Fry: Little room for error in 2014
While most of the focus for the 2014 season has been around incorporating 1.6-litre turbo V6 engines into the cars successfully, the rules changes that come into effect this season also has major aerodynamic implications, which in turn affect the way the cars are cooled.
Fry believes specifically the manner in which the cars are cooled, specifically, are the most difficult to design optimally and that the teams who fail to do so will endure a difficult season.
"I think it is one of those years where you need to be developing your car rather than fixing cooling problems," Fry explained.
"At the start of each year when you get the cooling wrong, a huge amount of resource goes into fixing radiators, bodywork and everything like that.
"I am sure we have done it here [at Ferrari] in the past and we've done it at my former team [McLaren] in the past, where you waste the first couple of months.
"With the 2014 changes it is going to be even more dramatic – and the opportunities for getting it wrong are going to be massive.
"Hopefully we have got our sums right, but there will be a lot of people scratching their heads in January."
Because the different manufacturers are all likely to find individual cooling solutions, Fry expects the 2014 cars to look radically different from team to team.
"Cooling is always going to be a challenge with the level of cooling that 2014's car needs, and trying to integrate physically that much stuff into the car in a neat package is quite challenging," Fry continued.
"I think it will be interesting and there will be some dramatic differences in cars for once. Some people will be pretty busy I think." Planet F1