ga. The only thing he knows is that with the Michelins he has been faster as of late. Teams like BAR have been developing the car all year. Honda says they are confident they have a motor that is comptitive with the front runners, but we will never see the potential.

I think the Ferrari is still the class of the field but the most important factor is missing.

[Mr V]

Originally posted by avsfan733
total tire width is 270 + 270 = 540/ a additioin of 16mm to each side is 32mm which is a six percent improvement in width. A six percent improvement in a 1:30.00 lap is 5.4 seconds, thats a lot of an improvement, while they probably don't directly translate, its the realization of how much of a difference it is at this level of development

But that doesn't totally add up, the narrower tyre (in this case Bridgestone) would be lighter and more aero-efficiant, ergo, should be the faster tyre.

[Adam43]

Originally posted by Mr V
But that doesn't totally add up, the narrower tyre (in this case Bridgestone) would be lighter and more aero-efficiant, ergo, should be the faster tyre.

It is always a comprimise. you can't (with no data) argue one way or the other. Taking this argument (to nearly it's limit) a 1mm wide tyre is best.

Depends on track etc...

However this 16mm is just a (randomish) figure at the moment...
http://tentenths.com/forum/showthrea...&postid=708240

[Splatz the Cow]

I'm amazed at how many people on this forum have done a degree in engineering... all this hi-tech maths is too much for me, .. maybe some people here will get head hunted by an F1 team...

[Inigo Montoya]

Originally posted by Mr V
But that doesn't totally add up, the narrower tyre (in this case Bridgestone) would be lighter and more aero-efficiant, ergo, should be the faster tyre.

Being lighter has nothing to do with it as cars have to be a minimum weight in any case.

But I agree that the relationship between tyre width and lap time is unlikely to be directly proportional, as avsfan acknowledges.

[Phoenix1]

Originally posted by neilap
Again, MS was stuck behind Trulli who himself was having troubles.....

Williams managed to over take, TGF does not seem to want to win all that much at the moment whereas Rubens does and in the same car is able to over take people. If Trulli is that much slower go past him in turn one or something. The only person who had a vague excuse for being stuch this long was DC at Monaco behind Enrique because it's to narrow there to overtake at all.

[Mr V]

Originally posted by Splatz the Cow
I'm amazed at how many people on this forum have done a degree in engineering... all this hi-tech maths is too much for me, .. maybe some people here will get head hunted by an F1 team...

I doubt that Splatz, and in my case, i definatly have no grasp of engineering, however, the one thing at school i managed to accomplish was to learn to read, so i get all my knowledge (or wild rumours!!! ) from magazines

[Mr V]

Originally posted by Phoenix1
The only person who had a vague excuse for being stuch this long was DC at Monaco behind Enrique because it's to narrow there to overtake at all.

Phoenix, you can't tell me that no one has ever overtaken at Monaco, yes, it's very difficult, but not impossible.

Mansell managed it on Prost in 91

[neilap]

Originally posted by Phoenix1
Williams managed to over take, TGF does not seem to want to win all that much at the moment whereas Rubens does and in the same car is able to over take people. If Trulli is that much slower go past him in turn one or something. The only person who had a vague excuse for being stuch this long was DC at Monaco behind Enrique because it's to narrow there to overtake at all.

Well maybe MS was having issues. He was abnormally slow even if he was having trouble passing Trulli. You have a point. It could have been something wrong with him or even his car, but I still feel that the car inherrently is the best in F1.

Also...

Here is an autosport article that may back the claims of those who think its more than a tire issue. Or, maybe MS feels the tire advantage is so huge that taking a few mm off will not make up the difference.

One thing for sure, this season has given us a lot to talk/complain about.

[Phoenix1]

Originally posted by Mr V
Phoenix, you can't tell me that no one has ever overtaken at Monaco, yes, it's very difficult, but not impossible.

Mansell managed it on Prost in 91

Of course not :-) just illustrating a point really. If Rubens was in TGF position in Hungary I'm sure he would of gone for it.

[Snrub]

I don't think it is all the tires. Ferrari improved from the F2002, but the big story is how much everyone else improved. At the start of the year Williams was behind McLaren with the same tires. To leapfrog McLaren they had to improve dramatically. Keep in mind McLaren were improving at the same time. Williams probably had a lot of the fundementals right, but everything wasn't working together.

Recall how much the MP-17 improved from its inception. Probably nearly 2 seconds a lap!

In CART the Reynard chasis which was neglected for several years was easily .5s/lap slower than the Lola. They added a front wing designed by Penske a couple years ago and now they're even. This is a spec engine, tires and an inferrior undertray for the Reynard. As such one could surmise that the front wing improved the car >.5s a lap (maybe .6-7).

Keeping these things in mind, why couldn't the Williams have improved enough to be even or perhaps surpassed the F2003 since it came out?

This is a public forum of fans, everything we say comes out of our @sses. We don't need engineering degrees to post on this stuff, even though some of us do (like myself, although I'm by no means bragging).

[Valve Bounce]

If you put the tyres aside, the cars wouldn't make it out of the pits.