The underlying concern among the other teams here may have something to do with the nature of nature of today's championship race. If a team doesn't have a winning car at the first race they are at a much greater disadvantage than they were in the past. The only team that has shown the ability to redesign successfully and quickly is McLaren. If Red Bull hadn't stumbled so badly in the first half of last season with non-design related failures, they would have been untouchable. The season would have been over before half way through the year. It speaks well of Charlie (and Jean?) that they are sticking by the book and allowing (for now?) Red Bull to exploit a loophole. Even if it means that the second half of the year may be a bit of a snorer.
I have to respectfully disagree - They're whining because they haven't figured it out, pure & simple (IMHO ) Further disagreement eek: ) - There's more points available now, and paid all the way to 10th - You've got a better chance of catching up today than under the old system. Don't worry - They'll breakdown/their KERS unit won't work/they'll take each other out again or something will go awry - Hopefully!...... Cheers, Ian
Vindication! sort of. Although I disagree their ability to not test at or near the endplates. An area just inboard of the endplates with a proper team-supplied adapter applying load evenly to all wing elements would be plenty effective. As for teams being able to adapt to flexi wings: the teams with 700+ employees, Mclaren, Ferrari, Red Bull will have no problem having their structural engineering department configure a weave pattern which flexes accordingly in a short time frame. In fact, I wouldn't at all be surprised if they were cranking something right now. The 400 employee teams, MB, Williams, and others will have a more difficult time asserting themselves to this sort of thing unless they already had a coal in the fire in case something such as this presented itself as an option.
Its not a matter of points available but the time it takes to catch up without the benefit of track testing Its no longer a matter of tacking on a new piece of bent metal. First the advantage has to be identified, then understood, copied and fabricated. As we've seen recently only one or two teams are able to make relative progress in the course of a season. IMO RB was the best car at the start and the end of last season no one was able improve enough to surpass them.
As said above, the actions (or inactions) of Whiting, et al, are simply going to open the floodgates of teams following the leader and exploiting the rules / tests, a la Brawn of a couple years ago. The limiting factor for competitiveness will be budget and infrastructure and thus the speed and ability of each team to catch up. Last year Ferrari was able to do it (at least with one of their cars), and McLaren barely maintained pace. IMO, both teams are clearly capable of rapidly developing and delivering upgrade packages, so I think we will still have an interesting season, with the variable being in how successful each team's engineers are and how the packages mesh with the current cars. Even though playing catch-up is going to lend itself to just-trailing the leader throughout the season, unless Red Bull has more tricks up its sleeve, the copy-cats Ferrari and McLaren may very well be able to more effectively exploit the regs than the original exploiters at Red Bull. Again with Brawn, they had a huge initial advantage, but over the season they lost their edge and were themselves finding they had to again compete. Last year it appeared that Ferrari had caught up on the equipment side, and Red Bull found that they had to actually compete since their reliability and drama kept them from taking full advantage of their strategic position earlier in the season. On one hand I think Red Bull has such a ridiculous lead currently that they are sandbagging, with a lot more left to show (not just KERS, but even in just holding back their currrent pace). On the other hand, if the front wing is truly that dramatic of a tool (as this thread and other articles are indicating), then if Ferrari/McLaren can figure it out soon enough we will end up with a great season like last year.
I reckon if that Redbull front wing was on that Mclaren right now it would blow it in to the weeds. Of course just IMHO...
You have to take in to account that RB isn't going to rest on their laurels. We can count on Newey to have more in his bag of tricks. If it weren't for all the early season DNFs Red Bull would have cinched around mid-season last year. Also bear in mind that unlike Brawn they were able to win the championship and develop a dominant car for the following year. Ferrari for one has shown difficulty in developing a new car while contesting the current year.
This is true. However I think Newey will need some more aces up his sleeve to keep one step ahead, because I have no doubt new front bend it like Beckham wings, will be produced as we speak...by the other teams. I would cut Brawn some slack, as he was probably aware Merc were going to buy him out Mid-season, so he probably eased up preparing for the next year.
Newey is ahead and shows no sign of slowing down. The rest will have to actually innovate and not just copy to pass RB. Not impossible but unlikely. As far as Brawn I think he didn't prepare well for the following year because of a simple lack of resources. He'd cut the Honda head-count drastically. If your point is that he knew he didn't need to worry about the next season I agree. Good thing since the next season was already lost.
Red Bull, Ferrari, and Mclaren all have 700+ employees. As an outsider, I would conjecture any new innovation for that season or requirement for the following season would be an issue of adequately managing their large assets correctly rather than last minute scrambling and head scratching. That sort of behavior is for teams with less than 200 employees who are barely getting a car that runs.
You'd think so but it seems to have been more than Ferrari could manage. How many times do we hear about a team having to choose between an end of season push or working on next year's effort?
Just IMHO, I just don't think RB is ahead as much this year as they were this time last year. Yes they had alot of DNF's and team mate troubles, but if they hadn't, like you said it would have been near enough won for them just over mid season. I think this front wing they have had, has been a real bonus for them for a good while now, bit like Brawns double diffuser, but this time their rivals are hot on there heels, they have to copy it to reel them in. I maybe completely wrong though..
I was going to disagree with this as I feel Vettel "coasted" to a win. I think he kept a comfortable distance to Hamilton but had a lot more in reserve... exactly how much, we may never know. The only thing that brings me back to agreement with your premise is Webber's performance. If the car is truely that far ahead, Webber should have had a much better outing.
It makes more sense now; the team kept saying they had to strip the far down to undertake the lack of performance. Hence carbon problems preceding the nose from flexing properly.... I must say this is what F1 is all about. Fascinating stuff... And not listening to the wankers hating on certain drivers over & over.....
Well this is it, it is hard to take all the factors into account with Vettel and Hamilton, we can assume Vettel was in cruise mode, we can also assume Hamilton was told to go easy as his under tray was hanging off, in other words settle for bringing the car home.
Even last year there was a lot of drama about who got what equipment and such. I think Red Bull even dumped Vettel's "Luscious Liz" onto Webber when Sebastian wanted a new chassis. Then there was the front wing incident where Vettel effed up his wing in practice or qualifying, and they took the one off of Webber's car to replace it. IMHO, the idea of Webber having inferior equipment to his teammate this year, despite being on the same team, is not only not ridiculous, but a probability. Their justification last year for the wing was that Vettel was something like 8 points ahead of Webber. This year Vettel is the reigning world champion.
The pic below shows IMO exactly where the weave for Red Bull's wing changes. The second element clearly shows a break in the line just at the beginning of the white lettering running parallel to the centerline of the car. What they could be doing is making the second element far more flexible than that of the first, which would be weaved very stiffly not only to pass current testing but also to give adequate support for the other elements. The more flexible second element obviously has more rake to it and would be the most effective piece to have flex as if the third element were to flex too much it would stall. Brilliant stuff there Newey. It looks as if the front wing of the MB borrows a paragraph from this front wing as well as the first main wing element appears curves the flow down and below the wing, albeit the MB unit is only a slot. Image Unavailable, Please Login
