AR3-GP wrote: ↑01 Mar 2023, 01:30
JPower wrote: ↑01 Mar 2023, 01:27
AR3-GP wrote: ↑01 Mar 2023, 01:07
This guy doesn't acknowledge that we don't know fuel loads, engine modes, the "newness" of the regulations, or the effect of the new tires when comparing the best lap from pre-season last year to a best lap of pre-season this year.
We need to be more selective of the content that gets brought to this forum and passed off as "analysis". There's an increasing amount of "twitter analyst" who have been unleashed thanks to the f1python api. They seem to specialize in generating colorful plots that lack critical analysis of the information contained within.
His analysis is usually pretty good. Have been following since 2020. Would definitely not classify his work as junk by any stretch regardless of his lack of context in that post. It was just a surface level comparison.
Okay. I'll take your word for it. I didn't look at his other content, but this post in particular is dangerously misleading. Like comparing apples to oranges with no context and calling it good. The post offers absolutely zero insight into how much better the SF23 is than the SF-75 because there is no basis to assume the laps are like for like or anything close to.
I acknowledge your point too, and will say I think it’s me who’s guilty of erroneously extrapolating from the twitter post as opposed to what they actually posted.
Having said that, while we don’t know the laps are like-for-like, and comparing this years car with a year of development over last years is hard/impossible, I think certain things can be inferred when taken in the broader context of testing and the commentary around it:
1) Ferrari went faster in testing this year than last year. While the tyres are new and accounted for much of this (probably), the margin of difference between the F1-75 and the SF-23 is greater than that of the RB18-19 and the W13-14.
2) commentary around Ferrari’s test this year is already widely circulated - EG they were high on fuel/low on engine mode. Of course, the same can be said for last years test, but then the comparison still stands…
3) this is the closest thing we have to a direct comparison from year-to-year. I think there is more useful information in a comparison like this than, for example, comparing the SF-23 to the RB19 in this test, because there are even more unknown variables.
4) taken in isolation, excluding things like fuel loads and engine modes - we know the tyre compound was the same, and the fastest lap from each test was used. Again, I’m extrapolating out of thin air, but one would assume the same teams to employ similar testing strategies year to year - so comparing fastest laps on the same tyres one year to the next, I think, gives us the closest thing to a meaningful comparison that we can take from testing in general.
5) - it’s just interesting to look at and discuss, no? Or should we not say anything because ultimately none of us truly know the full picture at all. Then… isn’t the point of the forum a bit… you know… pointless?
