Vanja #66 wrote: ↑31 Oct 2022, 09:55
Lovely to see fans hating the team over FIA mid-season rule change, very heartwarming.
IMHO, I think that Ferrari has very low political power and does not act at all strategically.
1) They keep developing cars which base their competitiveness on gray areas which can be easily closed by TDs (Engine 2019/2020, flexible bottom). Other teams (Merc, RB) are able to avoid TD that really hurt them to be issued at all or they manage to postpone the effect to the following year (DAS) by better playing the political game
2) At the begging of the year Alfa Romeo was at the weight limit, Ferrari above it, RB way above it and Ferrari decided to vote for increasing the minimum weight. By doing so they have reduced their own capability to improve ( if the weight has been not increased, Ferrari could have improved like RB have done, by lighting the car. With the new limit after some races Ferrari reached the limit, while RB continued to decrease and when they reached the same weight RB car is faster than Ferrari ... so IMHO Ferrari could at least have managed to be more competitive than RB for some more races if it had not urged to increase the minimum weight°
3) RB car was as fast as Ferrari at the beginning, but with no porpoising and with bigger straight line speed even though it was weigher. when it reached minimum weight, it was faster than Ferrari. So RB won the development race and Mercedes too gained one second on Ferrari at least (every year that Ferrari start 1 second slower, they use to say that it is impossible to recover in one year ... why Mercedes and other teams manage to do that?)
So the TD is an effect of Ferrari errors not a cause IMHO