What this regulation has proven is that the Honda engine was never underpowered. The RBR of the previous era suffered because of their agressive rake aero design. Now that they are not allowed to run a lot of rake it actually benefited them. I'm pretty sure Newey is kicking himself for not realizing that sooner and switch his philosophy. All we heard was constant blaming of the Renault and Honda PUs when the problem was actually too much drag.AMG.Tzan wrote: ↑11 Sep 2022, 21:53chrisc90 wrote: ↑11 Sep 2022, 19:34probably because the power of the Merc engine made up for the poor aero they had compared to other teams.mendis wrote: ↑11 Sep 2022, 19:30How do you easily copy something that's not visible? Mercedes chief designer John Owen in one of his interviews (I guess in 2020) a while back said, they were happy that everybody spoke about their engine and not the aero. He was surprised nobody was copying their aero and everyone was looking at Red Bull to copy. He was happy with that situation because engine was hiding and was not easy to copy whereas aero was visible to naked eye and easily copyable.
Having the most powerful engine isn’t enough to win 8 straight titles! Just look at Ferrari 2018-2019
That’s a nice narrative for Red Bull and Max fans who cannot accept their golden man Newey got it wrong with the 2014-2021 cars…he didn’t even get the 2021 constructors championship were he truly had both the best chassis (backed of course by rule changes to only disadvantage low rake cars) and the most powerful and reliable engine!
Regarding the Merc aero; barring this year it has been pretty darn good in the past. Rated at least first or second in every year of the previous regulations. Their aero was so good Racing Point copied it in 2020 and they basically were beating RBR at some races and dominated the midfield that year. Had they had better drivers that year they could have challenged Merc better than RBR did.