Ferrari’s technical director James Allison has called Christian Horner’s proposal for a wind tunnel ban “extremely foolish”.
The Red Bull boss recently suggested the idea as part of measures to reduce costs in the sport, whilst believing a reliance on CFD (computational fluid dynamics) is the future of F1.
Allison though doesn’t believe CFD is at an advanced enough stage to become the sole development tool.
“That would be an extremely foolish direction for the sport to take,” he said. “The reason I say that is that we all are fortunate to receive money from our backers, who back us in the hope that we will then put a car on the grid that will do them proud.
“As engineers, our job is to make sure we spend their money wisely and that when we spend their money we deliver lap time off the back of it.
“CFD is a splendid thing, but it is simply not a tool which works in isolation of wind tunnels,” he added.
“If you try to use it in that way, you will fool yourself and you will think you are developing the car magnificently and you will find that when you launch the car at the start of the year that a lot of what you thought would happen didn’t happen. I don’t think that is a good way to reward the investment of sponsors.”
CFD must be used in conjunction with wind tunnels to get accurate results according to Allison, who highlighted that no other industry would consider relying solely on computer models.
“I’m almost certain no such thing will happen because the technology is not ready yet,” he said. “CFD is a fantastic aerodynamic tool, but it is something that enables windtunnels to work very effectively and efficiently. It is not something to be used in isolation and it’s not used in isolation in practically any other industry.”
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