@RobG
Thanks for the link - good read. Hadn't really thought about pressurizing the tunnel to get around the velocity restriction, but that's clever...and probably very expensive! Could run a heavy gas, too (or water?). Seems you'd have to write your rules quite specifically to ensure you're limiting what you intend to limit regardless of tunnel scale.

I really like the straight lines on that ferrari. It looks like a race winner to me already.

Idon't think that all the Ferrari" wind" is coming from the tunnel

@numbers
heres a good read www.f1technical.net/articles/47

Wind tunnels are an evolving item, like most items in F1, forever looking for more accurate results.
The 50 m/s (180 km/h) is the actual max speed allowed, but not sure if FIA actually monitor this or generally leave it to teams honesty. Renaults 1999 tunnel used pressurized air to simulate speeds as high as 480 km/h.

Saubers 2004 tunnel uses 3000kW for a 15 square-metre cross-section. It also allows for 2 cars (one behind the other) to be in it, to simulate the slipstreaming capabilities.
And its true that there should be a limit on the number of staff used to do the testing as well.

Sadly, unless F1 cars look & behave like street cars, little of this testing is passed onto them as refinements.

After getting egg all over their face last year with the Unbeatable Structure you can bet there were discussions on the launch this year. But more egg showed up when Fernando announced he had no interest in running the car at first test. Maybe all that Vettel talk got him angry.

At least no one has said 'its the best Ferrari ever'

With all these things Ferrari are saying, it makes me think that this year's car isn't going to be all that great to begin with, I hope I'm wrong. .

One other question for you, RobG - I believe that a full-scale tunnel is quite expensive to build given equipment cost differences and to operate from a power standpoint, but is it really that significantly more expensive than a 60% scale tunnel?

It would seem a majority of the cost is going to be tied up in aquiring the engineers to calibrate / operate / maintain the equipment, run the tests and interpret the data. You'd still need this same technical expertise for a scale tunnel.

Sounds from your posts like you might have some experience with these matters.

Any idea what problems they're having with the tunnel? I presume it's related to the age / declining accuracy of the data aquisition equipment and not the physical structure or air-moving machinery...yes?

Also, does anyone know if the 180 kph speed restriction is on the scale speed or actual air speed in the tunnel?

Thanks.

Three years of wind tunnel problems. Will someone please step up and fix it.