You do realise that before qualifying they can change whatever they want, right? It's in qualifying, when you need your best performance, that parc ferme rules are elligible. In order to make abuse of it should rules allow a different spec front wing, you'd need to start qualifying with an inferior wing and then crash your car. That doesn't really make sense to do.drunkf1fan wrote: ↑13 Jun 2019, 11:02I think the problem with aero and deeming it worse is... we don't know it's worse. A new spec wing can seem right but you find out it's slower. Loads of teams revert to an old wing/aero package or part of it after testing because they just can't make the new part work. Likewise many teams drop from a higher downforce qualifying optimised for a laptime with no traffic to a low downforce/drag setup to maximise passing if they end up crashing and having to start from the back.turbof1 wrote: ↑13 Jun 2019, 10:29And that's fine. It's quite logical that Mercedes were allowed to do that. However, I do imagine eventually you will reach a situation where one team says it is similar and the FIA saying "nah it isn't. Pitlane start for you". I also feel that inferior parts should also be an exception to the rule. Hulkenberg got outright screwed in Monaco. You can feel his pain now that he hears that Mercedes neither had a "identical" part (which again is not what the rules actually demand, just to be clear) and was allowed to use that. Of course, a front wing has a huge impact on performance, the hydraulics of a throttle actuator little to none. But that spare front wing was inferior to the Monaco spec wing; it is safe to say there was no performance gain eyed there by Renault.Restomaniac wrote: ↑13 Jun 2019, 10:15I agree it’s vague.
However I imagine the FIA asked what the part was. As it was the throttle actuator I imagine the FIA thought ‘well that’s not exactly critical or going to create any diffrence so that’s ok’.
In other words saying "oh, but this wing is totally worse, it's totally fine we use that right" would be horrendously open to abuse. Do a great laptime, spin, tap a wall, okay I'm putting my lower downforce wing on now.
With aero older spec doesn't necessarily mean worse.
Of course, a case like Mercedes where the issue is picked afterwards, that is much more open to abuse. You could therefore argue a ruling that you are only allowed to change to a different spec if the damage happened during the qualifying or race session.