Chuckjr wrote: ↑21 May 2022, 09:02
Look, if they have pics from Nov with this design, I don’t see what the argument is about aero plagiarism. It’s a good design. Clearly we know that.
Didn’t all the teams end up copying the coanda in some way shape or form? Didn’t all engine manufacturers create a blowing effect for the blown diffuser? Didn’t all the manufacturers build some form of double diffuser? Heck back in the day the name of the game was more rear wings. Eventually it got to like 9 or something individual rear wing elements on the back of the car. It was ridiculous. But that’s F1. It’s a friggin circus. Everybody copies because if a design works, it works. It’s not a pride issue, it’s a competitiveness issue. As Al Davis used to say (former owner of the Oakland Raiders), “Just win baby.” That is what you are seeing here.
It would be no surprise at all if next year many cars use a similar if not identical Red Bull pod design. I’d not be surprised if we saw something similar to Ferrari next year in a car or two. Most, if not all copied Ferrari’s forward pod design and that transformed into wings and scoops. This is called development. Nothing squirrelly going on.
It’s not fair to shrug your shoulders at one form of aero plagiarism and not another. One sentence copied or a paragraph copied, is plagiarism. So the same here. One major element or an entire pod — it’s a form of plagiarism, and it’s the highest form of flattery. Accept this. It’s just the way it is. The end.
So it makes complete sense they landed on a near identical design. It’s a good design. Get over it and expect more copies to happen. It’s like team orders — it’s going to happen covertly or overtly whether you like it or not. The teams want to win and will do what’s necessary to win even if it pisses you off. Because they don’t really care about you, they care about winning. That’s why team bosses lie to the public all the time. It’s a circus, remember?
Aero facts don’t care about your feelings, and the team will follow the facts to win regardless how you feel about it, gladiator style. This is love and war. Winner takes all. Second is first loser. Don’t kid yourself thinking they care if you care they copied.
The more you gripe and complain about their actions, or motives, or plagiarisms, the more distracted you’ll become and the less fun you’ll have - and they still won’t care, and you will have less fun. They keep winning and you keep losing. So by appreciating the impossibleness of it all, it becomes so much easier to swallow and so much more fun to watch.
Try and see this as a novelty and how righteous it would be to have another car at the sharp end this year. That would be awesome. They certainly were not going to be competitive in the monstrosity they had, and how cool —how novel— would it be to see AM take Red Bull to school with the design? I’m not saying that will happen, and likely it won’t happe, but now it *could* happen, and so it’s righteously novel. It also would be nice to see old man Vettel have a competitive car again, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Hats off to AM and what they are doing to try and win. I hope they do well even tho I think Stroll is a $hit driver and should not be in F1.