Ferrari 512

[Edmonton]

What do you think is the nicest of all the Ferrari 512's? My pick would be the codalunga.

[cybersdorf]

Penske's car.

[krt917]

It's between the 512S Long Tail, the headlight of which can be seen above (I think) or the 512M that Penske ran in Sunoco colours. The NART 512Ms at Le Mans in 1971 had quite a nice livery, but if I had to pick one to own it would be the Penske car. It so nearly caught the JWA 917s out on more than one occasion.

[Rich R]

i liked the 512f that scuderia fillipenetti raced, fitted with a 917 windscreen.

[Edmonton]

What were the main reasons the 512's were never was as fast as the 917?

[Rich R]

i think it was something to do with ferrari concentrating more on f1, and subsequently the sportscars didn't get the r&d time that porsche put into the 917. plus the porsche was a damn fine car.

[dwall]

the cars in 1970 definitely had the speed to compete with the 917 as they qualified 1st at Daytona,Sebring, Brands Hatch, and Monza, and the factory definitely worked hard to improve the cars.Witness the changes to the car between Daytona and the arrival of the M,but none of this could overcome the fact the car was intoduced late, and poor weather over the 69/70 winter meant little or no testing was done.
Some of the factory driver combinations where weak, and the strategy employed sometimes was poor, and pure bad luck also played its part.

[emjaya]

"I had to design the shape of the 512S in a hurry,which caused bad aerodynamics" said Mauro Forghieri

Mark Donohue said "Total horsepower equalled aerodynamic drag at 212mph,so that was our terminal speed"

[krt917]

Originally Posted by Edmonton

What were the main reasons the 512's were never was as fast as the 917?

Essentially, the 512S was slightly heavier and slightly less aerodynamically efficient than the 1970 917K. The team was also unlucky, but they also weren't as efficient in the pits as the JWA team. It all added up to a gap in race performance that only allowed the 'S' to win once.

The 512M was different, even though it won no championship races. If the works had run the car in 1971, they would have put a lot more pressure on the 917 (or Porsche would have pushed development faster), but the rule changes for 1972 meant that they left it to the private teams, who weren't on JWA's level. Apart, that is, from the Penske team. They were very quick, but didn't enter many races - and they suffered from sheer bad luck too.