AR3-GP wrote: ↑25 Aug 2024, 23:55
I agree. The regulations intended for it to happen. It cheapens the championship but it is what it is. One may note that none of the backmarker teams have slingshotted upwards but the backmarkers are institutionally deficient. They can't be compared to the capacity of the leading teams. If you give teams like Mclaren, Red Bull, and Mercedes extra windtunnel hours over their rivals, they are going to close that gap quickly.
For people who don't think that the windtunnel and CFD time is significant, petition the FIA to give Red Bull more windtunnel time since it "doesn't matter". I doubt there will be any takers on that
Do we not have confirmations from the team itself that one of the biggest issues regarding the car performance and balance is suspension? Overly stiff front end as it happened, a choice that was made based on launch-spec development path they took as a consequence of having incorrect data from the simulator to back it up. I don't recall RB20 being better than MCL38 on Barcelona and Austria curbs, there was no info that this aspect has improved, so I believe this over stiffness is still an issue? I recall reading Newey was against such a stiff front end early in the season, way before Miami.
We've seen how easy teams can make mistakes with floor updates, McLaren didn't touch their tunnels for 10 races already and don't seem to intend to (maybe they tried, but saw it won't work?) while Mercedes again has correlation issues and Ferrari just got out of their correlation troubles and it hurt them a lot. On top of that, everything regarding setup is compromised when you have a car that does not correlate to simulator and aero balance of the floor over a lap is crucial with these cars. Aero dev is not RB20's core problem, these problems are a consequence of slightly compromised suspension design.
As for the gap in Zandvoort, having a floor worth 1-2 tenths and choosing a wing too big (adds too much drag) that also makes you stiffen up the suspension to prevent bouncing is well worth 3 tenths all together I think. Add to that the traction you lose from slow corners (exactly where Norris built the gap in Q3) with too much stiffness you need and we have MCL38 and RB20 mostly equal in ideal conditions for both cars. RB20 just has a lot more trouble reaching those ideal conditions in mixed circuits at the moment.