Andi76 wrote: β29 Aug 2022, 08:28
El_KaPpa wrote: β27 Aug 2022, 22:39
Maybe even Mercedes had to lose with the new TD
The new TD... on Sky Toto said before the race "we need to stop the FIA from making changes that benefit one team like this with RB." To be honest - i was speechless. It was him and Mercedes who almost forced the FIA to introduce this new TD. Even in F1 i never saw hypocrisy like that before. But anyway - if the new TD hurt any of the Topteams, its Mercedes and Ferrari(but only the next race will show that). I have heard that Mercedes and Ferrari cannot use the set-ups they have used before, while Red Bull, less affected by porpoising, can still use the set-ups they were used to. This gives them a massive advantage and much more time to optimise qualifying and race performance. Usually Ferrari, because of its phenomenal traction, should have been much faster than the RB in the second sector at Spa. But they were much slower there than the RB. So this rumour sounds reasonable, as it also says that Ferrari has to run a much stiffer rear suspension now. And Mercedes, who had already had to run an extremely stiff suspension before, have an even smaller operational window now than before. But i think the next race will show if the new TD really hurts anyone, or if RBs domination was just related to the track, low temperatures(which always hurt Ferrari) and an extraordinary performance by the drivers and engineers. Qualifying suggests that, as Ferrari was more than one second faster than Mercedes and everyone else. And thats more or less the same than what we had before the introduction of the new TD. So from that point of view, nothing has changed - only that RB was much faster. Of course this also makes it possible that the new TD hurts everyone the same, just not Red Bull. But i do not really think this is possible. But i think Zandvort will clarify it.
This time around they played cautiously regarding ride height due to they didn't know how the car will behave with full tanks over a race distance after the new TD ...
They need to rise the ride height but it seems that they are losing more time due to running such a stiff car/aero platform and this affects more the aero balance than bouncing/porpoising and riding the ride height as HAM stated after qualy ......
They also know the answer: a new suspension and particularly damper update but this couldn`t be done this year both for bigger aero/chassis changes needed but most of all for cost cap reasons ...
In order to see what I`m talking about you just need to watch how RB18 is such a stable platform, how incredible the car absorbs every bump/kerb and behaves under the braking when VER was running in FP2, FP3 onwards going through both Blanchimont and Bus-stop chicane...
In that regard, it is worth mentioning that he was running here with the new floor and PU updates, particularly with the new MGU-K, something that PER didn`t have this time around ...
And back to the team thread, I think it is just time they need to cut the BS that both drivers and the team are telling us when they are saying they didn`t know after 13 races why they are so slow in qualy and suddenly quick in the races ... we all knew this is due to they choose this car setup from day 1, coz this was the only way they could have the best results in the races!