DarkAlman wrote:But since that don't have access to the dyno data of the other teams do they get an approximate number by comparing the sector lap times of different teams?
The sector time data the teams have is different from that supplied to the TV viewing masses via FOM's world feed.
As well as the 3 official FOM sectors and the speed trap joe public sees, the F1 teams have "sector" times once every 200m all the way round each track.
With this they can measure things like the acceleration at various points along a straight (eg. Spa/Kemmel) for each car, for each lap. There will be databases of this for every competitor going back years.
The teams can tell the average speed in each corner using the granular sector data, and use that to calculate apex speeds and with information from their own data on tyres, can establish fairly accurate extrapolations of their competitor's downforce numbers, drag numbers and so on.
They've been doing this sort of stuff for a long time and are very good at it.
The big teams are all data-driven. They know what they are competing against.