RB should always be worried about any top team regardless of being ahead currently. Precisely because of this they brought a new front wing and will continue to try to stay ahead.MTL79 wrote: ↑31 Mar 2023, 15:44Sure, but is Red Bull really worried about Ferrari challenging them this year anyway? And whatever Red Bull learns this year, they will apply to next year's car as they are keeping their concept. If Ferrari continue developing this concept and abandoning it next year, it would seem to me, to be an inefficient use of restricted funds.S D wrote: ↑31 Mar 2023, 01:28Under this scenario Ferrari would declare 'uncle' and start on next years car which means that they would not challenge RB this year. So with Ferrari out for the count, MB having declared that they shifting gears as well, AM unable to challenge just yet, what stops RB from shifting to next year as well?MTL79 wrote: ↑30 Mar 2023, 23:54Ok so I may answer my question partially here... but:
If Ferrari is really as bad as everyone says they are AND there really is a new concept coming next year, why waste money on continuing to develop this year's car? I guess the windtunnel time being restricted has something to do with it but maybe they can start working on some basic ideas under this year's cap so they can get ahead?
Now if my question above is valid, and that's a big IF, then if they don't do that, does it indicate that they will simply stay with the same concept next year, given that they would hypothetically continue to develop the car the rest of the season?
Am I out to lunch?
Yeah they should learn to deliver a new concept quicker.jambuka wrote: ↑30 Mar 2023, 21:41
Don't agree with the mentality of moving to next year, every year. At once the team should maximize and learn to develop within the year and gain that experience to try and reduce the deficit. They can move on to next year, go to RB concept and yet find themselves 1 sec behind next year. Team has to come out of the nature of giving up and moving onto next year all the time
They accomplished nothing with a decent advantage last year. And now they have a big gap... They're done...
They are still very close to Red Bull in qualifying which does suggest the raw pace of the car improved.
I imagined a new principal who's better able to wrangle.in shape the strategy department and race engineers. With Binotto maybe staying as technical lead.
How do the long runs look like ?dialtone wrote: ↑01 Apr 2023, 05:45Big caveat:
I didn't watch FP3, I was out for dinner .
SAI v VER
https://i.imgur.com/A8JM5mw.jpeg
These 2 times were set about 34 minutes apart, after yesterday's rain it's reasonable to expect the track to have become green and progressively became faster during FP3, there was 1C difference in track temp between these 2 laps. It is cold, 15C air temp.
* top speed advantage for VER, might be deployment related like in Jeddah, or might be Ferrari still in a lower engine mode than where RedBull is. Upshifts are where one would expect so neither driver was particularly fast/slow. It's definitely a higher engine mode than in FP1/FP2 as SAI is 5kph faster.
* T1 (all the time loss in S1 is here) and T6 (almost all the time loss in S2 is here) make a big difference.
* T9-10 are pretty bad for SAI here, could be heavier car or greener track or obviously could be SAI was on 9 lap old softs while VER was on 3 laps old. Overall T9-10 are faster for SAI than they were in FP2 on 4 lap old mediums.
Assuming engine mode is the same as RBR, seems like Ferrari is going to run more downforce which is going to make their backstraights a bit of a pain, aside from the 3 corners above, any corner past T10 is actually equivalent between SAI and VER.
Do I think the car will be on pole? Only if RBR can't find the setup. Can they win the race? realistically there's no historical data that would consider this a possibility and there's no real race sims here to tell.
ALO v SAI
https://i.imgur.com/Ioj2x98.jpeg
Time loss is again in T1, T6 and T9-10, 5 lap old (ALO) vs 9 lap old (SAI) softs.
Due to how decent the car is in S3 I struggle to believe that there's a lack of downforce in T1 and T9-10 or T6 so my optimism goes towards Ferrari having a decent chance at podium this weekend.