2024 car comparison thread

[JordanMugen]

[Haas VF-24] First of many RB clones

It seems that way! I wonder why the lack of creativity and risk taking?

The rules, especially for over-body body work, allow for far more variation than the teams seem interested in pursuing.

[JordanMugen]

Newey is concerned that RBR may have been too conservative:

This year's car is the third evolution of that original RB18. What we don't know, of course, is the third evolution too conservative, while others have done something different? You just don't know.

- Adrian Newey
https://us.motorsport.com/f1/news/red-b ... /10572857/

Worrying stuff for RBR.

Although he also says:

I suspect there'll be quite a few cars that look very similar to our car.

- Adrian Newey
https://us.motorsport.com/f1/news/red-b ... /10572857/

Hmm. Will there be radical designs from other teams that leapfrog to the status of pace setters?

I wonder why Mike Elliot and Mercedes GP did not stay the course with their zero-pod design, or others stick with their various alternative 2022 launch concepts? Where Red Bull continued to evolve their original 2022 design, it seems strange -- if not bizarre -- to see many other entrants abandon development of their original 2022 design and change course?!

[F1maniac^2]

In my opinion, the Stake F1 car seems impressive. Although a launch event, we did see some extreme solutions in different areas of the car. I wouldnt be surprised if they became regular q3 contenders.

[organic]

[Farnborough]

In my opinion, the Stake F1 car seems impressive. Although a launch event, we did see some extreme solutions in different areas of the car. I wouldnt be surprised if they became regular q3 contenders.

It does look very good, and appears to zone into current accepted contemporary design.

Their facility and production standards always look impressive, but pure application to using the car appears to lag behind other teams historically. Hopefully it'll perform as good as it looks, I think it's going to be a very, very competitive year for all of the teams with likely lap pace being extremely close.

James Key interview about approach here was good too.

[Farnborough]

Newey is concerned that RBR may have been too conservative:

This year's car is the third evolution of that original RB18. What we don't know, of course, is the third evolution too conservative, while others have done something different? You just don't know.

- Adrian Newey
https://us.motorsport.com/f1/news/red-b ... /10572857/

Worrying stuff for RBR.

Although he also says:

I suspect there'll be quite a few cars that look very similar to our car.

- Adrian Newey
https://us.motorsport.com/f1/news/red-b ... /10572857/

Hmm. Will there be radical designs from other teams that leapfrog to the status of pace setters?

I wonder why Mike Elliot and Mercedes GP did not stay the course with their zero-pod design, or others stick with their various alternative 2022 launch concepts? Where Red Bull continued to evolve their original 2022 design, it seems strange -- if not bizarre -- to see many other entrants abandon development of their original 2022 design and change course?!

I dont think they knew which pieces to believe in the end there. Seemed to degenerate into face saving, marketing puff, embarrassment and ultimately to LH leaving there. I'm expecting something of a clean sheet reset there to get back on track, whatever it looks like. The whole zero situation became untenable in reality.

[Holm86]

Watching the 2024 car's with their liveries on track

[Henk_v]

Newey is concerned that RBR may have been too conservative:

This year's car is the third evolution of that original RB18. What we don't know, of course, is the third evolution too conservative, while others have done something different? You just don't know.

- Adrian Newey
https://us.motorsport.com/f1/news/red-b ... /10572857/

Worrying stuff for RBR.

Although he also says:

I suspect there'll be quite a few cars that look very similar to our car.

- Adrian Newey
https://us.motorsport.com/f1/news/red-b ... /10572857/

Hmm. Will there be radical designs from other teams that leapfrog to the status of pace setters?

I wonder why Mike Elliot and Mercedes GP did not stay the course with their zero-pod design, or others stick with their various alternative 2022 launch concepts? Where Red Bull continued to evolve their original 2022 design, it seems strange -- if not bizarre -- to see many other entrants abandon development of their original 2022 design and change course?!

I dont think they knew which pieces to believe in the end there. Seemed to degenerate into face saving, marketing puff, embarrassment and ultimately to LH leaving there. I'm expecting something of a clean sheet reset there to get back on track, whatever it looks like. The whole zero situation became untenable in reality.

Remember the week the RB18 was introduced? Newey told us they started way too late due to the in season development for the championship. They told us they were not expecting to compete as they just slapped together a car in whatever time they had left. I know we like to think they hit the bullseye because of the Newey messiah, but might it be they have been going nuclear in their development when there was still room to do so the year before? Newey is no stranger to playing the crowd.

I still firmly believe the RB20 will be the dominating car and a major step compared to the RB19.

[continuum16]

With such a convergence of design in all these cars (so far at least, there is I suppose a chance of difference from Merc, Williams, and McLaren) I think a list of unique features on each car would be shorter than a thread of similarities . I’m struggling to think of many beyond tiny details like wing diveplanes or halo fairings. I’m sure there’s differences on the floors of these cars but unless we have more Monaco crane shenanigans we won’t see that for a while.

I fear we’re in for a year of pixel-counting to determine subtle differences in geometry between cars…

[Farnborough]

First sight of Mercedes new rear pushrod suspension, install on AM, looks particularly compact and quite different from prevailing examples.

[vorticism]

So far it’s looking like 2024 with be eighteen RB19s vs two RB20s. Convergence is common in the sport, but it is being exaggerated by very restrictive regulations. This would seemingly have to erode RB's lead, so perhaps this convergence to a joint FIA-Red Bull designed spec series will take the sport to the Liberty™ El Dorado of constant passing and crashing. With fewer and fewer areas of the car to tweak there are fewer avenues to differentiate, hence more follow the leader. The front wing and nosecone regs f.e. produce very similar front ends even in the absence of a pace-setting example. F1's been in an odd state since the hybrid turbo regs change, and it seems to be getting worse. More and more prescriptive. Not all in motorsport is grim, though. That's where the RB17 comes in...

[JordanMugen]

With fewer and fewer areas of the car to tweak there are fewer avenues to differentiate, hence more follow the leader.

Yet with the new found trend for "floating" sidepods, it seems the AMR22 was perhaps not so "wrong" after all even though that team was quick to change course.

2024 W15 v 2022 AMR22


Perhaps AMR were "half right" and all they needed to do was more effectively shape the front of the sidepod to better create outwash (than a rudimentary wall at ~45 degrees) and angle the rear of the sidepod downwards for the ubiquitous downwash?

Re: follow the leader, between the budget cap and regulations and wind tunnel reverse allowance, the goal is to produce smaller field spread, at times there were 1.1-1.2s covering the entire field in Q1. There is no reason that trend will not continue and for the field to get even more competitive!

[vorticism]

With fewer and fewer areas of the car to tweak there are fewer avenues to differentiate, hence more follow the leader.

Yet with the new found trend for "floating" sidepods, it seems the AMR22 was perhaps not so "wrong" after all even though that team was quick to change course.

True, the Aston Martin & Merc have these deep undercuts but in side view they're both RB18. The undercuts or floating-pods we'll have to wait to observe the performance of. Narrowing the sidepods in that area seems antithetical to this formula's rewarding of wide sidepods.

[Seanspeed]

So far it’s looking like 2024 with be eighteen RB19s vs two RB20s. Convergence is common in the sport, but it is being exaggerated by very restrictive regulations. This would seemingly have to erode RB's lead, so perhaps this convergence to a joint FIA-Red Bull designed spec series will take the sport to the Liberty™ El Dorado of constant passing and crashing. With fewer and fewer areas of the car to tweak there are fewer avenues to differentiate, hence more follow the leader. The front wing and nosecone regs f.e. produce very similar front ends even in the absence of a pace-setting example. F1's been in an odd state since the hybrid turbo regs change, and it seems to be getting worse. More and more prescriptive. Not all in motorsport is grim, though. That's where the RB17 comes in...

The complaints about lack of diversity in design are valid, but this also doesn't necessitate that the field 'has' to get closer to RB. 2023 saw much of this convergence happening and it didn't create a closer championship as we all saw.

Similarly, even among the runners-up/midfield, while you could argue things were quite tight when averaged out over a course of races or the season, we still saw plenty of behavioral and competitive changes from track to track, indicating there's still a good chunk going on behind performance and performance characteristics than just which general concept you're running.

Maybe this year the more solidified convergence does create a closer field, but I'll bet that like every year, there's going to be plenty of gaps between the haves and have nots, and plenty of competitive divergence in actual real world results. And it will become even harder for the armchair analysts here to be able to point to any feature and go, "That right there is what is making the difference", though no doubt there will still be plenty of speculative attempts to do so anyways. Cuz well, people have gotta talk about something, eh?

[JordanMugen]

Maybe this year the more solidified convergence does create a closer field, but I'll bet that like every year, there's going to be plenty of gaps between the haves and have nots, and plenty of competitive divergence in actual real world results. And it will become even harder for the armchair analysts here to be able to point to any feature and go, "That right there is what is making the difference"

People always seem to forget that tyres are even more important than aerodynamics! As Frank Dernie says, you have to have the right tyre temperature -- if you don't have that, nothing else matters, you'll be in "no grip" central!

IIRC, Dernie says to go fast you need: (1) tyre temperature, (2) downforce, (3) power in that order. A lot of the swings in relative car competitiveness we see in such a close grid seem to be driven by tyre temperature (or rather ambient temperature) as much as anything else.