On Thursday of this week, finally, we will know – or believe we know – what the is like Ferrari F1-75. Maranello, as it should be, keeps its secrets with the watchdogs (but they too, as it should be, get tired at a certain point) and what has leaked so far is not a matter for scoop. Trust yes, certainties no, reliability ni. None of these signals should be interpreted negatively, on the contrary. Trust because those who worked on the project have put a lot of effort and also a lot of time (no more than the others, in any case) and the project has not been conceived, but at least finished in the aerodynamic guise of the new simulator, which for a few weeks has been operating. Certainties not because having them, at this moment, would not only be counterproductive, but definitely stupid. Faced with such an epochal change of regulation, each team sets a target, that is, a performance objective. Ferrari’s was to recover something even with respect to the performance of the 2021 car, and for now it seems that we are at least on par. If others have thought and done worse, you are a genius. But if the competition has set an even more ambitious target for itself and managed to keep it, then … (for the conclusion of the sentence, ask Fernando Alonso). However it doesn’t even make sense to be pessimistic to the bitter endIndeed, the inferiority complex is one of those induced current brakes – from the fear – which it would be necessary to get rid of definitively. I have already mentioned the case of 2017, when Sergio Marchionne wanted at all costs “Silence” rumors that Mercedes had focused on a long car and Ferrari would be short (in relative terms, because all F1 hybrids are couriers). The press officer at the time, that is the guy you read now, managed to stop the ‘leaks’ but after five years he continues to wonder: what need was there to get paranoid about having the concept of the car wrong? Were they worried in Brackley the same? In fact, the SF70H proved to be anything but wrong, reliability permitting. And precisely in terms of reliability, that “ni” referring to the F1-75 should not alarm too much. There are significant innovations in terms of combustion, ERS, cooling. There is a fact that in these phases the “package” is still fragile.
We also know that the march towards Thursday’s presentation was long and laborious. Which gives us hope that the launch, as it is called in the jargon, will be rich in content, regardless of the indigestible Rossoneri polo shirts seen so far (we can see that in GeS the Inter fans are down). Because I think I am interpreting a thought common to many fans, if I say that of rendering presentations of nonexistent machines we already have saddlebags full. And it is regrettable to say it, but this world of revolution and restart has so far restarted rather badly. The beating of the closed-door tests in Barcelona was not enough – pardon, of the shakedowns -, now we also bring tarot presentations. With sensational boomerangs like that of the Aston Martin which reveals itself, yes, in its more or less real forms, but sports a truly new suspension scheme, with a strut on one side only. Which suggests a) that the guy in charge of rendering was not in the trade and b) that there is something on the team they still want to cover.
Among other things, processing a series of perspective views is not exactly an easy thing. Don’t think that in every team there are, at this time of year, all-round images of the complete car, or even photos to scan. The CAD images (perhaps today they are called in another way) on the screens of the engineers are far from attractive to the public. And even less for marketing, which might already want to give visibility to the sponsors’ logo. They are explained in this way Red Bull style pear operations, which paints an FIA-style mannequin in can color. Adrian Newey has always been super jealous of his creations, to the point of presenting them to the world, more often than not, directly from the garage on the first minute of the first day of winter testing. We see that in Milton Keynes, thinking that the livery would not be seen until Bahrain, they opted for a buffer solution. Word that just can’t be heard these days.
I am notoriously very good in spirit, but I hope that in the age of social media these lifts of ingenuity will backfire against those who have had them and push them to reflect. The same goes for the history of the “camo” colors proposed for the first tests. Sorry, but wasn’t this supposed to be the Transparency Formula? Am I wrong or there were ideas proposed, indeed imposed, to force the teams to display their cars stripped of the bodywork in plain sight, at least during the race weekends? And having said that, do you think at this point of the season whoever has studied a push-rod pattern in front – or vice versa – looking at the creations of their rivals will rush back to the drawing board and change everything in a week?
I remember when James Allison he was technical director in Maranello and for the launch of the SF15-T some ‘teasers’ had been studied, that is to say I see-no-see to entice the public of the social platforms. I advised James that we wanted to publish an image of the seat test and added: but don’t worry, we treat the lines of the body in a way that makes them unrecognizable. He replied: and why? Everyone will see it in a few days …
The fact is that F1 does not copy, from one team to another, only the brilliant ideas, but also the most foolish ones. Do you know who was, I think in ’98, the first team to close the garage door fixedly during the winter tests in Spain? One might think: McLaren, Ferrari, Williams… But no. It was there Tyrrell, that at that time maybe he would have needed a bouncer more than a bouncer, to get a minimum of attention from the media. And that instead, just that year, he closed the doors of his story about him. Think people think.
#Good #Rendering #FormulaPassionit