Modern Ferrari Formula 1 Cars

    Ferrari, as you know from the previous posts, is a company that sprung up from racing. To this day Ferrari is still very competetive in the F1 circut as well as in Le Mans, GT1, and GT2 racing. During the early 2000's Ferrari dominated F1 racing with legend Michael Schumacher behind the wheel. Currently, Ferrari is ranked third in the overall F1 rankings, behind Redbull-Renault and Mercedes-McClaren. The current car is unimaginatively named the F2012.

     The current F2012 is one of the most advanced and expensive race cars ever made. Each Ferrari car in the 2003 season costed about $200 million to operate. These costs include construction of the car, driver payment, fuel, transportation (which is huge when Ferrari needs to transport three fragile cars around the world on a weekly basis), and repairs. It also doesn't help that the material that the cars are made from is incredibly expensive. The car, even the transmition, is made of carbon fiber, which is eight times more expensive per pound than steel. Fortunately carbon fiber has, pound for pound, ten times the tensile strength of steel. This means that very small amounts of carbon can be used to achieve the same ridgidity and strength as quite a bit of steel. Carbon fiber is so light in fact that half the weight of the outer shell of the car is stickers and paint.

Below is a video of the unveiling of the 2012 Ferrari F1 car:

Also here is the third Ferrari ever made; the 166 s: