Seismic Activity

Do you feel that?  The whole world should have felt it by now. The automotive landscape is being torn asunder by massive tectonic plates separating. Take shelter before the aftershocks commence.  Ferrari loaned Fernando Alonso to the ACO so he could be a marshal at the just concluded 24 hours of Le Mans. This weekend was as close as he will get to being first to the checkered flag all season.  Why would they do that?  Why would they promote someone with no F1 experience to run the most revered team in history?  Because they could.  Or, someone from McLaren slipped a canister of laughing gas into the vents at Ferrari HQ.

No matter what happens, a change is coming.  Either Ferrari isn't bluffing and the team will depart F1 for sports cars--where privateer Ferrari teams have already been winning races, so they know they have a shot--or there will be some massive rules changes in F1.  Again!  AcMo can benefit from either decision, but we could have more to gain if Ferrari vacates F1.

Don't misunderstand my intent. I love Ferrari. AcMo's favorite test vehicle is a Ferrari. We've developed multiple binders of failure mode testing data over the years. Ferrari plays a large part in AcMo's origin story.  I can now tell by a glance if a Ferrari is susceptible to spontaneous combustion. I've trained my entire staff to have the same ability.  Sometimes all it takes is a glance and a smirk to ignite one. Imagine how useful that would be if one were stranded on a deserted island with a Ferrari (how did it get there? Ed.) but without strike anywhere matches during a storm.

The Ferrari failure mode research was the catalyst for the creation of one of our finest automotive products. We developed the first and only self-extinguishing vehicle chassis. What we did is a bit on the technical side, but I will endeavor to explain it to the lay people.  The idea came to me as a child when I saw my first Ferrari burning. I was eating an ice cream sandwich at the time.  It was delicious on that hot summer day.  Mmmm, ice cream sandwich.  Now that I think about it, I can't remember seeing an ice cream truck since we chased that last one out of here after they claimed to have run out of Bomb Pops. Do they still exist--ice cream trucks, not Bomb Pops--or have they all been replaced by food trucks?

Back to our advancement in frame technology.  We replaced the frame of our test vehicle with one made entirely out of hollow aluminum.  The interior facing walls of the frame are more heat sensitive than the exterior walls.  Think of it like an ice cream sandwich, but instead of having a delicious creamy center, you have fire extinguisher foam, and the outer edge does not have a wonderful thick cookie type consistency either.  Just as a warning, do *not* try to eat the frame.  You have been warned.  We made this frame air tight so we could spray the contents of several fire extinguishers into it. When a fire--it is a question of when, and not if--burns through the inner layer, it releases the extinguisher fluid and douses the fire. This is a cost effective and proven fire prevention solution.  The upside is that instead of having a fire burned and totaled Ferrari, you can just unbolt all of the components, including the engine, and attach them to a replacement chassis.  Everyone wins and another Ferrari will live to combust another day.

On rare occasions, and under the correct circumstances, the engine's heat could melt the inner layer and release the fluid when there is no fire.  We refer to this as a pre-fire prevention safety feature.  Fire Free Ferrari products are not endorsed or approved or even acknowledged by Ferrari, S.p.A. for use on their vehicles. Keep in mind that any time you see a Ferrari on fire, it is not using our F³* system.  We can save all of the Ferraris if we can get the company to adopt our chassis technology. 

I received word that Ferrari has backed away from the ledge. The team will not depart F1, but wants to work with the other manufacturers to return the sport to its rightful place at the pinnacle of motorsport technology.  I just wonder who could have been responsible for getting the sport into this situation.  It couldn't have been the teams who voted for these new rules, could it?  None of this changes AcMo's plans, but the timeline may have increased by a few years. We are content to wait in the shadows while the F1 team implodes. 










*The F³ system cannot be used on race cars!  It also will not improve the vehicle's performance.  It will make the vehicle heavier, increase its buoyancy, and make it difficult to cross international borders.