AR3-GP wrote: ↑05 Jul 2023, 23:29
It seems that RB think they are strong enough to win the championships 2009 style.
Assuming RB really will bring no more upgrades they're still in a position to win at least 50% of the remaining races. Other teams won't have enough development budget or wt time to bring more than a couple of further upgrades after Silverstone, if any at all. So let's see what happens. I expect a couple of bogey tracks in the second half to trip them up such as Monza where Ferrari are likely to be strong & Singapore where Ferrari/amr could compete
But the insider rumour that was spot on for other things earlier this season suggested after the Baku upgrade there would be one more worth around 3 tenths. This would be consistent with a new floor spec.
Max has also hinted to having "new things" "in the pipeline" in a few press conferences, as well as mentioning that the Monaco pictures won't matter as they'll have a new floor in a few races anyway.
Seems likely therefore that they could bring a new floor specification at some point, but are holding it back as the current spec components still have life. Like they did with the sidepod inlets, there's no need to bring the new component if the old component still can be run until it's toast. In long term you manufacture fewer components so it's cheaper.
So perhaps we'll see the floor upgrade somewhere like Hungary, Spa, Zandvoort.
Of course the longer they use the old spec floor the longer they hide their designs/ideas as well. Additionally each gp there's a small chance the car is stranded and lifted again
They played this game in the second half of last year already with the new chassis: it was not necessary so don't introduce it - use the spare chassis that you already have now that there is no real fight