2023 car comparison thread

[AR3-GP]

The far bigger elephant in the room is the gulf in performance between the top 3 and everyone else.

I could care less about what the cars look like, but to have someone like Fernando Alonso driving backmarker cars is criminal.

That’ll close up a fair bit this season I think. The gulf last year was nowhere near as bad as 2017/18 for example.

Sure but wasn't Lando Norris the only non-big 3 podium in 2022?

2021 and 2020 had more podium sitters.

[organic]

The far bigger elephant in the room is the gulf in performance between the top 3 and everyone else.

I could care less about what the cars look like, but to have someone like Fernando Alonso driving backmarker cars is criminal.

That’ll close up a fair bit this season I think. The gulf last year was nowhere near as bad as 2017/18 for example.

Sure but wasn't Lando Norris the only non-big 3 podium in 2022?

2021 and 2020 had more podium sitters.

I think part of that is passing being easier on track with these cars. When a top car was out of position last year they breezed through whereas with previous regulations it could be really tricky. In 2021 we had races like Russian GP where you had an undamaged rb16b with max at the wheel only just earning points by the end of the GP..

When a smaller delta is required to overtake then more extreme circumstances are required for the 4th fastest car to end up with a podium

[continuum16]

The far bigger elephant in the room is the gulf in performance between the top 3 and everyone else.

I could care less about what the cars look like, but to have someone like Fernando Alonso driving backmarker cars is criminal.

That’ll close up a fair bit this season I think. The gulf last year was nowhere near as bad as 2017/18 for example.

Sure but wasn't Lando Norris the only non-big 3 podium in 2022?

2021 and 2020 had more podium sitters.

Yes, but I think the idea is that we are going to hit the diminishing returns region of development much faster with the new regs compared to the last few rule sets. 2020 and 2021 gave an illusion of closing up the grid to an extent, because the the Ferrari engine was nerfed in 2020 and not able be fully fixed before 2022. That, and the fact that the chassis were frozen between 2020 an 2021 meant that those years were more the exception, not the rule. At least in my view.

In 2020 Mercedes walked it, while 2021 would have been the same if not for the floor changes IMO. In 2020 RB was about as good as Merc were in 2022, except they had a driver imbalance that meant that HAM/BOT/VER was a near lock for the top 3, and the rest were all close together but behind them. It's much easier to get surprise podiums when you only need errors, engine penalties, or reliability problems from 1 out of 3 drivers compared to 4 out of 6.

[continuum16]

That’ll close up a fair bit this season I think. The gulf last year was nowhere near as bad as 2017/18 for example.

Sure but wasn't Lando Norris the only non-big 3 podium in 2022?

2021 and 2020 had more podium sitters.

I think part of that is passing being easier on track with these cars. When a top car was out of position last year they breezed through whereas with previous regulations it could be really tricky. In 2021 we had races like Russian GP where you had an undamaged rb16b with max at the wheel only just earning points by the end of the GP..

When a smaller delta is required to overtake then more extreme circumstances are required for the 4th fastest car to end up with a podium

This is also true; for example, Verstappen is taking a hell of a lot longer than 12 laps to pass 14 cars at Spa if it was pre-2022. Although in your Russian GP example, he still finished 2nd, so maybe not much has changed

[organic]

Sure but wasn't Lando Norris the only non-big 3 podium in 2022?

2021 and 2020 had more podium sitters.

I think part of that is passing being easier on track with these cars. When a top car was out of position last year they breezed through whereas with previous regulations it could be really tricky. In 2021 we had races like Russian GP where you had an undamaged rb16b with max at the wheel only just earning points by the end of the GP..

When a smaller delta is required to overtake then more extreme circumstances are required for the 4th fastest car to end up with a podium

This is also true; for example, Verstappen is taking a hell of a lot longer than 12 laps to pass 14 cars at Spa if it was pre-2022. Although in your Russian GP example, he still finished 2nd, so maybe not much has changed

Yes I should've mentioned that the rain changed everything he was p7 until it happened

[f1316]

scarbs is expecting the ferrari to be behind redbull and mercedes

He was fairly nonplussed by the Ferrari last year in his analysis video, if I remember correctly. I generally enjoy those videos but they’re certainly not always accurate predictions of performance and for whatever reason they don’t seem especially favourable to Ferrari most of the time. I’d take it with a pinch of salt.

[JordanMugen]

Did you really expect anything different? For example, 1998 was a year of big rule changes. In year two, almost many cars looked either like the McLaren (world champion), or like a mixture of the world champion car mixed with ingredients from the runner-up (Ferrari). And that is always the case!

That's true, in '99 a lot of the cars looked very similar. I was going to mention that era but didn't.

Yet if some midfield team had invented the F2003-GA style undercut sidepods ahead of time (or even the more aggressive undercuts of a 2005-2006 car), instead of playing it safe, they likely would have quite a big advantage and jumped up the field! [Or their car would have just overheated all the time and been horribly unreliable. ]

Of course the same can be said for someone adding venturi tunnels in advance of the Lotus 78 or so on. It's hard to invent something, that hasn't been invented yet!

It's a shame to see many of the teams following trends instead of taking risks and setting new trends themselves.

[SmallSoldier]

Did you really expect anything different? For example, 1998 was a year of big rule changes. In year two, almost many cars looked either like the McLaren (world champion), or like a mixture of the world champion car mixed with ingredients from the runner-up (Ferrari). And that is always the case!

That's true, in '99 a lot of the cars looked very similar. I was going to mention that era but didn't.

Yet if some midfield team had invented the F2003-GA style undercut sidepods ahead of time (or even the more aggressive undercuts of a 2005-2006 car), instead of playing it safe, they likely would have quite a big advantage and jumped up the field! [Or their car would have just overheated all the time and been horribly unreliable. ]

Of course the same can be said for someone adding venturi tunnels in advance of the Lotus 78 or so on. It's hard to invent something, that hasn't been invented yet!

It's a shame to see many of the teams following trends instead of taking risks and setting new trends themselves.

With how prescriptive the rules are in this era, budget caps to adhere to and limited testing, asking teams to come up with something as innovative as a 6 wheeled car or a fan car, it’s a bit too much

[ajprice]

Regarding the lack of paint on the cars to save weight, would a coat of colour tint be any lighter than a coat of paint? Pagani Zonda Tricolore road car detail picture to show what I mean

[Vanja #66]

We should probably calculate effective area of the gills on the sidepods from Ferrari without canon exit, and effective area of canon exit on other teams. I doubt that for example Ferrari needs that much cooling.

Ferrari has only slightly bigger sidepod inlets than Merc and much smaller airbox inlet, like maybe even 3 times smaller. There's absolutely nothing to demonstrate Merc has better cooling. Ferrari even reduced radiators for SF-23, so if any team has better cooling than others, it's Ferrari.

If I get the time, I'll try and make accurate inlet size comparisons...

[dren]

We should probably calculate effective area of the gills on the sidepods from Ferrari without canon exit, and effective area of canon exit on other teams. I doubt that for example Ferrari needs that much cooling.

Ferrari has only slightly bigger sidepod inlets than Merc and much smaller airbox inlet, like maybe even 3 times smaller. There's absolutely nothing to demonstrate Merc has better cooling. Ferrari even reduced radiators for SF-23, so if any team has better cooling than others, it's Ferrari.

If I get the time, I'll try and make accurate inlet size comparisons...

Don't forget the additional inlets the Ferrari now has that have to have somesort of cooling role to meet the regs. I'd guess for battery/electronics.

[Vanja #66]

I'm fairly sure whatever cooling they have there is minimal and just for legality reasons, so it's a cooling channel and not simply a channel. It's a nice way to separate the chassis boundary layer.

[AR3-GP]

Interesting. AMR22 vs SF23. Is that a reflection on the AMR22?

[AR3-GP]

What can be inferred from the rear wing levels of the difference cars at the silverstone shakedowns?

Some teams like Red Bull were running dinner plate rear wings. Others like Mercedes running a barn door. What could this mean?

[chrisc90]

Weren’t rear wing levels pretty similar over the last season with exception of Mercedes?

Be interesting to see a comparison of all the cars from their days round silverstone, as all should be pretty similar given the weather etc.

Let’s see what filming day brings tomorrow for Merc.