I am not convinced yet.GhostF1 wrote: ↑11 May 2022, 06:55
Cherry picking?
Ok, the averages I posted were from Miami but they were mentioned because that was the most recent race. Far from cherry picking. I'm not skewing anything either.
But I'm a bit perplexed.. there's a very obvious pattern emerging here. They, as a manufacturer, are globally down and have been for all 5 rounds which have also been different styles of tracks. This isn't a shot, it's just commentary on something that's pretty obvious. Most respected media outlets have put articles out about it, Toto initially mentioned in Bahrain he "wasn't sure how much they were losing on the engine side", he's now dropped back to a company morale line of "there will be no internal finger pointing, and we are 8 time world champs.. etc etc" (translation, both engine and chassis are lacking a bit, so we'll keep it an internal discussion, not a media stood witch hunt), Lando Norris has been critical of the engine this year saying it isn't helping at the moment, but he thinks it's reliable so that's good.
Let's talk FIA Qualifying speed traps.. (as these are generally set with no tow, no traffic, all DRS enabled). Below is the average speed of every driver combined into a manufacturer representation for every round. It doesn't include weird outliers who are 40kph down or those who didn't qualify. It also includes a Mercedes without McLaren option as a few people are blaming McLaren for poor averages... in reality, McLaren even with their issues only lowers the average in Australia.
https://imgbb.com/
And while I realise this is only one snapshot.. it's fairly a damning one when the lack of top speed and time to V-Max can't be traded for outright laptime (see Ferrari). And this also takes onboard Williams who are punching above their weight a lot at several tracks with their low downforce configurations and honestly, the situation sort of looks to be improving in the later races, but I think the low DF Williams and Merc's lower drag upgrades helped at Miami. Again this is merely a conversation point. I'm only responding to some pretty loaded comments I got for literally harmlessly mentioning "they seem a little down on power at the moment"
We know what power deficits look like there are tell tale signs. Cars with early versions of the Honda engine were easily passed, we are not seeing Mercedes easily passed. Renault V8 powered cars were bouncing against the rev-limiter on the straights (an attempt to use shorter gearing to "off-set" acceleration deficits). Cars lacking power were always set up with slimmer rear wings than their rivals. RedBull drivers cried for lack of power pretty much ever since, Mercedes drivers cried for lack of power in 2019 when they were getting annihilated on the straights by Ferrari.
The aforementioned signals are what I pay attention to in order to get an idea if there is a power deficit. I try not to use V-max or clean-air Velocity traces because we just don't know what sort of compromises were made in set-up and these turbo hybrid engines make it more difficult to use the revs to gauge anything. The ground effect aerodynamics also throws in another complication into the matter.
It's not about pride or anything for me to be in denial. I just don't see any of the usual signals that there is a lack of power. Let's just wait to see some more tracks before we jump to conclusions.
