Op-Ed: Ferrari car worse than expected
January 28, 2010 by SJ Skid
Filed under F1B Op-Ed, Prime & Option, SJ Skid
This post is going to come off uber-melodramatic, but I’m OK with that.
Because I’m stunned.
Horrified.
Befuddled. Angry. Disappointed.
And a bit nauseous.
I mean, have you seen the 2010 Ferrari? [Our earlier coverage by Grace and Todd here, plus the online launch is all over the Ferrari home page.]
I was prepared for the white rear wing, although I was also sure that the team was going to send Kimi’s old third engineer, who’s since been re-assigned as a janitor, out with a red spray paint can.
But.
But.
A white front wing? I think Todd is generous when he compares it to a Force India.
The Force India looks better. Heck, a Renault might just look better. [It's so bad, Todd didn't even capture for us the truly hideous photo, which is directly from above and really shows all the flaws.]
Now, I know we still haven’t seen what’s really important: How fast the car goes.
But… this is Ferrari. It doesn’t matter just how fast it goes. It has to look better than every other car. And it always has, more or less, give or take, and for one central stylistic reason.
The color.
Every school kid know this, a Ferrari F1 car has to be red. This F10 is red and white. I’m sorry, that’s just true.
Heck, if the team would throw a little blue on there somewhere it might be closer to being a USF1 car than a USF1 car.
Now, I will give Ferrari some props. If the website they have also launched is the “new” home of the F1 team — and judging from its url, it is — then the team has made a major improvement. It is much cleaner, easier to navigate and user friendly. [I won't point out how similar it is to a certain Journal of F1 Opinion site.]
But I’ll also point you to the banner. It’s red! Sure there is a hint of white border, but the banner is red.
The way a Ferrari should be.
Frankly, the only thing I’m mildly interested in is on the site the Ferrari paddock watch that’s advertised. And I’d still take my Oris or Omega.
I’m open to hearing how wrong I am. [Politely and cordially, of course, as always.] Any Ferrari fans out there?
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I 100% agree, it has lost its Italian flair, the beauty is gone, Thankfully Schumacher is not driving for them but in his honor the fashion award should go to this car, being a Ferrari fan it is painful to see the scarlet color being vandalized with white paint. Thank you Alonso, thank you Santander,, it now looks more like a Toyota in inverted colors.
Omg,
…” Every school kid know this, a Ferrari F1 car has to be red”…..
I would expect more from F1B than a short term, only 2007 through 2009 season memory.
Ever saw the Ferrari Scummaker drove from 1999 to 2006? Duhhh a white front wing and a white rear wing, and… even white marlboro ads on the suspension cover in front of the driver. I don’t even mention the 70’s with the silver wings, or the 80’s – 90’s with the black wings.
Anyway, i hope the car is damn fast and brings Nando his 3rd championship.
Cheers from the Netherlands.
Hi Danny.
It of course doesn’t mean “every school kid is right.” :)
Black wings, I think, would be an improvement… although I do think Ferrari really nailed it with a overwhelmingly red car. And this one is a major step away from awesome.
Thank you danny. And if we all stop bitching about the color, the design of the car is much more beautiful than the f60. The wings look like they could be last year’s (ferrari has been known to do that in the past). But the front nose is a big improvement over last year’s ferrari.
And the fact of the matter is when it comes to race time, you won’t have to ask yourself “hey, which car was that red bulr?” I still maintain that the Mercedes will look like “some car” when in motion, and I still don’t understand why a white livery is so good looking but when Ferrari decides to go back to a cigerette box looking car (its all probably Altria’s decision with their 200 million dollar/year to not have their product avertised) everyone freaks out and says it looks worse than the 09 renault (which in my opninion had way too many problems in the looks department that only started with the paint.)
I’m a Ferrari fan – and I really don’t care about the colour of the wings. The only hting I expect/want from Ferrari is victory. If the car is white, yellow or green… who cares ??
@danny & @axx
Agree 100% and by the way “Some of the car’s most sensitive aerodynamic details are are not shown – it has been presented with 2009-specification front and rear wings and Ferrari has avoided showing any images of the rear of the car where there is believed to be an aggressive double diffuser.”
full article http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2010/01/28/ferrari-2010-f1-car-pictures/
I like it. Reminds me of the Canadian Flag. So maybe if Ferrari actually wins a race or two this year I can take consolation in this sliver of similarity because I’ve for some reason always maligned Ferrari and their success. Must be my love of Senna in the yellow Lotus-Honda when I first started watching races as a kid and then as a Canadian watching Villeneuve in a Williams.
However, on the point of similarity to flags, I don’t think our Polish friend, Kubica, will feel the same!
The 1975 312t had basically the same color scheme. That’s one of my favorite f1 cars of all time.
I don’t really see the what the fuss is all about…
There have been ferraris, in F1, in blue!
Think about it:
Ferrari – F1 – Blue!
(still i will always be a fan of the red car, black wings, that underperformed so admirably during the 80’s…)
That would ruin my Kimi hat I bought at Monza last year!
All:
I appreciate all the comments. Hopefully a certain “tongue in cheek” quality comes through. That doesn’t mean I don’t think the car is a step back, looks wise, and mainly because I really was a fan of the nearly-all red car.
More substantively, I think what I dislike is the feel that Ferrari really had to give into Santander by designing the white bits to showcase the Santander name. I’ve liked the recent Ferraris because they seemed to say, “Hey, you can sponsor us — and you know you want to — but on our terms. Your logo is secondary to our design.”
That seems lost to me.
It is why I’m probably, looks-wise, a biggest fan of Red Bull, which is its own sponsor and thus able to color-coordinate nicely.
I do think Merc has done a great job, judging from first glance.
Forget the car design (Banco de Santander needs a white background)…Again,here’s the reality check on Massa:
“Fernando is a double world champion, and we say he will have a third one (title),” remarked Domenicali. “He is already amongst the big champions in F1, and this is now the right moment for him, for us.”
Massa is No. 2 in Ferrari’s eyes. Big surprise? Nope.
…And the car in front is … No not toyota. RED BULL. Show us the rear of this car. The World wants to see the diffuser. I will not be surprised if McLaren show the world just a photo of thier 2010 Challenger tomorrow. The Intrigue begins.
…And the car in front is … No not a toyota. RED BULL. Show us the rear of this car. The World wants to see the diffuser. I will not be surprised if McLaren show the world just a photo of thier 2010 Challenger tomorrow. The Intrigue begins.
That is too funny. I thought the same thing after looking at the M Silver Arrows and the Ferrari the other day. Thought the MSA looks classic and clean and as pretty (as a modern F1 car) as can be and concluded, damn shame that Ferrari won’t go retro and back to their red roots.
Cheers
How hard is it to paint the entire car red? Did the run out of cans? Is the economy affecting their paint supply? I disapprove of the color scheme. Hopefully it runs faster than last year.
Have any of you guys noticed the SIZE of the side barge boards? What, are we going to all have to saw off table legs, turn the kitchen table upside down and bolt it to the underside of our cars? Let’s skip the barge boards and go back to the rubber skits, at least the cars looked better than a traveling black-lumber yard.
Skipping the paint job, does anyone else think the nose sticks way up? More of an ‘09 Toyota look as oppossed to the slope they and the Brawns had in their front last season. Mercedes continued areodynamically with the same front end, I would have thought that Ferrari would as well, since the high nose cars really struggled, and even RBR had a different snout by mid-May.
Of course this could change before the season, but its just an observation.
Mercedes hasn’t revealed their 10 car yet. They showed off their new livery on an 09 car. They haven’t continued anything yet, they have showed off the Brawn with a really bland livery.
Agree, if the old man was alive today, he would never have approved of a white color, Ferrari can afford to race in F1 without any sponsor for many years and it looks like their sponsors wanted a white color. the gears also has a lot of white, you have to wonder if Ferrari will be at their best come race days, the glory days of Todt, Ross and Schumi are all gone, will this be a season where we see Ferrari fire people @ the middle of the season for getting the car wrong that was planned very early get fired or see management change?
I do wish Ferrari their best and a tittle would be nice to Me for Alonso
The old man only knew two colors; red and yellow. :)
You’ll have to educate me: isn’t it traditional for teams to used liveries based on the country the team came from? Isn’t red the main color in the Italian flag, with white being a minor color?
Forgot to make my point, was too busy hoping all the words came out on my blackberry.
I know you guys are upset, but come on. It’s still red. Would you rather have Ferrari pull out of F1. Personally speaking, it is pretty petty to be so upset about a minor color of your teams car on the grid. At least it is on the bloody grid. My beloved Toyota pulled out of the sport to try to stay healthy and protect its core business. Everyone slammed them.
Now Ferrari gets a sponsor so they don’t have to sign all of the checks from their own bank acount, or worse- quit F1, and they get slammed?
A little white is better than no Ferrari. It’s time to check our egos and settle things on the track. Hopefully that sponsor gives Ferrari new life to reinvigorate the team for 2010.
Unfortunately, red and white Ferrari bring back memories of the terrible F93A. I don’t recall it being too reliable nor fast enough.
Worse case scenario, it won’t be as slow as the Dallara-Ferrari of the same year. :-)
Yikes! You’ve brought back a bad memory. Here it is just in case you would like a refresher:
http://images.forum-auto.com/mesimages/233029/Ferrari%20F93_A_1993.jpg
That looks like a Dallara. So funny.
I think Ferrari fans should be more worry of the rumors about Ferrari already trying to built an F10 b-version instead of the color on the wings.
Hilarious, the added bonus will be if it drives like a dog as well!
My, don’t we have short memories? The F2001-F2006 with the Vodafone sponsorship had white front wings, rear wings, bargeboards and I don’t recall many people complaining about those. Oh yeah that’s right, some guy called Schumacher was winning every other weekend in them. As long as it wins races and championships, it’ll go down as one of the great Ferrari F1 cars.
BTW, I think the wider front wing makes the white more noticeable and the white that has encroached onto the rear wing end plates is in another notable detail.
ITR: That might be why the white is striking me so acutely.
I echoed Danny about the “surprise” of Ferrari running a lot of white on its new livery; nothing new about it. I would like to see it all red but who cares as long as the car is fast. Sad (but not important) is to see that Macca is still running Merc’s silver but I understand, Vodafone color is also red…
If I am right, the best of Ferrari is still to come; they wont show up the new DDD and front wing next week. I would like to see Ferrari having speed and pace to challenge for the title. The rest is secondary. Please keep in mind that the golden age of Ferrari is gone, key people are not longer there and is not gonna be easy for them to keep developing the car at the pace required to stay competitive during the season. If the got a very good car they would make an interesting season but if they dont, forget watching the same sort of miracle Renault 08 or Macca 09 did
This Ferrari has classic racecar looks; it is beautiful. I sort of prefer the all red too but there definately is a lot of precident as others have shown.
They have managed to make the raised style front look good because they don’t have the ass dragging on the ground like RBR09. Whether that’s as good an aero solution as Newey’s remains to be seen.
They don’t have the sharkfin from last year on, but that doesn’t mean anything because RBR launched last year with it (getting my hopes up that it had gone).
Neither Ferrari and McLaren have gone with Newey’s pullrod rear suspension so it will be interesting to see if anyone else adopts it
I agree Royce, I like the all-red but this isn’t an eyesore that others make it to be. Good points on the suspension issue as well. I had overlooked that and will be intrigued how they play it this year.
Hey all:
Great discussion. I think what my point comes down to is my shock that Ferrari would so obviously bow to the needs of a sponsor — Santander — and have the white bits as a result. I don’t recall if that was a part of the reason for non-red bits in the past.
I would have liked them to incorporate it a bit better.
Now, we’ll see how fast it goes.
I think that the ferrari in the early 2000’s with schumacher has been the best looking ferrari and the 2010 design come close.