Ferrari 360 F1 Spider, Tubi Exhaust, Daytona Seats, Immaculate, on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Ferrari teases more specs on its Enzo successor

On its web site, Ferrari has divulged a little more info about the supercar that will succeed the Ferrari Enzo. The Ferrari magazine reported that everything the Scuderia has learned in Formula One has gone into its soon-to-be-revealed animal, and this latest disclosure shows just how much that's true. We don't know its length or width, but Ferrari says one of the targets for the car was "a reduction in height and wheelbase to match that of the 458 Italia."
Rory Byrne, the Ferrari F1 designer that's been involved in 11 world championships for the team, has spent three years contributing to chassis development. That chassis will be laid up by hand in the company's F1 composites department, each chassis composed of different kinds of carbon fiber and cured in an autoclave, F1 monocoque-style. That's part of where the lighter weight and vastly heightened torsional and beam rigidity versus the Enzo comes from. Just behind the tub - and behind the driver's back - will be the batteries and fuel tank, again, just as on an F1 car.
The cockpit will be personalized to the driver in a way that is rare among road cars, with each seat made-to-measure for the driver and then set in a fixed position in the cabin. The steering wheel and pedal box will move to accommodate pilots. What's more, we're told that "the occupant's feet are at the same level as the driving position." That, and the angle of the seatback, will provide "an extraordinarily racy feeling."

2015 Australian Grand Prix all about grooves and trenches [spoilers]

We can't remember the last time 90 percent of the action in Formula One had nothing to do with cars setting timed laps. Yet that's was the situation at the Australian Grand Prix, continuing the antics from a scarcely believable off-season with blow-ups, driver and team absences, a lawsuit, and a clear need for some teams to get down and give us 50 pit stops. Nothing much has changed from a regulation standpoint, and at the front of the field nothing has changed at all. Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes-AMG Petronas claimed the first position on the grid like someone put a sign on it that read, "Reserved for Mr. Hamilton;" teammate Nico Rosberg was 0.6 behind in second, Felipe Massa in the Williams was 1.4 seconds back in third. Sebastian Vettel proved that Ferrari didn't do another Groundhog Day routine this off-season, slotting into fourth. His teammate Kimi Raikkonen was not even four-hundredths of a second behind, ahead of Valtteri Bottas in the second Williams, Daniel Ricciardo in the first Infiniti Red Bull Racing, and rookie Carlos Sainz, Jr. in the first Toro Rosso. Lotus, now powered by Mercedes, got both cars into the top ten with Romain Grosjean in ninth, Pastor Maldonado in the final spot. However, even though the regulations are almost all carryover, in actual fact, everything has changed this year. Mercedes is even faster. Renault is even worse. Ferrari and Lotus are a lot better. Toro Rosso is looking like anything but a junior team. And McLaren is – well, let's not even get into that yet. Furthermore, this weekend was shambles: 15 cars started the race, the smallest naturally-occurring grid since 1963. Manor couldn't get its cars ready before qualifying. Bottas had to pull out after qualifying when he tore a disc in his back and couldn't pass the medical clearance tests. The gearbox in Daniil Kvyat's Red Bull gave out on the lap from the pit to the grid, and to give misery some company, the Honda in Kevin Magnussen's McLaren blew up on the same lap. When the lights went out, Hamilton ran away and was more than a second ahead of his teammate at the end of Lap 1. The advantage disappeared, though, because behind him, at the first corner, we got our first pile-up. As Raikkonen drove around the outside of Vettel at the right-hand Turn 1 it looked like Vettel, going over the kerbing, hopped to his left and bounced into Raikkonen.

These are two Ferrari design studies that led to the LaFerrari

Ferrari apparently worked through nine design concepts for its LaFerrari supercar recently shown at the Geneva Motor Show, and has put two of them on display at its museum in Maranello, Italy. Both from 2011, the Manta (pictured) is harder edged and looks closest to the finished product.
The other, the Tensostruttura, is much more fluid and looks like it probably came from the past or the future, not so much the present. You can check them both out in the videos below and register your take on what might have been.