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Written by Ollie Kew
Shots fired over at Ferrari. Chief technical officer and ex-Porsche man Michael Leiters told TG.com at Geneva that Ferrari will be staying well away from the current N rburgring lap times arms race, reignited this week by Lamborghini"s searing 6min 52sec Hurac n Performante."I don"t want to follow this announcement", Leiters told us. "We never announce times [for our cars]. For me, the N rburgring is a technical target, an engineering target. It is the most challenging circuit, and it"s true, if you are quick at the Ring, your car will tend to behave very well on normal streets, because you need a set-up that"s less hard than a racing set-up.""[But]there are so many things that can have an impact, and so many variables you can play with to set a lap recordI don"t like that. For me, a lap time is just an internal engineering target. I"m not thinking about setting records."Pretty unequivocal on not chasing the Hurac n Performante with a 488 Speciale Ring pack or somesuch, then. But what about the ultimate in performance cars? We asked Leiters if the likes of the Aston Martin Valkyrie and Mercedes-AMG Project One would spur Ferrari on to replace LaFerrari with an even more extreme speed machine ASAP"Our philosophy is not to present a new LaFerrari every ten years", Leiters replies. "We want to present a new supercar when we have defined a new roadmap of innovations and technology. And only if we are convinced that the combination of this innovation will create the new stage of Ferrari performance, will we develop a new supercar."Referring to the F1-spec newcomers from AMG and Aston, the R&D boss says "Between the cars that are now in discussion, and the cars we have made, or the cars by Porsche or McLaren, for me these are hypercars, not supercars. Now I"m speaking just for Ferrari, I"m not big on the idea of taking a Formula One engine and putting it into a street car."But what about the F50? That used a 4.7-litre V12 block related to the 3.5-litre engine in the back of Alain Prost"s 1990 F1 car"True, we did this exercise with the F50, but it has to be a compromise. You have to reduce the revs an F1 engine revs from 6,000 to 16,000rpm, so we have to reduce the spread of revs. That makes everything very difficult, and I don"t understand why you"d do it."
Date written: 7 Mar 2017
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 6983
Shots fired over at Ferrari. Chief technical officer and ex-Porsche man Michael Leiters told TG.com at Geneva that Ferrari will be staying well away from the current N rburgring lap times arms race, reignited this week by Lamborghini"s searing 6min 52sec Hurac n Performante."I don"t want to follow this announcement", Leiters told us. "We never announce times [for our cars]. For me, the N rburgring is a technical target, an engineering target. It is the most challenging circuit, and it"s true, if you are quick at the Ring, your car will tend to behave very well on normal streets, because you need a set-up that"s less hard than a racing set-up.""[But]there are so many things that can have an impact, and so many variables you can play with to set a lap recordI don"t like that. For me, a lap time is just an internal engineering target. I"m not thinking about setting records."Pretty unequivocal on not chasing the Hurac n Performante with a 488 Speciale Ring pack or somesuch, then. But what about the ultimate in performance cars? We asked Leiters if the likes of the Aston Martin Valkyrie and Mercedes-AMG Project One would spur Ferrari on to replace LaFerrari with an even more extreme speed machine ASAP"Our philosophy is not to present a new LaFerrari every ten years", Leiters replies. "We want to present a new supercar when we have defined a new roadmap of innovations and technology. And only if we are convinced that the combination of this innovation will create the new stage of Ferrari performance, will we develop a new supercar."Referring to the F1-spec newcomers from AMG and Aston, the R&D boss says "Between the cars that are now in discussion, and the cars we have made, or the cars by Porsche or McLaren, for me these are hypercars, not supercars. Now I"m speaking just for Ferrari, I"m not big on the idea of taking a Formula One engine and putting it into a street car."But what about the F50? That used a 4.7-litre V12 block related to the 3.5-litre engine in the back of Alain Prost"s 1990 F1 car"True, we did this exercise with the F50, but it has to be a compromise. You have to reduce the revs an F1 engine revs from 6,000 to 16,000rpm, so we have to reduce the spread of revs. That makes everything very difficult, and I don"t understand why you"d do it."
Date written: 7 Mar 2017
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 6983
