Ferrari confirms launch date for 2018 car

8 comments on “Ferrari confirms launch date for 2018 car”

1. 

   just.daz (@nemo87)
   19th December 2017, 0:13

   ..and so the excitement begins!
   1. 

      Jere (@jerejj)
      19th December 2017, 7:12

      @nemo87 +1.
2. 

   Kevin Carby
   19th December 2017, 7:26

   Hoping with Renault engine improvements (fingers and toes crossed), Mclaren getting the engine, Mercedes allegedly changing concept on car (shorter length, more rake, etc) Ferrari enhancements in all departments, should bring (with any luck) the most competitive F1 series in this era.
3. 

   Alex Bkk (@alex-bkk)
   19th December 2017, 10:10

   Isn’t it a bit weird that only the Germans, French and Italians can build a competitive engine for F1. The Americans can’t, the English can’t and so on a so forth. Really, it’s insane. Even the Japanese try to rise to the occasion. What’s wrong here?
   1. 

      JohnH (@johnrkh)
      19th December 2017, 10:52

      England and the US combined to produce the Cosworth DFV, a very successful engine in deed. In the mid to late 60s Honda raced a V12 that was very competitive. And of course Jack Brabham with the backing of REPCO designed and built a pretty good engine in Australia.
      So the Euros have not always had things their own way.
   2. 

      RB13
      19th December 2017, 11:08

      It’s not weird at all, it’s called continuous investment. The Germans, Italians and French have all been in F1 pretty consistently since the 1980’s and even further. If the Brits and Japs had done the same they would be up there.

      Different economies, different levels of commitment. There’s no magical ability to create good engines in peoples DNA.
      1. 

         RB13
         19th December 2017, 11:10

         Same reason the majority of engineering talent in F1 is British. The sport started here and the skills have been nurtured organically in the UK.
   3. 

      anon
      19th December 2017, 22:05

      @alex-bkk, Mercedes’s High Performance Powertrain division originally started out as the independent manufacturer Ilmor, which was founded in the UK by Mario Illien (a Swizz national) and Paul Morgan (a British national), with support from Roger Penske.

      Mercedes HPP is effectively German in name only, being based in the UK and predominantly staffed by British nationals, and the current Mercedes engine is pretty much considered to be the class of the field right now.

      In terms of historical involvement in F1, there have actually been very few German manufacturers in F1. The only ones of note have been BMW, Mercedes and Porsche, and in the case of the TAG-Porsche engine, it’s worth noting that John Barnard had fairly significant involvement in the initial design of the engine.

      Porsche did also later go on to produce the 3512, a monstrously overweight (it weighed in at 190kg – about 30-50kg overweight) and bulky design that was badly underpowered and so awful that Footwork ditched it midway during the season – it says a lot that the drivers noted that, even with a 30cm spacer block in the back of the car, the car still handled better with a shoehorned Cosworth V8 shoved in the back because the 3512 was such a dog of an engine.

      With regards to your comment about the French, what you really mean is Renault – there have been a grand total of seven French engine manufacturers in F1. Out of those, one – Bugatti – only competed in one race, whilst Meccachrome engines were just rebadged Renault engines after Renault pulled out at the end of the 1997 season and Meccachrome bought the design from Renault.

      Gordini, back in the 1950’s, were considered to have fairly archaic designs (mostly based on pre-WW2 technology) – as for the Matra V12, it was overweight, thirsty, underpowered and prone to overheating, to the point where Guy Ligier had to be paid to use them (the Matra engine delivered a grand total of three wins in 125 races).

      As for Peugeot, their early engines were extremely unreliable – Brundle’s engine famously exploded in spectacular fashion on the grid in the 1994 British GP, with Brundle recalling that the flywheel tore the entire engine in half and ended up nearly taking his head off when it smashed into the back of the cockpit (McLaren had nine engine failures that year). The later versions were a bit better, but hardly class leading.

      As for Ferrari, well, their current engine wasn’t that competitive to begin with and the redesign work that made it into a more competitive unit from 2015 onwards wasn’t undertaken at Ferrari – it was undertaken by specialist designers from the Austrian mechanical engineering company AVL from their centre in Graz.

      Really, when you talk about Italians producing a competitive engine, you really also just mean Ferrari in effect – people weren’t beating down the doors for engines from Tecno or Serenissima, for example.

      It’s one of those things where there have been a number of French, German and Italian manufacturers who have produced some fairly rubbish engines over the years as well.

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