Whatever point of view one may have with regard to marketing in F1 or for your own brand, Honda's is let the product speak for itself.hollus wrote: ↑09 Feb 2020, 10:00Last year, the Red Bull needed about 500rpm more, in 8th gear, to reach any given speed compared to the Mercedes and the Ferrari, which had approximately equal 8th gears.
But I am not sure about the rest of the gears.
“More fuel efficient at top speeds” is the same as more power at top speeds in this fuel limited formula, isn’t it? Sounds more acceptable from a marketing point of view, though.
Look at it this way- to a Honda engineer, they are not using the "sweet spot" of the power band effectively.
Their focus now is to achieve the necessary top speed at lower RPM and rely less on max power to maintain that speed. Efficiency starts with how much starting fuel weight you decide to carry and the minimum required fuel saving strategy to finish the race.
Everyone wants more power but there is always a cost to that, especially reliabiity. A common criticism here is that Honda's PUs haven't "lasted" the required 7 race distance per unit. Efficiency will help in this regard, but it doesn't equate to having more power at all times. ERS deployment is likely used to supplement the top speed power gap for a given battle or stage in the race. It probably matters most when overtaking or defending against a chasing car with DRS enabled.
This article below may shed some light on Honda's understanding of what needed change. Perhaps it's not the upper gears but the lower gears.
https://f1-motorsports-gp.com/%e3%82%a8 ... rpm-speed/
