January 25, 2014
F1 Pr0n: Ferrari F14T
Despite their recent drought as far as championships go, the big team in Formula 1 is still the band from Maranello. Today, Ferrari debuted their car for the 2014 season, the F14T. Interestingly, the name was picked by the rabid tifosi in an online poll. I wonder if anybody noticed that it spells "FIAT" in l33t? Anyway, I understand the "T" stands for "turbo", but I'm just old enough to remember when teams were able to bring a spare car to the track, aka "the T car." Whenever I'll look at the F14T name, I'm going to inevitably think of it as the "Ferrari F14 spare."
But enough of the ruminations of an old, bitter man. What does the thing look like anyway?
Completely different style of nose from the McLaren, but equally legal. I suspect we'll be seeing this type of thing at each and every rollout: how will each team interpret the new rules, and which interpretation will be the best? It's not as ugly as the McLaren, but something tells me that the Glare on Wheels might actually have the better solution. Interestingly, the Ferrari has much smaller sidepod radiator inlets than the McLaren. Clearly they don't think they'll have cooling difficulties.
Oh geez. What looks acceptable from the front suddenly looks really, really ugly from the 3/4 position. The MP4-29 has a nice clean arc from cockpit to tip. This is like the 2012 stepped nose that everybody hated, mixed with a substantially lower termination point... yick.
I actually like this; as long as I don't have to look at the nose, the car looks good. I even like the paintjob... the less Ferrari Red on the track, the better. In comparison to last year's car, the back half of the F14T is bigger, so as to fit all the new engine components and such into it. Sidepods don't seem to be as steeply undercut as they have been in past years, either. We'll see!
Ferrari decided to give us a nice glamour shot as well... click for more, and no staples!
See ya with the next rollout!
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But enough of the ruminations of an old, bitter man. What does the thing look like anyway?
Completely different style of nose from the McLaren, but equally legal. I suspect we'll be seeing this type of thing at each and every rollout: how will each team interpret the new rules, and which interpretation will be the best? It's not as ugly as the McLaren, but something tells me that the Glare on Wheels might actually have the better solution. Interestingly, the Ferrari has much smaller sidepod radiator inlets than the McLaren. Clearly they don't think they'll have cooling difficulties.
Oh geez. What looks acceptable from the front suddenly looks really, really ugly from the 3/4 position. The MP4-29 has a nice clean arc from cockpit to tip. This is like the 2012 stepped nose that everybody hated, mixed with a substantially lower termination point... yick.
I actually like this; as long as I don't have to look at the nose, the car looks good. I even like the paintjob... the less Ferrari Red on the track, the better. In comparison to last year's car, the back half of the F14T is bigger, so as to fit all the new engine components and such into it. Sidepods don't seem to be as steeply undercut as they have been in past years, either. We'll see!
Ferrari decided to give us a nice glamour shot as well... click for more, and no staples!
See ya with the next rollout!
Posted by: Wonderduck at
11:03 PM
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1
From the top it's pretty, but that 3/4 view.... yikes!
Posted by: David at January 26, 2014 02:42 AM (da+4f)
2
I'm starting to learn that F1 has just as tight of manufacturing specs as NASCAR seems to, which is starting to strike me as weird. I always thought there was a larger difference between cars on the track, spec wise...
I'm starting to learn that F1 has just as tight of manufacturing specs as NASCAR seems to, which is starting to strike me as weird. I always thought there was a larger difference between cars on the track, spec wise...
Posted by: Tom Tjarks at January 26, 2014 10:59 AM (76G0j)
3
Tom, NASCAR is much tighter on specs than F1. There, the cars must literally fit a specific template exactly (which one depends on the brand of car) with no variation.
In Formula 1, the car must fit into a series of bounding boxes: the car must be such and such long, such and such wide, the front wing must be so-and-so long, and so forth. That's why the cars all look roughly the same. That's what "Formula" means.
However, inside of those boxes, you can do anything the rules allow, which is why we've now seen pictures of three cars (as opposed to renders), and three completely different noses, for example.
Yes, it used to be much less restrictive (see: Tyrell P34), and it's a shame that those days are gone... but F1 is still much less restrictive than NASCAR.
In Formula 1, the car must fit into a series of bounding boxes: the car must be such and such long, such and such wide, the front wing must be so-and-so long, and so forth. That's why the cars all look roughly the same. That's what "Formula" means.
However, inside of those boxes, you can do anything the rules allow, which is why we've now seen pictures of three cars (as opposed to renders), and three completely different noses, for example.
Yes, it used to be much less restrictive (see: Tyrell P34), and it's a shame that those days are gone... but F1 is still much less restrictive than NASCAR.
Posted by: Wonderduck at January 26, 2014 08:53 PM (UVcMa)
4
That's something that has actually drawn me closer to F1 the last few years. I've always been more a fan of the engineering than the driving (not to disrespect the driving, of course). Now that NASCAR is a custom frame and manufacturer-sourced identical engines, it seems like F1 allows more room for tinkering by the builders.
Posted by: Ben at January 28, 2014 09:58 AM (Oftf2)
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