godlameroso wrote: ↑23 Jul 2020, 06:10
It looks like in the really high speed corners the pink mercedes is very fast, in fact even has the edge on the W11. The W11 is faster in slower and mid speed corners, the pink panther has less drag and also has a little bit better high speed downforce. Last year's RB15 was faster than the Mercedes in the slow corners, but slower in the mid and high speed. This year's W11 has sacrificed some of their high speed downforce for less drag, but increased mid and low speed downforce. Because the RP has less downforce, by nature it also has less drag, and so is as fast as Mercedes in the really high speed corners as it sacrifices less high speed downforce due to having less of it to begin with. We end up with a slight crossover.
I wonder how this will pan out on circuits with lots of high speed turns like Spa for instance, Silverstone is another circuit with a lot of high speed corners. If I had to guess, Mercedes would be up in 3 parts of the circuit, but RP could potentially be ahead in maybe 2 or 3 parts.
I wonder how the Pink Merc would do with DAS and a top-tier driver against the black Mercs.
That said, there are some things to take into account though. I
personally believe that a benefit that racing point has is that their engineers have been shown to be outstanding and excellent in doing great things with a small budget. I would thus argue that they can get a whole lot from this very potent design due to their creativity, flexibility and abilities. Perhaps even in that area, they are better than the Mercedes engineers (especially looking into 'efficiency'). As such, perhaps they would even be able to 'exhalt' MORE from the W11 than the team itself does, who knows. Again, imagine the pinks having a top-tier driver (Hamilton/Vettel/Verstappen/Alonso).
The thing is though, i do believe that the pink merc does not have the same margin for development/improvement as the W11 has. This would mean that despite certainty that the pink car would evolve throughout 2020 positively, the rate of development and room for development for the W11 will be a fair bit greater. Especially taking into account that the pink merc only was meant to last 1 season and then we get the new rules.
Instead, the pinks must do two seasons with the same vehicle.
That said, it's not guaranteed we won't see the pinks essentially get a W11 for 2021 though.
I believe that the pink W10 is fairly at the 'top' of it's development ability already, where the W11 is at the 'start' of it's development capacity, i think the difference in dominance betwen race 1 and race 3 is clear on that.
Meaning, by the end of 2020, the W11 has developed to be greatly improved and faster than the race 1 W11,
whereas the pinkW10 will be more or less the same at the end of 2020 as it was at the start of 2020.
I wonder however whether the 'development margin' of the W11 is enough to last through 2021 too.
After all, all teams were expecting to bring a new car by 2021, not 2022.
If Mercedes is going to pen down a similarly 'different' W12 to the W11, like the W11 is to the W10,
then I think it's very possible that racing point will see a pink W11 in 2021.
However, if the W11 has enough development margin to 'safely' use a W11-B if you may for 2021,
then i think racing point is going to have to stick to the pink W10 for 2021.
Which i THINK will mean that their relative competitiveness for 2020 will be greatly less in 2021.
It all depends on how MUCH Aston Martin is willing to invest both financially and 'in name' to be a top 3 team from the get-go.
My gut tells me they do. After all, they're in a top-3 team right now with RedBull. So they're already carrying that 'name'. So i actually expect them to start throwing money and means into the team, so in the end, i'm really expecting a pink (or whatever livery AM is gonna have in 2021) W11 in 2021.