vorticism wrote: β25 Jun 2023, 04:05
"Mercedes isn't winning therefore F1 needs to ..." Too transparent, mate. Consider that Horner's team had one of their main innovations cracked down on two seasons into their first reign, the EBD. So he knows a thing or two about being targeted for parity--only to then see Merc's main innovation, their PU, go largely unassailed.
EBD's weren't banned on an "equalisation" premise. McLaren had a very good implementation of this, as did a few others, but it was still banned. Paddy Lowe commented as much at the time.
http://en.espn.co.uk/f1/motorsport/story/51400.html
The reasoning is fairly obvious, fuel was being burnt to create downforce. Innovative yes, but sustainable?
The FIA felt it contravened the use of moving parts to affect aerodynamics, and was offsides from a view of sustainability. So from the off, the EBD was always going to run out of time. DAS was banned for a similar reason(movable aero) after a year, so there is a consistent precedent for this. I mean if we are going to be consistent, you have to include all bans and not just those that might affect 1 team, right?
For engines in 2014, they were frozen with only 8% being open for development... which the FIA disbanded after it saw the gap to Mercedes.
Up to 90% of the engine could changed and even more under a variety of tools implemented by the FIA.
Many people shot down the token system as it "only" allowed a change of circa 50%. When the stark reality is any part of the engine could be changed if reliability, efficiency or economical reasons could be shown to the FIA as reasoning for the change. Honda and Ferrari were prime examples of that.
Ferrari went as far as switching from traditional turbo(2014) standard injection (2014) to turbojet injection
and split turbo in 2015, as well as internal architecture changes. This
after 1 year. Is the limitation of development in the room with us now?
https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/arti ... ne-update/
So it really does bring into question any statements suggesting it went "largely unassailed" advantage and citing the rules as evidence, because it's patently false, far more was done then to alleviate the competition problem than has been done now. Especially when you consider lead times for engine development are far longer than those of most aero developments.
Renault could've changed to the TJI sooner, but insisted on it's direction for longer than they should have.
They could have also switched to the split turbo sooner but again insisted on pushing ahead with their own idea, and literally only came round to the idea by implementing it in 2022. How are the rules to blame for that?
We could blame the rules for Mercedes(zeropod)/Ferrari(inwash)/McLaren(list) and these teams remaining insistent on design direction - if we are to be consistent that is.
Honda joined in 2015 and were already better than the Renault by 2019 after 2 painful seasons with McLaren.
So it's very pertinent to clarify that it's
no fault of the competition or the rules.
Here's a timeline of developments that Honda managed in a so called "restrictive rule set":
https://www.racefans.net/2022/04/14/th ... champions/
In the space of 2 years(2015-16) Honda ran 2 entirely new engines, with a refined version settled for 2017 which is the basis for todays motor. This is totally at odds with your assertion that engines weren't targeted for parity because of the rules. The rules absolutley allowed for numerous, wide ranging, frequent and comprehensive changes.
While it's easy to dismiss it as the rules, it simply doesn't add up. Strategic decisions made by teams(and engine providers) should hold as true. While people can shoot at McLaren or Ferrari or Mercedes for missing the boat in 2022/23, for making the wrong decisions in terms of design direction, this most certainly applies equally to engine providers in 2015 onwards, when all the tools were there for improvement given the changes the FIA made, but have yet to go as far in this era.
If you were to make a direct comparison to 2022/3 to 2014/15, it would be akin to the FIA opening up the budget cap for everyone. Not identical 1:1, but certainly a variation of the theme.