2014 Ferrari F14 T revealed

Ferrari has just released images and brief details for its 2014 F1 car, the F14 T. On the one hand we’re thankful that we don’t have another skinny anteater nose. But we can’t really say this is the prettiest Formula 1 car we’ve ever seen.

The most common comparison with the F14 T is the Beluga cargo plane. Which is a shame really. It’s been too long since we’ve been able to look at an F1 car and think of it as a thing of beauty.

The name F14 T was chosen from the results of an internet poll. You can read the name as FIAT if you like, but it does actually reference the current year and the fact the car is now turbocharged. A nice bit of serendipity then.

Official photos and press material are available below. We’re still trying to work out if this looks better than any of the other 2014-spec F1 cars we’ve seen so far. It’s a bit like trying to choose the best needle to stick in your eye.

The F14 T unveiled

Maranello, 25 January – The F14 T is the sixtieth car built by Ferrari specifically to take part in 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 a little over twelve months, this project, which goes by the internal code name 665, began life more than two years ago. 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.

Chassis

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. 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.

Integration

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. 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.

Brakes

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.

Transmission

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.

Weight and tyres

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.

Technical Specifications

• Chassis in carbon-fibre and honeycomb composite structure
  
• Ferrari longitudinal gearbox
  
• Servo controlled hydraulic limited-slip differential
  
• Semiautomatic sequential and electronically controlled gearbox with quick shift
  
• Number of gears: 8 +Reverse
  
• Brembo ventilated carbon-fibre disc brakes (front and rear) and brake by wire rear brakes
  
• Independent suspension, pull-rod activated torsion springs front and rear
  
• Weight with water, lubricant and driver: 691 kg
  
• OZ Wheels (front and rear): 13″

ENGINE

• Displacement: 1600 cc
  
• Max revs: 15’000
  
• Turbo charging: Single turbo
  
• Fuel flow: 100 kg/hr max
  
• Fuel capacity: 100 kg
  
• Configuaration: V6 90°
  
• Cylinders: 6
  
• Bore: 80 mm
  
• Stroke: 53 mm
  
• Valves: 4 per cylinder
  
• Injection: 500 bar – direct
  
• Units per driver: 5

ERS SYSTEM

• Battery Energy (per lap): 4 Mj
  
• MGU-K power: 120 kW
  
• MGU-K max revs: 50’000 rpm
  
• MGU-H max revs: 125’000 rpm

Last gasp win for F14 T – From Greenland to Cuba over a million vote to name the Prancing Horse

Maranello, 24 January – The car with which Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen will fly the Scuderia Ferrari flag in this year’s Formula 1 World Championship will be called the F14 T. Prancing Horse fans from around the globe chose the name in a ballot that’s run on line from 15 January to midnight last night.

“It’s nice to know the name of the car has been chosen by our fans,” Stefano Domenicali told www.ferrari.com. “The amazing number of votes shows just how popular Ferrari has always been and this will be, as always, a further impetus for us to do well this year!”

There was a total of 1,123,741 votes and the winning margin was just 19,104 or 1.7%, after a very close fight with F166 Turbo. The other three names on the list fared less well: third was F14 Scuderia (18.8%), followed by F14 Maranello (12.3%) and F616 (4.8%.)

The votes sent to the special new car site really came in from all four corners of the globe, 208 countries to be precise, over the nine days on which it was open. Italy topped the list, followed by Spain, the United States, the United Kingdom and France. Finland showed well in eighth, while among the BRICS nations, Russia came out on top in seventh, ahead of Brazil eleventh, India thirteenth, China fifteenth and South Africa thirty first. There were some last minute new entries, worth noting the presence of Cuba, Greenland, Palau and Equatorial Guinea. There’s no other way of describing it, the ballot to name the new Ferrari the F14 T has been a smash hit.
So see you on Saturday 25 January at 14.30 CET for the car launch with photos and videos available at 2014f1car.ferrari.com!

Here is the results table:
Name – Votes (%)
F14 T – 369.711 (32,9%)
F166 Turbo – 350.607 (31,2%)
F14 Scuderia – 211.263 (18,8%)
F14 Maranello – 138.220 (12,3%)
F616 – 53.940 (4,8%)
Total – 1.123.741 (100,00%)