2022 pecking order speculation

[Marty_Y]

If a team goes down the wrong design path with their new car and needs to make radical or extensive changes to their car mid season is there anything other than budget cap to stop them?

Basically if their new car is a dog can it be changed?

[El Scorchio]

If a team goes down the wrong design path with their new car and needs to make radical or extensive changes to their car mid season is there anything other than budget cap to stop them?

Basically if their new car is a dog can it be changed?

Interesting one, that! I'd imagine the budget cap would be pretty prohibitive if it's a big overhaul. One of the 'smaller' teams might go quite extreme down a certain design path to gamble on an anticipated early advantage and the bigger teams may play it safer (advantage RBR and Ferrari with their test teams?) at the start and just develop to converge on what looks the best solution, if it's not one of them who already has it. The big question I suppose is how much scope there is to go down significantly different directions.

[Jolle]

If a team goes down the wrong design path with their new car and needs to make radical or extensive changes to their car mid season is there anything other than budget cap to stop them?

Basically if their new car is a dog can it be changed?

For quite some time now it's already been difficult. Due to restrains in CFD and windtunnel time catchup isn't made easy. You just can't run a parallel team anymore like for instance McLaren did in the eighties and nineties. For the past decade, if you had a dog of a car at launch of the regulations... It's also quite visible that year over year most teams have evolutions of their original design, especially the ones at the front. A big change in design midway thought a regulation period will take several years to catch up.

[Marty_Y]

Thanks for the excellent replies, I thought things like CFD and windtunnel time and the budget cap that have been mentioned would be a major hurdle but would something like homologation also be a issue?

[Jolle]

Thanks for the excellent replies, I thought things like CFD and windtunnel time and the budget cap that have been mentioned would be a major hurdle but would something like homologation also be a issue?

What do you mean by homologation? As in, complying to the regulations? All teams are for decades in close contact with the fia asking clarifications on new designs and ideas from a very early stage, not to loose time. This way they know that stuff in the past like the mass damper, f-duct, DAS or the double diffuser were legal. As far as I can remember only twice in recent history teams Ff-Ed up and did visible illegal stuff on their cars (Williams had their front suspension thingy a couple of years ago and Ferrari messed up their exhaust exits one launch)

[Hoffman900]

Isn't there a section of the new rules that the FIA can shut down anything they deem too "outside" the intended box of performance?

[Marty_Y]

Thanks for the excellent replies, I thought things like CFD and windtunnel time and the budget cap that have been mentioned would be a major hurdle but would something like homologation also be a issue?

What do you mean by homologation? As in, complying to the regulations? All teams are for decades in close contact with the fia asking clarifications on new designs and ideas from a very early stage, not to loose time. This way they know that stuff in the past like the mass damper, f-duct, DAS or the double diffuser were legal. As far as I can remember only twice in recent history teams Ff-Ed up and did visible illegal stuff on their cars (Williams had their front suspension thingy a couple of years ago and Ferrari messed up their exhaust exits one launch)

I was thinking along the lines that things needed to be approved by a certain point in time then after that they might not be allowed to change until the next season?

[Stu]

That was certainly the case for 2021 (due to the token system for changes from 2020), but I think that the only items that could be considered homologated are the engine/power unit and possibly the gearbox. This needn’t include the rear chassis section (gearbox carrier & ‘bell-housing) though. Budget constraints would probably negate ‘B-spec’ chassis’ being introduced mid-season.

[FW17]

What is the loss of energy from the new fuel? is it going to be more than 4%?

[Marty_Y]

That was certainly the case for 2021 (due to the token system for changes from 2020), but I think that the only items that could be considered homologated are the engine/power unit and possibly the gearbox. This needn’t include the rear chassis section (gearbox carrier & ‘bell-housing) though. Budget constraints would probably negate ‘B-spec’ chassis’ being introduced mid-season.

Thanks!

[hollus]

Bump.

[Zynerji]

I'm just praying for some kind of Cinderella story in 2022. Alpine having 2 tenths on everyone else would be world breaking, as would a battle of WDC's all being within .1s of each other.

Teams like HAAS/Williams/AT/AR having a magic combination of factors would be sensational, and drive huge interest and make new fans.

If its Mercedes winning another double with 5 races to go, its going to just be boring af....again. I hope 2021 doesn't turn out to be the "Golden Season" of the 2020's!

[BorisTheBlade]

While we are at it:
What would you consider to be the "Golden Season" of the 2010's?

[Jolle]

What I hope and suspect are not the same list.
What I suspect is Mercedes having a good lead again, followed by McLaren and Ferrari fighting for the last podium. Redbull struggling with their PU and packaging the first half of the season. Then Alpine with decent speed but lots of DNF’s with MHU-H failures. Williams fighting AT, AM and AR. HAAS, well, being HAAS.

What I hope, fight of the titans with Verstappen and Hamilton going edge to edge (but with a better race director).

[Wouter]

What I hope and suspect are not the same list.
What I suspect is Mercedes having a good lead again, followed by McLaren and Ferrari fighting for the last podium. Redbull struggling with their PU and packaging the first half of the season. Then Alpine with decent speed but lots of DNF’s with MHU-H failures. Williams fighting AT and AR, HAAS, well, being HAAS.

What I hope, fight of the titans with Verstappen and Hamilton going edge to edge (but with a better race director).

Why would Redbull struggling with their PU and packaging the first half of the season? Just curious.
Did they that ever before?