i am not surprised by the possibilities of one team having done a job that puts them leaps and bounds ahead in an engineering world where innovation is the key in any given, constrained set of regulations. what always baffled me is, how is it possible for different car and engine philosophies, being worked on by people of varying IQs and ideas, converge so close, to the extent of a few tenths. it still does.
the argument that rules are constrained and force convergence is too far fetched and self consoling as a good replacement for lack of understanding of human creativity.
change in rules is an opportunity to stand out, even if the rules are intended to close the performance gulf. if you have a poor resource pool or an intelligent but fatigued resource pool, then the results are mediocre.
i often hear some of my own people saying it's impossible when a new, aggressive target is given in the realm of of engineering, but once they get out of that mental block, they found ways to achieve it.