An aero review for the 2012 Ferrari
Scuderia Ferrari quickly realized that it could not compete for the title this year against Red Bull and decided to focus early on the design of the car for the 2012 season to try to eliminate the flaws of the F150 Italia. The design of this new car is progressing well and it should differ from previous cars as the Italian team has decided to be more innovative, particularly from an aerodynamic perspective, for its new model.
The Scuderia Ferrari has decided for some time to focus on its 2012 car to the detriment of the development of the current car. And things are progressing quite well, as explained by Nikolas Tombazis, the head of design at Ferrari.
« We are currently in the process of finalizing the main components, the parts that will take the most time to manufacture. That is the chassis, the general shape of the car, the suspensions, and the gearbox. Some of these components are already at the production stage, while others are at the final stage of design. We are in the midst of developing the aerodynamic elements and it’s fair to say that we are totally focused on the new car, » Tombazis shared on the Scuderia Ferrari website.
Tombazis also specified that several parts would be tested during the upcoming races, as was already the case in Singapore where the drivers were able to test a version of the 2012 car’s wing. But the Greek engineer hopes that this flurry of work will bear fruit next year, right from the start of the season, because the design of Ferrari’s next Formula 1 car has been done in an aggressive way, with more innovations.
I hope the results will speak for themselves when we launch the single-seater, and more importantly, during the first races of the season. The more aggressive approach chosen comes from the result of the analysis we conducted on our defeats in recent years. We realized that we had been a bit too cautious and had not considered certain possible development aspects.
Nikolas Tombazis also specified that the different departments of Ferrari had worked in concert, particularly the aerodynamics and chassis departments.
«So for next year’s single-seater, we have decided to take a more aggressive approach regarding the front aerodynamics, which required a closer working relationship with the people developing the car’s structure. This makes things more challenging for other aspects of the single-seater, but it gives us more freedom for the development of aerodynamics.»
Ferrari also worked on its wind tunnel, which was producing false values this season, to try to understand the problem and, above all, to fix it. This process should continue at the end of this year and also next year with the new single-seater.
Another element of this new (design) approach is the way we use our wind tunnel: it involves not only developing and optimizing what we have but also bringing new concepts to each new session in the wind tunnel, which sometimes do not work, but other times it produces interesting results.
And this new design approach decided by the Italian team should be visually reflected in next year’s car, as Tombazis revealed.
I think that visually, the new single-seater is quite different from its predecessor, but if it is capable of catching the eye, as Stefano Domenicali thought when he saw the first model, then I hope this ability will translate into results. We have set ourselves ambitious goals, which we intend to maintain, so I am rather optimistic about this point, concluded Tombazis.
