2013 Car Reveal & Winter Testing Kickoff

shadowhawk24 Asks:
What made you think the E21 was actually an E20?
Is it an evolution of last year's car? Sure. Most cars follow that path. But is last year's machine actually comparable? Not really. 🙂

Yeah. Evolution, clearly lacking any real spark of originality.

Evolution is what defines the F138—but we’re talking true evolution here. It's visible in every single millimeter of the car.

Focus on the root cause, not just the symptoms...😉
Why go through the trouble of fixing what’s actually working, or stubbornly clinging to stuff that clearly isn't?🤷

Jason Campbell70 said:

shadowhawk24 Asks:
What made you think the E21 was actually an E20?
Is it an evolution of last year's car? Sure. Most cars follow that path. But is last year's machine actually comparable? Not really. 🙂

Yeah. Evolution, clearly lacking any real spark of originality.

Evolution is what defines the F138—but we’re talking true evolution here. It's visible in every single millimeter of the car.

Stormybadger8 hit the nail on the head regarding my own point. It's the truth. If you look at the Ferrari or the Lotus cars, they might show fewer changes compared to last year, but let's be clear—it's definitely not just last year's car rebranded.
They completely overhauled the front suspension, redesigning it specifically to widen the setup window. They had to fix the mess from last season when Kimi was constantly fighting the car's handling right out of the gate.
The hump remains, and the rear end is an evolution of last year's diffuser. This makes perfect sense because, by the end of the season, the entire Lotus concept proved itself to be stellar. From its debut in India—where it struggled with top speed—all the way through to Brazil, the exhaust setup showed progressively better results race after race. Obviously, there is still plenty of room to push further and find more gains.
And here is the crux of what worked for Lotus: stick to evolving 😬 a proven concept that already delivers great results, rather than gambling on radical redesigns that might fail to meet expectations entirely.

As for these testing times? They likely mean absolutely nothing. We won't see the real situation until we hit the track in Australia.

shadowhawk24 said:Stormybadger8 hit the nail on the head regarding my own point. It's the truth. If you look at the Ferrari or the Lotus cars, they might show fewer changes compared to last year, but let's be clear—it's definitely not just last year's car rebranded.
They completely overhauled the front suspension, redesigning it specifically to widen the setup window. They had to fix the mess from last season when Kimi was constantly fighting the car's handling right out of the gate.
The hump remains, and the rear end is an evolution of last year's diffuser. This makes perfect sense because, by the end of the season, the entire Lotus concept proved itself to be stellar. From its debut in India—where it struggled with top speed—all the way through to Brazil, the exhaust setup showed progressively better results race after race. Obviously, there is still plenty of room to push further and find more gains.
And here is the crux of what worked for Lotus: stick to evolving 😬 a proven concept that already delivers great results, rather than gambling on radical redesigns that might fail to meet expectations entirely.

As for these testing times? They likely mean absolutely nothing. We won't see the real situation until we hit the track in Australia.

The weather doesn't tell us much, though I'm sure it matters to someone else.
The teams know exactly what they were testing—which parts, which assemblies, under what specific conditions...
Not to mention reliability issues.

Besides, we all obsess over official practice lap times, dissecting them and celebrating small wins, but this data is on a completely different level.
Still, it has to mean something. It can't just be random.

Amanda Kelly, you're absolutely right. I misspoke. What I meant to say was that these lap times don't actually tell us much on their own. It’s nearly impossible to paint a realistic picture of where things truly stand when we have zero clue which variables are influencing those numbers behind the scenes.
As for whether those times matter to the crew? Of course they do. That's the whole point of testing. It gives the teams a baseline to figure out exactly what needs fixing, what needs tweaking, and where they need to focus their energy to actually make progress.

shadowhawk24 said:Stormybadger8 hit the nail on the head regarding my own point. It's the truth. If you look at the Ferrari or the Lotus cars, they might show fewer changes compared to last year, but let's be clear—it's definitely not just last year's car rebranded.
They completely overhauled the front suspension, redesigning it specifically to widen the setup window. They had to fix the mess from last season when Kimi was constantly fighting the car's handling right out of the gate.
The hump remains, and the rear end is an evolution of last year's diffuser. This makes perfect sense because, by the end of the season, the entire Lotus concept proved itself to be stellar. From its debut in India—where it struggled with top speed—all the way through to Brazil, the exhaust setup showed progressively better results race after race. Obviously, there is still plenty of room to push further and find more gains.
And here is the crux of what worked for Lotus: stick to evolving 😬 a proven concept that already delivers great results, rather than gambling on radical redesigns that might fail to meet expectations entirely.

As for these testing times? They likely mean absolutely nothing. We won't see the real situation until we hit the track in Australia.

They were regular podium finishers during the first half of the season. It wasn't until the second half that Lotus actually started losing ground.

shadowhawk24 said:Stormybadger8 hit the nail on the head regarding my own point. It's the truth. If you look at the Ferrari or the Lotus cars, they might show fewer changes compared to last year, but let's be clear—it's definitely not just last year's car rebranded.
They completely overhauled the front suspension, redesigning it specifically to widen the setup window. They had to fix the mess from last season when Kimi was constantly fighting the car's handling right out of the gate.
The hump remains, and the rear end is an evolution of last year's diffuser. This makes perfect sense because, by the end of the season, the entire Lotus concept proved itself to be stellar. From its debut in India—where it struggled with top speed—all the way through to Brazil, the exhaust setup showed progressively better results race after race. Obviously, there is still plenty of room to push further and find more gains.
And here is the crux of what worked for Lotus: stick to evolving 😬 a proven concept that already delivers great results, rather than gambling on radical redesigns that might fail to meet expectations entirely.

As for these testing times? They likely mean absolutely nothing. We won't see the real situation until we hit the track in Australia.

I wouldn't say a word if Lotus had been overwhelmingly dominant over their competition last year. But they weren't.

Jason Campbell70 said:They were regular podium finishers during the first half of the season. It wasn't until the second half that Lotus actually started losing ground.

I wouldn't say a word if Lotus had been overwhelmingly dominant over their competition last year. But they weren't.

My focus was actually on the exhaust system—the design itself was brilliant. That said, I’ll concede the point: if Lotus had been a constant podium threat at the start of the year, I'd be right there with you, noting how they completely ran out of steam mid-season. Part of the blame lies with that passive DRS they pushed so hard but ultimately failed to make functional.

Jason Campbell70 said:They were regular podium finishers during the first half of the season. It wasn't until the second half that Lotus actually started losing ground.

I wouldn't say a word if Lotus had been overwhelmingly dominant over their competition last year. But they weren't.

Look, they weren't dominant, but they certainly weren't missing the mark on their car concept like they were two years ago. Their objective was fourth in the Constructors' Championship, which they achieved. This year, the goal is third. Whether they pull it off or not remains to be seen.
Personally? I expect them to land somewhere around fourth.
All things considered, I still maintain that this chassis is the logical successor to last year's model.

That’s an interesting way to mount the radiator. No wonder their sidepods look so narrow.

My first thought? It looks just like the Brabham BT52. By the way—that BT52 is a gorgeous machine.

Man, that Brabham is such a gorgeous piece of machinery. 🙂

Williams!!!!!

😲😲👍👍

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/105610

The new Williams looks aggressive.
Dangerously aggressive. 😁

The FW35 nose reminds me of the F138, while the rear end of the F138 looks just like the FW35. 😁

The exhaust setup is interesting too, using a flow director similar to what we're seeing on the new Caterham.
I suspect the guys at Williams were just waiting to see what everyone else brought to the table before rushing to copy them over the last ten days. 😁

So, regarding the F138...

New sponsor:


No more dilemmas here😁:



Photo gallery from the US garage

Also, does the front wing endplate look a bit more "open" to me?

It looks like I finally figured it out—the air meant to cool those front brakes is actually escaping through
a gap in the front wheel nut.

The Williams car looks stunning.
The rear end design is particularly intriguing... my first thought was that the lack of certain surfaces might trigger turbulence since the airflow loses its path so abruptly. But clearly, the engineers at the factory know exactly what they’re doing.
The front wing also feels quite distinct compared to the rest of the field.

However, I just read that the exhaust configuration they unveiled today was actually banned by the FIA.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/21508634

Tyler Bennett5 said:

It looks like I finally figured it out—the air meant to cool those front brakes is actually escaping through
a gap in the front wheel nut.

Interestingly enough, the FW35 had caps on its hubs.
Yet they ran their testing rounds with those caps off—leaving the hub openings exposed.

Regarding blowing hot air through the hub: if memory serves, Red Bull tried something similar mid-season a while back, only for the solution to be declared illegal.

Raymond Anderson4 said:The Williams car looks stunning.
The rear end design is particularly intriguing... my first thought was that the lack of certain surfaces might trigger turbulence since the airflow loses its path so abruptly. But clearly, the engineers at the factory know exactly what they’re doing.
The front wing also feels quite distinct compared to the rest of the field.

However, I just read that the exhaust configuration they unveiled today was actually banned by the FIA.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/21508634

I actually noted that same thing last season.
The reality is, there's bound to be some level of turbulence above that gearbox. But can you mitigate it? Perhaps with a slim air guide. Look at the F138. A thin shark fin and the sidepod.

If we're talking aerodynamic gains, a compact gearbox is almost always an advantage. That’s why the F138 went with a "compact gearbox," following the lead of the Williams cars from the previous two years.

In my opinion, though, Ferrari utilized that compactness much more effectively.
Williams used the extra space above the gearbox—right in front of the beam wing.
Ferrari used that compactness to clear space above the gearbox, but even more so beneath it—directly in front of the diffuser.

And let's be honest: optimizing the diffuser is a far bigger win than optimizing the beam wing.

Raymond Anderson4 said:The Williams car looks stunning.
The rear end design is particularly intriguing... my first thought was that the lack of certain surfaces might trigger turbulence since the airflow loses its path so abruptly. But clearly, the engineers at the factory know exactly what they’re doing.
The front wing also feels quite distinct compared to the rest of the field.

However, I just read that the exhaust configuration they unveiled today was actually banned by the FIA.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/21508634

Nothing is officially illegal yet. Legality isn't even truly scrutinized during pre-season testing.
We won't know until Melbourne.

It looks like they’ve finally sorted out that hub hole issue on the FW35 to make sure everything is strictly by the book.
Now the big question is just how much of an advantage that actually nets them.
As for the exhaust, I suppose they'll be scrambling to get that legalized before we hit Australia.

A whole mountain of testing news has just dropped over on the motorsports beat:

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/formul.../86400--1.html

Tyler Bennett5 said:It looks like they’ve finally sorted out that hub hole issue on the FW35 to make sure everything is strictly by the book.
Now the big question is just how much of an advantage that actually nets them.
As for the exhaust, I suppose they'll be scrambling to get that legalized before we hit Australia.

The exhaust should technically be within the rules. It’s just that if they don't crack down on this, we'll see a flood of similar workarounds. Things would spiral toward the extreme pretty quickly, and that's clearly something the FIA—with Charlie Whiting at the helm—wants to avoid.

So, did we actually get a stream out of Austin today, or are they pushing all that coverage off until the next round of testing?

Raymond Anderson4 said:The Williams car looks stunning.
The rear end design is particularly intriguing... my first thought was that the lack of certain surfaces might trigger turbulence since the airflow loses its path so abruptly. But clearly, the engineers at the factory know exactly what they’re doing.
The front wing also feels quite distinct compared to the rest of the field.

However, I just read that the exhaust configuration they unveiled today was actually banned by the FIA.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/21508634

And why on earth would they ban it?😕
That Williams bodywork is basically just a cutout in the floor, which is perfectly legal.😳
So what's the issue? If a hole in the floor is fine, then this should be too.🤷