NOW THAT WAS A CAR
The ever-changing sophisticate that delivered the Scuderia’s most recent championship double
Kimi Räikkönen’s dream machine, the sophisticated Ferrari F2007
The year 2007 was the beginning of a new era for Ferrari after the senior personnel that had done so much to effect a turnaround in the late 1990s – team principal Jean Todt, technical director Ross Brawn, chief designer Rory Byrne and multiple champion Michael Schumacher – moved on. All was not happy behind the scenes: Todt, disgruntled that Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo had unilaterally decided to hire Kimi Räikkönen and shove Schumacher into premature retirement, was stepping aside to consider his options elsewhere; Brawn, who held ambitions to be team principal but knew he would never reach that post at Ferrari, was taking a sabbatical; and Byrne was retiring to Thailand to set up a scuba diving school.
Brawn had prepared for his departure exquisitely, though, leaving experienced personnel schooled in his methodologies. Byrne’s long-time deputy, Aldo Costa, took over as head of design while Nikolas Tombazis, recently returned after a stint at Mclaren, slotted in as chief designer. John Iley, poached from Renault in 2004, remained as head of aerodynamics.
The F2007’s predecessor, the 248, had returned Ferrari to contention after a generally miserable 2005 but it wasn’t quite sharp enough for Schumacher to claim an eighth world title. Ferrari’s response was typically aggressive and, though the F2007 seemed at first to embody a familiar aerodynamic philosophy, it was very different in detail. Some of the changes were responses to new crash regulations and the mandate that two different tyre compounds had to be used in each race, but others represented a huge shift in the Scuderia’s thinking. Chief among these was the adoption of the ‘zero-keel’ approach to mounting the front suspension: it had become increasingly fashionable elsewhere for the aerodynamic gains possible from cutting bodywork under the nose, but it brought compromises in structural stiffness and suspension geometry that Ferrari didn’t feel ready to take on until now.
Zero-keel suspension entailed two separate lower wishbones angling slightly upwards to meet the higher nose on each side, rather than attaching to a bodywork spur below it. While revising the design, Ferrari also shortened the upper wishbones to lower the roll centre, mitigating the effects of the raised nose. The entire crash structure was longer not only to meet the new regulations but also to extend the wheelbase by 85mm, creating a bigger space for more sophisticated bargeboards to manage the turbulent front-wheel aerodynamic wake.
The sidepod inlets and turning vanes were re-profiled to make more optimal use of the better-quality airflow from the front end. Behind the driver, the 2.4-litre V8 remained theoretically unchanged, since engine development had been
‘frozen’, but the seven-ratio gearbox now featured ‘seamless’ shifting, an innovation that had become de rigueur since being pioneered by Mclaren-mercedes and Bar-honda in 2005.
Between the launch and the season opener, Ferrari fitted very different front and rear wings, the front featuring a higher and more twisted chord profile for the second horizontal element where it met the nose. But some of the cleverest and most sophisticated details of the F2007 were invisible to the naked eye, and were initially only the subject of conjecture. Or so it seemed…
After Räikkönen won the season-opening Australian Grand Prix for Ferrari, Mclaren filed a detailed technical query to the FIA – the usual mechanism by which a team tries to ‘out’ a rival it suspects of circumventing the rules – regarding the theoretical legality of a flexible front splitter.
Some flexibility in this area of bodywork was permissible, on the grounds that otherwise it would be more vulnerable to damage when the car rode kerbs. Like many other body surfaces, the splitter was tested for flexibility during scrutineering by applying a force of 500 Newtons; any deflection outside a tolerance of 15mm (5mm downwards, 10mm upwards) would fail the test. The F2007’s splitter was hinged at the rear, where it was attached to the tub, and fixed at the front to the underside of the car’s nose by a stay containing a pair of springs, one in tension and one in
“BRAWN HAD PREPARED FOR HIS DEPARTURE EXQUISITELY, THOUGH, LEAVING EXPERIENCED PERSONNEL SCHOOLED IN HIS METHODOLOGIES.”
compression, which were tuneable depending on the nature of the circuit and the amount of ballast carried in the splitter.
Flexible splitters unlocked a virtuous circle of performance benefits: cars could run lower at high speed, enabling their aerodynamic furniture to work more optimally; there was the potential to stall the diffuser for a gain in straightline speed; and they could ride kerbs more aggressively, enabling drivers to take liberties through chicanes. Since the FIA had been using ride height as a tool to limit performance gains for over a decade, it acted immediately to put the brakes on such systems, announcing a new scrutineering procedure from round two, the Malaysian Grand Prix, onwards.
Both Ferrari – and BMW, which was running a similar device on its F1.07 – had to remove their sprung-floor mechanisms, but it’s difficult to persuade a genie back into its bottle. Ahead of the Spanish GP, scrutineering procedures were revised again, this time to defeat the use of “buckling stays” – an alternative to the sprung system in which the floor’s front support was fabricated to provide a high initial resistance to loads, then to soften. This wrinkle came to light at the end of the year during the ‘Spygate’ hearings, when Ferrari silk Nigel Tozzi cut Mclaren technical director Paddy Lowe to ribbons during cross examination about Mclaren’s similar system.
The story of how Ferrari’s longtime chief mechanic and race technical manager, Nigel Stepney, came to pass design intelligence to Mclaren chief designer Mike Coughlan began to bubble to the surface early in the season. What started as rumours of sabotage in the Ferrari garage at Monaco blew up into a storm of rancour between F1’s top two teams and an eye-watering $100million fine imposed on Mclaren. Stepney was reported to have felt sidelined during the restructure while Coughlan, similarly, felt he would never achieve the seniority he coveted at Mclaren. Together they planned to secure employment with another team and take a tranche of Ferrari secrets with which to impress.
In court it was revealed that Stepney tipped off Coughlan about the F2007’s flexible floor ahead of the Australian Grand Prix. Other revelations included knowledge that Ferrari had been using a hydro fluorocarbon gas in its tyres which gave better heat management, and that the F2007 featured a system which adjusted the bias of the rear brakes under load to prevent locking.
The legal battle after the end of the season was every bit as vicious as the one on track. Ferrari and Mclaren fought tooth and claw from the very first race, and the rate of development was staggering. Both teams brought new components to every race and, at the Spanish GP, Ferrari introduced an entirely new monocoque with shorter sidepods, requiring it to be re-homologated. For Silverstone, it added fairings to the outside faces of the front wheels to gain an aero benefit from air passing through the brake ducts – and regardless of how small or how great that benefit, the fairings demanded new fastenings and a new pitstop methodology.
Another development, one with no performance benefit, was imposed on Ferrari early in the season. Disquiet had grown over its use of prominent Marlboro branding in territories
“FERRARI AND MCLAREN FOUGHT TOOTH AND CLAW FROM THE VERY FIRST RACE, AND THE RATE OF DEVELOPMENT WAS STAGGERING”
where tobacco advertising was still permitted, replaced with a stylised barcode design in those where it was forbidden. While pushing back against pressure to drop the ‘barcode’, Ferrari changed the colour of the car to a richer, darker and less Marlboro-packet-like shade of red from Monaco onwards.
Although Räikkönen won the opening round in Melbourne, Fernando Alonso hit back for Mclaren by winning in Malaysia, and Räikkönen’s team-mate Felipe Massa then won in Bahrain and Spain before Lewis Hamilton consolidated his impressive rookie form with two victories. The result was the Mclaren pair eked out an early advantage over the Ferrari duo before they fell into a state of civil war, Alonso feeling unloved in a team that had nurtured Hamilton since his karting days.
Reliability was not the F2007’s strongest suit, and its gentleness on its tyres – aided no doubt by the unusual gas within the Bridgestone carcasses – was as much of a hindrance in qualifying as it was advantageous in races. Massa slid out of the four-way battle for the drivers’ crown when an inertial damper (present on the Ferraris mid-season, and a legal alternative to Renault’s tuned mass dampers banned in 2006) failed at Monza. Hamilton ought to have claimed the title at the penultimate round in Shanghai, but Mclaren tied itself in a strategic knot while pointlessly – indeed, vindictively – trying to ensure he finished ahead of Alonso on the road. Instead Räikkönen cantered to victory as Hamilton slithered into the gravel having pitted at least a lap too late on badly worn tyres.
When Hamilton then fluffed the dramatic denouement at Interlagos, and Massa politely deferred to team orders and handed victory to Räikkönen, it brought a remarkable end to an extraordinary season. Of the three drivers in contention, Räikkönen was the least likely to lift the trophy, and yet he did so after a day when Ferrari executed its race perfectly.
Mclaren was subsequently stripped of its points and fined, leaving Ferrari to enjoy its championship double – which remains its most recent. Though it took the constructors’ honours in 2008, diminishing returns set in thereafter. Few other Ferraris since have looked as complete as the F2007.
SPECIFICATION
Chassis Carbonfibre monocoque
Suspension Double wishbones, pushrod-actuated coil-over shock absorbers (front), rotary dampers (rear)
Engine Ferrari 056 V8
Engine capacity 2398cc
Power 790bhp@19,000rpm (estimated)
Gearbox Seven-speed seamless-shift semi-automatic
Tyres Bridgestone
Weight 600kg
Notable drivers Kimi Räikkönen, Felipe Massa