Goblin42 wrote: ↑03 Jan 2023, 01:09
yaa it's pretty tricky , if the W14 actually becomes dominating in 2023, the rumours will surface again about Merc lobbying in the background for the floor edge/throat rule change for 2023
one thing that i'm sure of is that with the new liberty leadership, they'll do everything in their power to stop domination, because as stephano said *Domination becomes boring and drives fans away with time*
i'm not that optimistic about the W14 while taking in mind how much development time mercedes lost for the first races trying to iron out the qwerks of the W13
while RB & Ferrari were pushing for performance mercedes had to *de-power their car* and head into a new development path, and i have to say congrats to them for getting a pole & a win from having a 1 second pace deference at the start of the season
The success of the W14 will hinge exclusively on whether or not they understood what made the W13 poor. The race team did a good job, as you said, to get a pole and a win out of it.
Still not convinced how much of their development was actual progress and how much was track-specific. Hamilton was 0.7s off the pole in both Bahrain (actually 0.5s off the pole time if using his Q2 lap) and in Abu Dhabi (still 0.5s off Leclerc, so even if RB’s development explains this, Ferrari didn’t develop nearly as much), so it’s not like they solved everything.
Simulations and WT data said the W13 would be much faster, indicating a correlation issue. If they haven’t solved this then they’re just taking shots in the dark, with merely the knowledge that “we can’t make the W13 again” and not much else.
Perhaps the team’s history of running low even in the high-rake era will give them some advantage with the raised floor edges? Although I could also see this being a temptation that could ultimately mislead them.
"You can't argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience"
- Mark Twain