2022 Italian Grand Prix - Monza, Sep 09 - 11

[Juzh]

Ah yes must be why Russell dropped straight out of Max's DRS and fell way behind in the first stint.. oh wait

Yes - the Merc isn't as fast as the Red Bull. You've just proved my point, well done.

Well you must've missed the heavy sarcasm. Reality is that Russell hang in Max's DRS for a fair few laps after he was overtaken. His pace on softs was also less than half a second off the rb18 for the first stint once he fell out of the DRS - nowhere near the 1-2s gaps to midfield cars. Please watch live timing if you want to talk about relative pace of cars

Anyway I have no interest in arguing with someone who always pedals out the same bad faith points. Agree to disagree, as I already said

Its true russell was pretty fast in first stint. Trailed verstappen for multiple laps then slowly faded away, nothing major. He basically decided he will fight for 3rd place and let ver go, otherwise im sure he could hold him up for at least a few more laps.

I dont think ver was able to overtake Lec on track on similar strategy, without VSC we'd be on a similar situation as in 2019, faster car thats a lot slower on straights unable to overtake car ahead.

[Ascari67]

The point of the aero regs was to allow cars to follow one another more closely which they achieved.. why do people always say this nonsense?

Why did they want the cars closer ? To race. Did you see the HUGE gaps between the top 6-7 before the SC?

They wanted the car behind to lose less downforce when driving behind another F1 car, which has obviously been a huge success.

No matter what the aero changes were for, the result is even more turgid racing, surely not the end result they were trying to achieve, even if you micro analyse why they made the changes.

[N21]

Why did they want the cars closer ? To race. Did you see the HUGE gaps between the top 6-7 before the SC?

They wanted the car behind to lose less downforce when driving behind another F1 car, which has obviously been a huge success.

No matter what the aero changes were for, the result is even more turgid racing, surely not the end result they were trying to achieve, even if you micro analyse why they made the changes.

With rules changes it has happened before that some teams get it right and other teams don’t.

Other teams will catch up in coming season when the rules don’t change too much.

[Poleman]

I cant help but think that the budget cap should be scrapped or revised so the teams can catch up with the ones in front but at the same time i cant see how this is not going to help the leading team/teams jump even further ahead.

[SparkyAMG]

Why did they want the cars closer ? To race. Did you see the HUGE gaps between the top 6-7 before the SC?

They wanted the car behind to lose less downforce when driving behind another F1 car, which has obviously been a huge success.

No matter what the aero changes were for, the result is even more turgid racing, surely not the end result they were trying to achieve, even if you micro analyse why they made the changes.

To be fair, the regulations have achieved what they set out to so in the sense that cars are able to follow more closely, but as with most major regulation changes there have been big winners and losers and it has spread the field out in terms of performance.

I hope that from 2023 onwards Merc and Ferrari at least have managed to move past the drawbacks of their current concepts and can at least challenge RB more regularly.

[Big Tea]

My personal race take away is going from being indifferent to De Veris to being a fan.

[Ascari67]

They wanted the car behind to lose less downforce when driving behind another F1 car, which has obviously been a huge success.

No matter what the aero changes were for, the result is even more turgid racing, surely not the end result they were trying to achieve, even if you micro analyse why they made the changes.

To be fair, the regulations have achieved what they set out to so in the sense that cars are able to follow more closely, but as with most major regulation changes there have been big winners and losers and it has spread the field out in terms of performance.

I hope that from 2023 onwards Merc and Ferrari at least have managed to move past the drawbacks of their current concepts and can at least challenge RB more regularly.

I dearly hope so, like many others, without competition at the top of the leaderboard, were back to square one.

[cplchanb]

2 things today:

- race control followed the rules and did not make anything up
-leclerc killed his own race with that premature stop which was guided by the masterclass ferrari strategists

[vorticism]

I hope that from 2023 onwards Merc and Ferrari at least have managed to move past the drawbacks of their current concepts and can at least challenge RB more regularly.

Took eight years for RB to claw back an advantage barely getting them a WDC in the process, due mostly to engine rules changing. The last major aero change was in 2009, which led to 4.5 years of RB wins. The engine regs kneecapped them.*

Here we are in 2022 with another major aero regs change and RB are again back at the top. Question is: how long will the advantage last? It could be a repeat of 2010-2013 leading into the unknown of 2026, another engine regs change which might again kneecap them. That said, the aero dev freedom in this formula is narrower than it was in 2009. RB got to develop the exhaust blown diffuser all those years, by comparison. We'll see what happens.

*Aside: Imagine a RB car with either the Merc PU or without the turbo hybrid engine regs. We'd be on season 13 of a 12 year Red Bull win streak.

[Spoutnik]

Have we ever seen such a gap, so early in the season between the 1st and 2nd in the WDC ? 2011 ?

2011 ended on a 122 point difference, with a gap of 124 points after Singapore (112 after Italy). Singapore was race 14. Currently we're on race 16 - so the gap was worse back then.
Interestingly, both back then and now, it's between drivers of different teams.

But the whole point of the new changes was to minimise this happening and create racing conditions.
They have completely failed at that.

Yes.. we also "needed a new champion for entertainment" we show what we have.
The car look ugly and heavy.. What a mess

[SparkyAMG]

I hope that from 2023 onwards Merc and Ferrari at least have managed to move past the drawbacks of their current concepts and can at least challenge RB more regularly.

Took eight years for RB to claw back an advantage barely getting them a WDC in the process, due mostly to engine rules changing. The last major aero change was in 2009, which led to 4.5 years of RB wins. The engine regs kneecapped them.*

Here we are in 2022 with another major aero regs change and RB are again back at the top. Question is: how long will the advantage last? It could be a repeat of 2010-2013 leading into the unknown of 2026, another engine regs change which might again kneecap them. That said, the aero dev freedom in this formula is narrower than it was in 2009. RB got to develop the exhaust blown diffuser all those years, by comparison. We'll see what happens.

*Aside: Imagine a RB car with either the Merc PU or without the turbo hybrid engine regs. We'd be on season 13 of a 12 year Red Bull win streak.

I'm hopeful that someone will be able to catch-up with their aero more quickly than the the other engine manufacturers caught up after 2014.

The aero is at least (for the most part) visible for other teams to copy/research. RB has built their car differently to most other teams, in a way more akin to what was achieved with the previous regs. I think Vanja explained it in the F-75 thread, and I'd imagine that this approach is going to be even more beneficial given that ground effect is getting nerfed a bit next year.

Both Merc and Ferrari would be wise to follow suit rather than try and one-up with another concept.

[Big Tea]

I hope that from 2023 onwards Merc and Ferrari at least have managed to move past the drawbacks of their current concepts and can at least challenge RB more regularly.

Took eight years for RB to claw back an advantage barely getting them a WDC in the process, due mostly to engine rules changing. The last major aero change was in 2009, which led to 4.5 years of RB wins. The engine regs kneecapped them.*

Here we are in 2022 with another major aero regs change and RB are again back at the top. Question is: how long will the advantage last? It could be a repeat of 2010-2013 leading into the unknown of 2026, another engine regs change which might again kneecap them. That said, the aero dev freedom in this formula is narrower than it was in 2009. RB got to develop the exhaust blown diffuser all those years, by comparison. We'll see what happens.

*Aside: Imagine a RB car with either the Merc PU or without the turbo hybrid engine regs. We'd be on season 13 of a 12 year Red Bull win streak.

I'm hopeful that someone will be able to catch-up with their aero more quickly than the the other engine manufacturers caught up after 2014.

The aero is at least (for the most part) visible for other teams to copy/research. RB has built their car differently to most other teams, in a way more akin to what was achieved with the previous regs. I think Vanja explained it in the F-75 thread, and I'd imagine that this approach is going to be even more beneficial given that ground effect is getting nerfed a bit next year.

Both Merc and Ferrari would be wise to follow suit rather than try and one-up with another concept.

Max is gone out of sight, but behind him

Charles Leclerc FerrariFerrari 219
Sergio Perez Red Bull Red Bull 210
George Russel MercedesMercedes 203
Carlos Sainz Jnr FerrariFerrari 187

That is not a bad spread. Perhaps things are not as one sided as they have turned out. just a % or 2 here and there would give a different season.

[InsaneX_Badger]

I cant help but think that the budget cap should be scrapped or revised so the teams can catch up with the ones in front but at the same time i cant see how this is not going to help the leading team/teams jump even further ahead.

Isn't this why there is the cap on how many hours of wind tunnel time, how many CFD parts etc?

[Big Tea]

On the subject, I have always felt that as everyone in in place, why not have a test day before a race?

[dxpetrov]

Aero and chassis should definitely be a dominant factor that determines the pace as is the only thing that is in full control of teams, not some OEM that invests abnormal amount of money to build an engine that noone has a chance to match or copy in any way.