Vanja #66 wrote: ↑24 Mar 2024, 20:47
It's funny reading Wolff's "we have a physics problem, in the past we always understood the car and now we don't" and not laugh while remembering 2017/18 seasons and constant moaning about having a "diva"
Allison's statement from around preseason testing was very telling, going along the lines of "before we could do an upgrade and it always adds performance (downforce) and now with these cars we can't do it like that" It just confirms their aero development was basically "add winglets, strakes, wing level etc and it will go faster" because of PU supremacy. Even in 2021 this still held true.
It does not seem they bothered too much with checking how the car would behave in (as many as needed) challenging conditions on track, they could just take away or add a bit of wing front or rear to balance the car and just went for it... This level of incompetence is shocking, honestly. To think this team secured 8 consecutive WCCs...
That bold statement highlighted by Vanja pretty much summarized Mercedes tenure of domination since 2014 to 2021
Because of the baked in advantage of the PU they were able to get away with ‘top downforce’ (high downforce- high drag). Hence why majority of not all of the cars suffered in dirty air and predominantly needed clean air to be quick.
On the contrary RedBull had to heavily rely on aero (predominantly underbody) to compensate for the PU deficit, could be the reason why they utilized the high-rake concept which I feel payed massive dividends in added knowledge to the ground effect regulations.
Also makes sense why Mercedes (and Aston Martin) were hampered with the cut out of the floor in 2021.
Funny how this team was built on the success of Brawn GP, who so happened to build a car that had high underbody downforce (double diffuser loophole).