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.
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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
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