yener wrote: ↑17 May 2019, 17:17
godlameroso wrote: ↑17 May 2019, 13:54
Mercedes isn't 8 tenths ahead, that is ridiculous. They're 4 tenths ahead of Red Bull on race pace at best, in Spain the gap in the race was on average .35 seconds.
They can close the gap, won't be easy as they'll have to out develop Mercedes to do it. However I see enough potential in the car, once they figure out the tires and the aero, plus a little more from Honda.
There is your .3 right there, and even if Mercedes has a little more pace in hand, if Red Bull get within that .3 window Max can make a difference, they will start showing weakness and make more mistakes because they'll have to push harder to maintain the gap.
I also don't understand the wheelbase talk, Red Bull has plenty of space between the front wheels and side pod.
The shorter the wheelbase is just not giving them advantage right now, it gives them a smaller operating window of the airflows caused by the Front Wing. I will find an article where it is explained properly.
And mercedes is not only 0.4 seconds ahead at race pace. They are not showing more. The only thing they would have to do is call hammertime, give Hamilton another engine mod and magically the other 0.8 seconds will appear.
How long can they sustain that pace? Does it come with drawbacks? In other words if they increase the pace will they have to dial it back later in the race?
If you look at the floor as it's own wing, then yes a longer car has more surface area, and hence can have a higher aero effect. A wing with more AOA is more likely to suffer separation, unless you add more elements and flow conditioners, this is basic aero understanding. Now Red Bull's chassis length is locked in, the wings are incredibly restricted and progress is iterative. So you can't make big gains, but you still have to develop it(front and rear wings), and are forced to spend resources to find insignificant amounts of time, but you can't stop doing it because everyone else is doing it to.
If the chassis, and floor are suffering because the wheelbase is too short and rake too high then that is a predicament. There are parts of the floor they would have to develop to get the airflow to stabilize under yaw, because lengthening the floor and by extension the wheelbase is out of the question this year. I have an idea about where on the car things could improve, and I'm sure they do as well. Would it be enough without a B spec chassis I don't know.
Both Red Bull and Honda are working incredibly hard, because they feel a lot of pressure and frustration. Honestly both Ferrari and Red Bull are feeling immense pressure because of Mercedes being such a close but far away target. In any case I don't think there is an .8 second gap, I stand by my statement it's at most .5 but closer to .4, and it is the 2nd fastest car on most circuits.
Red Bull made a small gain in Barcelona, they'll take another step forward ~ Silverstone, and hopefully that will be enough to start putting pressure on Mercedes.