On the money

Sorry ,I think that has already been taken by the little Lotus 25 from the 60s ,never been bettered .

Thank you for this insight.

Wow you sure know your F1 stuff

DRS was brought in only because F1 hadn't sorted the aero rules to enable overtaking without it!

@@TOMLINBISH so before DRS there was no overtaking? There was. But it was not easy to overtake. DRS was introduced because the dirty air behind a car made wakesurfing less possible and the car behind lost a lot of its downforce(downforce problem was not changed by DRS at all)But that does not change the fact that it does more harm than good. Overtaking today is a joke. The driver behind gets a 20-30km/h advantage and flies by. That totally destroys and reduces real close battles. Its not an art to overtake anymore, to prepare an overtaking manoeuvre. And really good battles are rarely seen. And these fly bys are as boring as they are completely non exciting. Anyway - it does not matter why DRS was introduced, thats not the point. The point is that it destroys real racing and real battles.

Williams had a system in the mid 80’s. But you have to wait for the tech to catch up

Give that car the Mugen-Honda or the Mecachrome and it would have made podiums...

They tried to built there own engine which was pretty stupid.

You are aware of the fact that Monaco is the F1 track where aero actually means the least? I am sorry to say that, but JBs car were aerodynamically inefficent. JB did only have pretty basic knowledge about aerodynamics. Thats the reason why his sucess faded when aero became ever more important. And his cars after 1990 (when aero became more important than ever and Windtunnel testing common a daily practice) were known for being weak aerodynamically.

There are many reasons why Johns cars in general were not reliable. And also why his Ferraris were not, too. Even more reasons than why most of his cars were not reliable. First there was the problem of Guilford/Maranello. John designed the cars and built most of the parts in Guilford. The car was put together in Maranello. This alone leaves room for a lot of problems, as you surely can imagine, especially since Guilford and Maranello used different software for design and manufacturing. That John did not trust the engineers at Maranello and only talked to them when he needed to(to exaggerate a little bit)was another reason. Next reason was that the engineers in Maranello did not really like John, too. If the relationship is that bad, people do not talk a lot. And in such a technical environment like F1, of course reliability suffers.. Also John always started from scratch. So almost every important piece of the car was always completely new every year.Also the concept of the car was totally new every year. Another thing which favors reliability issues.Also Ferrari(Guildford and Maranello)did not have a good quality control system yet. Mario Almondo started to implement an industrial type quality control system in 1996, but it was not untill Ross Brawn arrived from Benetton, who added a more specified system that united industry type Quality control fitting for F1. Ross introduced a system were problems with the car(every single problem)got a code(A, B, C, D). A-Problems had to be solved untill the next race for example(very simplified way to explain it, but it would take too long to explain it in detail).Also Ross brought a methodical approach to Ferrari and this and the quality control system of Mario Almondo united with Ross priority system, improved reliability extremely.

@@fam.hunger5244 thanks for the deep insight. So much more might have been achieved if he had been in Italy... on a positive, Ferrari nearly won the championship (can’t remember the exact year) with his car if Senna hadn’t of run Prost off the track. I guess the risk of new innovation nearly paid off, and he lead f1 cars into a whole new era. Brilliant engineer

I totally agree. The thing about JB is, and that comes from an aerodynamicist of F1, that JB was totally weak on aero and electronics. His decline as an engineer in the 90's, exactly when aero became most important is not a coincident and proves that statement. Also there is a story of another aerodynamicist who was insulted as black magican by JB. Rory surely did not need JBs help regarding aero as Rory was so much better than JB in that regard. Another fact is that the B191, designed by JB had a pretty poor weight distribution, stated by Michael Schumacher, who said that the B192, built by Rory was so much better in that regard. And finally the F310B, from which Ross Brawn said he has no idea how JB came to things like weight distribution, fuel system, geometry...and that the F310B got so much better after Ross and Rory made their changes on this car, says everything. Another thing about JB is his ego - he says in his book that he is responsible for Benettons titles and Ferraris titles during the Schumacher era. Thats completely ridiculous, as the technical changes in 93 and 94 required totally different cars, so JBs B191 was a totally different car. Also his last Ferrari from 97...in 98 came the grooved tyres and the reduction from 2m to 1,8 m width. This again required totally different weight distribution, totally different suspension geometry and a totally different aero. So the cars were completely different. JB was a great mechanical engineer, without a doubt. But that was not enough in the 90's. But as his arrogance and ego stopped him from inproving. So engineers like Byrne, Newey, Brawn who never thought of themselves of being the best, improved much more than JB and become much better engineers than JB, whos approach stayed the same as it was in the 70's and 80's. Rory was great mechanically AND in aero and thinking of the car as one. And his concepts were so much better than JBs because of that. In his book JB talks much about aero. But he never gave aero so much attention like Newey or Byrne. And in the 90's this was a well known fact that he does not. Today everyone knows that aero is and was king, so JB needs to make people believe he worked hard on that side, what he did not, because he was not good at that and wrongfully thought other things are more important. He does not tell the truth about a lot of things. He wants to take credit for things others deserve credit for, or he wants to take away things from others who really deserve the credit for these sucesses. Its a shame to be honest. A great engineer like him does not need this. But his ego was and still is his biggest problem.

Giorgio Piolas series "Technical Analysis" is always a good source(started in 95). Unfortunately the season 1995, where the flexures are explained, is only available in Italian. But Johns biography describes the invention of the flexures in detail and also some technical things about them.

I do not think he could help Ferrari in any way. He could not as he was much younger and F1 was his "playground", so how should he now? One reason why Ferrari looked for people like Ross Brawn, Rory Byrne was because John Barnards cars were, from an aerodynamical point of view, not very competitive. Just look at the improvement Ferrari was able to achieve with Ross and Rory as technical leaders...the reasons are simple. JB was a great mechanical engineer, but according to some F1 aerodynamicists(and drivers like Gerhard Berger), did not understand aerodynamics. The poor aero performances of his Ferrari F1 cars show how right they are. Just look at the F310. The aero was one of the worst of a F1 car ever. And the F310 B was not much better in that regard. Its also pretty obvious that Johns decline as a designer started when aero become more and more important and people like Adrian Newey and Rory Byrne gave aero top priority in the design and concept of a F1 Car. With aero being that important F1 cars changed completely from weight distribution to geometry. Another weakness of JB is electronics. So in an era, when aero is king and electronics are even more important than in the 90's(when he built his last car)- he should save Ferrari? I hardly doubt that he could. Another thing is - Barnard was a dictator(some said also "Diva") and his ego always was his biggest problem. Its only Barnards way or no way. And in a F1 Team of today that does not work at all. John was a great engineer. The best in the 80's. But with aero and electronics becoming the most important components of a F1 car , Johns time was over, as he is mainly a mechanical engineer. As i said his ego was his biggest problem as John always thought he knows better. Because of that he was not able to learn from other great engineers, especially in his weak spots(aero, electronics), while others did and got much better than him.

@@fam.hunger5244 Pas d´accord...