Ferrari test with 'mid wing'.

[Super Tourer]

Ferrai have appeared in testing sporting a 'mid-wing' mounted on the engine cover.
http://www.autosport.com/newsitem.asp?id=26095&s=5

This is not the first time Ferrari have tried this, they tested a similarly mounted 'mid-wing' on their 1977 car!

[Try Hard]

and not forgetting the X-Wings from '99

Suggests to me that they (ferrari) are pretty confident that the car is quite efficient, and so acan afford the drag penalty from the wing. Is this part of the "radical" devlopments we were ment to see? If so, its not anything we haven't seen before...

[Smokey 6 litre]

unfortunatley i cant see it, where is it mounted exactly? like the old Mclarens just behind the air intake or lower nearer the sidepods?

[Super Tourer]

On the autosport photo, taken from the front, it looks to be mounted directly behind the airbox.

[Smokey 6 litre]

im supprised about that, McLaren tried it a while ago and it obviously wasn't working for them, unless like was said they think the car is aerodynamically effiecient enough or the engine has enough grunt to compensate.

[ASCII Man]

Um,... how the hell do i get rid of that stupid Jaguar ad??

[Frank_White]

the close link is hidden in the autosport rectangular boxes just above the ad!

[senna12]

http://www.autosport.com/images/cms/...1_Image_18.JPG


Try this one.

According to the article, many more radical changes are expected before Melbourne.

[climb]

A real pity that weather doesn't allow a reliable testing today.

[Super Tourer]

You can see where the budget goes - so many aerodynamic touches on the leading F1 cars, makes the Minardi's and Jordan's look much more basic by comparison.

That car has had lots of wind tunnel time.....

[gttouring]

that is crazy
what is it supposed to do make up downforce for a missing rear wing element?
imagine the drag, i would like to understand this one.
soo much aero- shame

[Mr V]

Originally posted by Try Hard
and not forgetting the X-Wings from '99

Don't wanna sound picky, but it was 98

[Try Hard]

whoops, quite right Mr V... my mistake.
Also notice the lower most plane in the front wing. Has a very distinct step in it, on the outer edges. Much less "swoopy" than the any other team, kinda reminds me of the 2001 renault in a way...
Highlights exactly how refined the top rank team cars are becoming...

(BTW Toyota also ran a similar mid-wing i think last year, if not, it was '02)

[Testure]

Looks ugly to me. Adding extra wings like this around the car never seems to last long. Teams are always finding new places to attach carbon fibre, but it's generally either banned or works out to be not worth the penalty (in term of drag or whatever).

[Super Tourer]

The testing will give them the pro's and con's, it may not even appear on the race car, or even if it does, only at certain high downforce tracks maybe.

[Knowlesy]

Cars that suddenly sprout wings can mean that the car lacks downforce, although I doubt this is the case with the F2004.

[Rennen]

As we all know it's all about downforce...I'd be very surprised if most the teams cars didn't 'sprout' new wings for Melbourne on Friday!

[Adam43]

Originally posted by knowlesy
Cars that suddenly sprout wings can mean that the car lacks downforce, although I doubt this is the case with the F2004.

Good point. While I think that Ferrari will be OK we have seen in the past that a good car tends to have less add-on wings. These tend to be less efficient means of producing downforce and appear on cars that have a downforce shortfall.

A prime example of this has been in recent years where the pace setting Ferrari has always been a 'cleaner' car than the others when it came to add-ons.

Still that is not to say that Ferrari have not found the mid wing to be extremely efficient.

[gttouring]

maybe they are trying the wing- and enough so that other teams will go wing nuts, and place them every where, and resukts that ferrari drop it and have less drag good down force anyway, and win the race.
how many teams have looked at becoming Tuskers like Williams, and how many will change over?

[Adam43]

Originally posted by gttouring
maybe they are trying the wing- and enough so that other teams will go wing nuts, and place them every where, and resukts that ferrari drop it and have less drag good down force anyway, and win the race.

Or more unlikely is that Ferrari just think that it will make their car go faster. A mad idea I know!

[Try Hard]

Maybe this also shows a bit of lack of confidence in there cars competitiveness this year? Now they are going full out to try as many things a possible to cover this fact, almost (and i mean almost, but not quite) smacks of desperation on their part....
Always seems that teams struggling to reach the front always go for a quick fix.

But then again, we won't know the full story until Melbourne...

[graves]

looks a little strange to me. Seems to be no angle on it at all. Almost plain. Wotcha think?

[Knowlesy]

Didn't Ferrari reduce the wheelbase for this year? That would explain some downforce loss.

[Redblurr]

yes shorter wheelbase

[Chappelli]

Graves, nice spotting.. I was about to say the same thing... It looks less like a wing (almost zero if not zero chord)

So maybe it isn't designed to provide downforce.. Maybe it's designed to clean up turbulent air over the rear wing??

Where's a Phd in Aerodynamics when you need one???