2024 Bahrain Grand Prix - Sakhir, Feb 29 - Mar 02

[f1isgood]

I think some are being overly optimistic with upgrades within a season -- 4 tenths for RB at Baku does not make sense, and similarly, except for McLaren no team found 7 tenths time within the season -- at least not in terms of performance across multiple tracks. For instance RB19 was only 4 tenths ahead of RB18 at Abu Dhabi even after being under minimum weight and supposedly 7 tenths worth of upgrades over a season. Even if you nullify the weights and the floor rule change, the RB19 should have been much quicker in theory.

I wouldn't be surprised if the top teams fail to go below 1.29.xx. The 2020 Merc car has a quali lap time of 1.27.2. Add 50kgs to that and 1.28.7 is the ceiling I would like to believe, unless of course the teams have magically found laptime exceeding 2020 cars in certain parts of the track. Also the development feels like it is more pronounced in race trim than quali trim for these regulations but that comparison is much more harder to make.

[ali623]

I think some are being overly optimistic with upgrades within a season -- 4 tenths for RB at Baku does not make sense, and similarly, except for McLaren no team found 7 tenths time within the season -- at least not in terms of performance across multiple tracks. For instance RB19 was only 4 tenths ahead of RB18 at Abu Dhabi even after being under minimum weight and supposedly 7 tenths worth of upgrades over a season. Even if you nullify the weights and the floor rule change, the RB19 should have been much quicker in theory.

I wouldn't be surprised if the top teams fail to go below 1.29.xx. The 2020 Merc car has a quali lap time of 1.27.2. Add 50kgs to that and 1.28.7 is the ceiling I would like to believe, unless of course the teams have magically found laptime exceeding 2020 cars in certain parts of the track. Also the development feels like it is more pronounced in race trim than quali trim for these regulations but that comparison is much more harder to make.

Yeah agree, some of these pole estimations are wildly over-optimistic. I don't feel like these cars are going to get that much quicker over one lap. In 2023, even with all the developments and weight-loss of the RB19 over the original RB18 in early 2022, Max was 'only' 1s quicker in Bahrain qualifying 2023 from 2022. The qualifying gain from the RB20 will very likely not be as much, and I'd be incredibly surprised if it was more. Therefore at best, I see Max achieving a high 1.28. More conservatively, a low 1.29.

[AR3-GP]

I think some are being overly optimistic with upgrades within a season -- 4 tenths for RB at Baku does not make sense, and similarly, except for McLaren no team found 7 tenths time within the season -- at least not in terms of performance across multiple tracks. For instance RB19 was only 4 tenths ahead of RB18 at Abu Dhabi even after being under minimum weight and supposedly 7 tenths worth of upgrades over a season.

There was a regulation change over the winter of 2022-2023 that cut downforce. 4 tenths between AD '22 and AD '23 is not 4 tenths of development. It is more than that because regs change was estimated to cost a 0.5 second.

Toto Wolff (Merc TP) and Andrea Stella (Mclaren TP) said Mclaren found 1 second with their upgrades between Bahrain and Japan:

Wolff claimed after July’s Austrian GP that McLaren had gained a full second on the opposition with team principal Andrea Stella wary of putting a precise number on the improvement.

After the race in Japan, however, Stella admitted the number tallies with what McLaren have seen since the season opener in Bahrain in March.

He told the F1 Nation podcast: “I think numbers in hand, thanks to the developments in Austria and the developments we took to Singapore plus some other minor upgrades, this could be more or less the scale of the improvement throughout the season.

“This improvement depends on the track, obviously, but I think realistically, to be the second-best team [at Suzuka] you needed to be one second quicker than when we were in Bahrain, so pretty much I think the maths is correct.

[f1isgood]

I think some are being overly optimistic with upgrades within a season -- 4 tenths for RB at Baku does not make sense, and similarly, except for McLaren no team found 7 tenths time within the season -- at least not in terms of performance across multiple tracks. For instance RB19 was only 4 tenths ahead of RB18 at Abu Dhabi even after being under minimum weight and supposedly 7 tenths worth of upgrades over a season.

You are forgetting that there was a regulations change over the winter of 2022-2023 that cut downforce. 4 tenths between AD '22 and AD '23 is not actually 4 tenths of development. It is more than that. It's as much as 9 tenths if you take the estimate of 0.5 second time loss due to the regulations change.

Toto Wolff (Merc TP) and Andrea Stella (Mclaren TP) even said Mclaren found 1 second with their upgrades between Bahrain and Japan:

Wolff claimed after July’s Austrian GP that McLaren had gained a full second on the opposition with team principal Andrea Stella wary of putting a precise number on the improvement.

After the race in Japan, however, Stella admitted the number tallies with what McLaren have seen since the season opener in Bahrain in March.

He told the F1 Nation podcast: “I think numbers in hand, thanks to the developments in Austria and the developments we took to Singapore plus some other minor upgrades, this could be more or less the scale of the improvement throughout the season.

“This improvement depends on the track, obviously, but I think realistically, to be the second-best team [at Suzuka] you needed to be one second quicker than when we were in Bahrain, so pretty much I think the maths is correct.

So this is fact. Mclaren being the biggest improvement at 1 second leaves quite a bit of room for others like RB to come under that (6-7 tenths improvement as I estimated).

This winter did not have any performance robbing regulations changes so you will see the outcome of the development rate in a more linear and continuous fashion.

I don't know why you decided to leave out the last sentence in my original post where I in fact do address the regulation change. McLaren started with a terrible car. As with another point you made about Aston gaining a lot a while ago, of course you will appear to gain a lot if you just start off very poorly.

Let's do the math once again. +5 tenths for floor regulation change, -3 tenths for RB18 being overweight by 10kg at end of 2022 + Development = 4 tenths gain. This basically leaves winter (2022) + in-season development at 6 tenths for Abu Dhabi, over a lap.

W11 only did 1.27.2. These cars will no way get within 1s of those cars while being 50 kilograms heavier. That is already a 1.5s penalty over a lap. Of course I would like to be proven wrong. But I don't ever see these cars match the previous regulation cars over slow speed and medium speed corners.

[AR3-GP]

I don't know why you decided to leave out the last sentence in my original post where I in fact do address the regulation change.

Sorry, I started replying before reading fully.

McLaren started with a terrible car. As with another point you made about Aston gaining a lot a while ago, of course you will appear to gain a lot if you just start off very poorly.

Let's do the math once again. +5 tenths for floor regulation change, -3 tenths for RB18 being overweight by 10kg at end of 2022 + Development = 4 tenths gain. This basically leaves winter (2022) + in-season development at 6 tenths for Abu Dhabi, over a lap.

W11 only did 1.27.2. These cars will no way get within 1s of those cars while being 50 kilograms heavier. That is already a 1.5s penalty over a lap. Of course I would like to be proven wrong. But I don't ever see these cars match the previous regulation cars over slow speed and medium speed corners.

I'm confused by why you don't include the weight reduction as part of the total sum attributed to

winter (2022) + in-season development

When you include this, the sum should be 9 tenths rather than 6 tenths.

The reason I suggest this is because under a budget cap, money is either being spent for aero performance or to reduce weight but it is all development. Now that cars are at the weight limit, the budget that would have been spent in this area, now goes towards aerodynamics. So there's a theoretical additional aero gain that is possible with the money that went towards aero instead of weight reduction or '24.

[Formula 1 fan]

I wonder how much faster Hamilton would have driven the Bahrain qualifying pole lap in 2020 if he had full qualifying mode at his disposal?

[f1isgood]

I don't know why you decided to leave out the last sentence in my original post where I in fact do address the regulation change.

Sorry, I started replying before reading fully.

McLaren started with a terrible car. As with another point you made about Aston gaining a lot a while ago, of course you will appear to gain a lot if you just start off very poorly.

Let's do the math once again. +5 tenths for floor regulation change, -3 tenths for RB18 being overweight by 10kg at end of 2022 + Development = 4 tenths gain. This basically leaves winter (2022) + in-season development at 6 tenths for Abu Dhabi, over a lap.

W11 only did 1.27.2. These cars will no way get within 1s of those cars while being 50 kilograms heavier. That is already a 1.5s penalty over a lap. Of course I would like to be proven wrong. But I don't ever see these cars match the previous regulation cars over slow speed and medium speed corners.

I'm confused by why you don't include the weight reduction as part of the development (so the sum should be 9 tenths rather than 6 tenths). The reason I suggest this is because under a budget cap, money is either being spent for aero performance or to reduce weight but it is all development. In a different season, the budget spent reducing weight, could have been spent for aerodynamics instead.

Valid point but RB will not presumably find as much gain in weight reduction moving forward. I would categorise weight development as "free" lap time, as you know what you are looking to do (of course not saying it's easy but it guarantees laptime). Aerodynamically you will need a lot more thought process to ensure that the parts work.

All in all, I don't think any one except McLaren improved significantly within last season, and I think expecting cars to go to low 1.28s is very optimistic, even though I will be very happy if these boats can go that fast.

Re RB's weight develpment: They were reported to be well below the weight limit and had flexibility to include ballast to tune the car to each driver last year. Of course there's the potential issue of the new cooling system being more heavy compared to last year, and increasing weight. However given Max's feedback so far, I tend to believe that the car is not anywhere near as heavy as 2022, if at all it's overweight. I believe most teams will not be finding significant gains in weight reduction moving forward, and that the gains will be primarily aerodynamic.

[AR3-GP]

I don't know why you decided to leave out the last sentence in my original post where I in fact do address the regulation change.

Sorry, I started replying before reading fully.

McLaren started with a terrible car. As with another point you made about Aston gaining a lot a while ago, of course you will appear to gain a lot if you just start off very poorly.

Let's do the math once again. +5 tenths for floor regulation change, -3 tenths for RB18 being overweight by 10kg at end of 2022 + Development = 4 tenths gain. This basically leaves winter (2022) + in-season development at 6 tenths for Abu Dhabi, over a lap.

W11 only did 1.27.2. These cars will no way get within 1s of those cars while being 50 kilograms heavier. That is already a 1.5s penalty over a lap. Of course I would like to be proven wrong. But I don't ever see these cars match the previous regulation cars over slow speed and medium speed corners.

I'm confused by why you don't include the weight reduction as part of the development (so the sum should be 9 tenths rather than 6 tenths). The reason I suggest this is because under a budget cap, money is either being spent for aero performance or to reduce weight but it is all development. In a different season, the budget spent reducing weight, could have been spent for aerodynamics instead.

Valid point but RB will not presumably find as much gain in weight reduction moving forward. I would categorise weight development as "free" lap time, as you know what you are looking to do (of course not saying it's easy but it guarantees laptime). Aerodynamically you will need a lot more thought process to ensure that the parts work.

All in all, I don't think any one except McLaren improved significantly within last season, and I think expecting cars to go to low 1.28s is very optimistic, even though I will be very happy if these boats can go that fast.

Re RB's weight develpment: They were reported to be well below the weight limit and had flexibility to include ballast to tune the car to each driver last year. Of course there's the potential issue of the new cooling system being more heavy compared to last year, and increasing weight. However given Max's feedback so far, I tend to believe that the car is not anywhere near as heavy as 2022, if at all it's overweight. I believe most teams will not be finding significant gains in weight reduction moving forward, and that the gains will be primarily aerodynamic.

Yes I understand and I edited my post a little bit. I agree that RB won't have as much to come from weight and that's why I tried to explain that since they are not spending money on weight reduction (reportedly the most expensive kind of development), that this budget would now be free to be funneled back into aerodynamics.

This is important because if you only considered the aero improvement from 22/23, and then used that to estimate the aero improvement for '24, then it would be and underestimate because that is based on having spent less money on aero than they will be able to currently since they are no longer overweight.

To give an example, if they spent 1 million dollars on weight reduction in December 2022 and 1 million dollars on aero in December 2022, then since they are at the min weight as of December 2023, they may be able to spend 2 millions dollars on aero now. These numbers are not real. Its only used to explain the example. Therefore the 6 tenths of strictly aero that came in 2022/2023 should now have the benefit of extra money this time around. Seeing the visual changes of the RB20, they clearly spent more time with aerodynamics than weight.

[dia6olo]

I agree with the consensus of some, low 1.29 to high 1.28 if conditions are favourable.
Low 1.28s & even 1.27s feels like a bit of a stretch to me.

[LM10]

Max 27.8

No way.

[Matt2725]

I wonder how much faster Hamilton would have driven the Bahrain qualifying pole lap in 2020 if he had full qualifying mode at his disposal?

Think he could have got it under a 27 flat. 26.8 would be my wild guess.

[Formula 1 fan]

I wonder how much faster Hamilton would have driven the Bahrain qualifying pole lap in 2020 if he had full qualifying mode at his disposal?

Think he could have got it under a 27 flat. 26.8 would be might wild guess.

Okay, thank you for reply.

[chrisc90]

Max 27.8

No way.

Slightly optimistic I think too. 28.6 maybe.

Who knows. Long as he on pole and wins the race I’m good

[Matt2725]

Max 27.8

No way.

Slightly optimistic I think too. 28.6 maybe.

Who knows. Long as he on pole and wins the race I’m good

I somehow suspect you have little to fear about that desire.

[f1isgood]

Sorry, I started replying before reading fully.




I'm confused by why you don't include the weight reduction as part of the development (so the sum should be 9 tenths rather than 6 tenths). The reason I suggest this is because under a budget cap, money is either being spent for aero performance or to reduce weight but it is all development. In a different season, the budget spent reducing weight, could have been spent for aerodynamics instead.

Valid point but RB will not presumably find as much gain in weight reduction moving forward. I would categorise weight development as "free" lap time, as you know what you are looking to do (of course not saying it's easy but it guarantees laptime). Aerodynamically you will need a lot more thought process to ensure that the parts work.

All in all, I don't think any one except McLaren improved significantly within last season, and I think expecting cars to go to low 1.28s is very optimistic, even though I will be very happy if these boats can go that fast.

Re RB's weight develpment: They were reported to be well below the weight limit and had flexibility to include ballast to tune the car to each driver last year. Of course there's the potential issue of the new cooling system being more heavy compared to last year, and increasing weight. However given Max's feedback so far, I tend to believe that the car is not anywhere near as heavy as 2022, if at all it's overweight. I believe most teams will not be finding significant gains in weight reduction moving forward, and that the gains will be primarily aerodynamic.

Yes I understand and I edited my post a little bit. I agree that RB won't have as much to come from weight and that's why I tried to explain that since they are not spending money on weight reduction (reportedly the most expensive kind of development), that this budget would now be free to be funneled back into aerodynamics.

This is important because if you only considered the aero improvement from 22/23, and then used that to estimate the aero improvement for '24, then it would be and underestimate because that is based on having spent less money on aero than they will be able to currently since they are no longer overweight.

To give an example, if they spent 1 million dollars on weight reduction in December 2022 and 1 million dollars on aero in December 2022, then since they are at the min weight as of December 2023, they may be able to spend 2 millions dollars on aero now. These numbers are not real. Its only used to explain the example. Therefore the 6 tenths of strictly aero that came in 2022/2023 should now have the benefit of extra money this time around. Seeing the visual changes of the RB20, they clearly spent more time with aerodynamics than weight.

It is a certainly interesting aspect that I had not considered earlier wrt budget. I also believe aerodynamic gains might have been easier to come by last year than this year given the general maturity in the regulations. But the stopwatch will tell us where we really are and anything less than 1.29.0 is quite a strong development in my opinion.