Ferrari 2014 F1 Car, what is this part for..

[Willeh85]

On the image below I first saw this appear during testing and my first thoughts were perhaps it was some sort of data capture/transmitting device.

But does anyone actually know what its purpose is. In case it isn’t obvious, I'm referring to the huge black rod protruding from the top of the car.

[storminnorman]

It's a remote control antenna for when Kimi wants to sleep off his hangover on lap 34 of the Bahrain GP.
Fernando is testing it because Kimi is having a nap.

[Dave Hedgehog]

most of them seam to use them, i have been told they are for some form of aero testing

[jon-]

Airflow. It gets worse

[The Vambo]

jon- said:

Airflow. It gets worse

Looks like the sort of thing Ken Tyrell would turn up with, get laughed at, then two weeks later everyone would be running it.

[Willeh85]

I was reasonably close then.

[bobbo89]

K-Nex meets F1 car

[Some Gump]

I believe they are pitot (sp?) airflow metres, and are mounted high so the team can see if the wind tunnel lines up with reality. Fighter planes have them, so they must be cool.

[anonymous-user]

indeed, they are booms that hold Pitot ( Pitot Tubes on Wiki) tubes. These enable an array of sensitive pressure sensors to log the static and dynamic pressure as the car travels through the air. By logging these sensors at high speed, the teams can get a picture of the true airflow and turbulence of the cars aero, and use it to calibrate and validate windtunnel data

[andyiley]

^^^^^ What he said. To measure speed accurately.

[fatboy69]

bobbo89 said:

K-Nex meets F1 car

That thing is so ugly at the front.

Why? And i recall people saying that the 312T4 & T5's were ugly. Jeez. F1 is taking a turn for the worse this year with the current crop of fugly cars.

[skinny]

Some Gump said:

I believe they are pitot (sp?) airflow metres, and are mounted high so the team can see if the wind tunnel lines up with reality. Fighter planes have them, so they must be cool.

it gives you a reference of air speed that isn't affected by the air moving over the car, like the closer ones you see in racing are.

[Willeh85]

fatboy69 said:

That thing is so ugly at the front.

Why? And i recall people saying that the 312T4 & T5's were ugly. Jeez. F1 is taking a turn for the worse this year with the current crop of fugly cars.

I agree. I'm also unsure if I'm going to like the sound or not

[GroundEffect]

It's just a pitot tube placed high enough to be out of the wake from the front of the car.

For measuring actual airflow velocity that is hitting the front of the car. This can be different from road speed therefore to make the aero correlations more accurate.