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Description
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The F14 T is the
sixtieth car built by Ferrari specifically to take part in
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the Formula 1 World
Championship. The name comes from the combination of the current
year and the introduction of the turbo-compressor in the Power Unit.
Although the traditional gestation period for a new Formula 1 design
is little over twelve months, this project,
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which goes by the
internal code name 665, began life more than two years ago
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2014 is an exceptional
year in the history of the sport, with a raft of rule changes
that commanded an early start to allow the ground up revision of
every aspect of the car’s design. To cope with the unprecedented
challenge of running three car projects simultaneously during 2012,
the Scuderia was fortunate to be able to call on the talents of
experienced engineers to guide the project in its early stages.
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Chassis
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Followers of the
Scuderia will be able to see some of the heritage of earlier
Ferrari designs in the F14 T – the obvious areas of
continuity are the pull-rod front and rear suspension.
However, beyond this superficial similarity there is little
to connect the 2014 car to its predecessors. Externally, the
car is very different to the cars of recent years: changes
to the regulations to lower the chassis and nose in
the interests of driver safety give the F14 T a very
different appearance to the F138 and presented the designers
with a real challenge to repackage the front suspension into
a much lower monocoque.
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The 2014 rear
wing family shares nothing with the previous year owing
to three rule changes requiring a much larger stroke DRS, a
much smaller overall rear wing depth and removal of the beam
wing, thereby requiring the main plane to be supported by
central pillars. The front wing is regulated to be 75mm
narrower per side in order to make it less vulnerable to
collisions with other cars and with the barriers. This
change, perhaps one of the less noticeable visual
differences to the 2013 cars, has a profound effect on the
aerodynamics of the vehicle. The front wings used
since 2009 have all featured elaborate measures to encourage
the wake of the front wing endplates to pass around the
outside of the front tyres in order to maximize the
downforce on the car. An innocent change of just 75mm to the
position of the wing tip has required us to reinvent
completely the front wing aerodynamics for 2014.
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Integration
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Although the external
differences are striking, the largest areas of difference
occur beneath the skin of the car. The new car has completely
different cooling requirements from any of its predecessors.
Engine oil and water radiators shrink in size to match the
relatively smaller V6 internal combustion part of the Power Unit.
However, new homes had to be found to accommodate an intercooler
for the turbo-compressor system and to manage heat rejection from
ERS components that are many times greater than their KERS
antecedents.
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Given that more cooling
allows more horsepower, but more cooling also damages downforce
generation it was necessary to decide very carefully on the correct
level of overall cooling for the car to render the best lap time
compromise between horsepower and downforce. This is one of the
key areas where having both Power Unit and Chassis under one roof
has been strongly to the benefit of the Scuderia. Having chosen the
correct overall level of cooling to supply, packaging the resultant
cooler elements and managing the correct airflow to them is
something which has absorbed a very large investment of design time
to ensure that the F14 T is able to retain the sharply tapered
bodywork that allows efficient extraction of downforce from the
design.
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Brakes
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The braking
system has been completely redesigned to adapt the car to the change
in the regulations: This has involved ensuring greater capacity on
the front axle, while working with Brembo to reduce the size
of the hydraulic caliper at the rear to compensate for the greater
braking effort that is supplied by the ERS motor. In addition, as
permitted by the regulation, the F14 T will have a brake-by-wire
system for the first time to allow us to optimize pedal consistency
and brake balance control as the ERS braking contribution changes
during the braking manoeuvre.
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Transmission
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The 2014 Power Units
produce greater peak power than their 2013 counterparts and do so at
lower RPM with higher torque. Furthermore, the regulations require
us to fix a choice of just 8 ratios for the season. This
places very different requirements on the transmission than any of
the previous generation of Formula 1 cars. The F14 T transmission
has been designed with the aim of ensuring that we continue to enjoy
highly efficient delivery of power through the drivetrain while
producing class leading starts and high levels of reliability.
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Weight and tyres
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The sheer complexity of
the 2014 regulations produces a layout that is significantly harder
to deliver beneath the weight limit (691 kg) than in previous
years. Weight control has been an important part of the project from
the outset in order to deliver a car with a workable amount of
ballast that will permit us to operate and develop the car through
the season. Equally important will be the car’s integration with the
new tyres that Pirelli is introducing this year. The
ability of the F14 T to get the most out of their characteristics
will be one of the cornerstones in terms of seeing if our overall
efforts will deliver the hoped for results.
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