AR3-GP wrote: ↑20 Feb 2024, 18:55
f1isgood wrote: ↑20 Feb 2024, 18:54
I personally think none of the top 5 teams will find 1s a lap growth either in race trim or qualifying trim. I think these cars have lots of limitations with their suspensions, and very rigid mechanical platform and are 50 kilos overweight compared to previous era cars, which puts a ceiling on how fast they can go. If 10 kilos is 3 tenths, then their ceilings must be invariably 1.5s lower than the previous generation of cars (2017-2021).
Of course these cars have strengths like downforce in high speed corners and better straight line speed but over a lap in a reasonably variant track, I don't think any of these teams have 1s or more to gain. But I could be completely wrong in any case.
Aston found over a second at the beginning of last year.
Aston started 2022 with around 2.5 seconds behind Red Bull in Bahrain and ended the season with 1.1 second behind in Abu Dhabi.
Both circuits have similar lap times to be considered for this exercise.
Aston had already slashed 1.4 second in 2022 itself.
Then they started 2023 in Bahrain with 0.6 second behind, which means they slashed another half a second over the winter.
Looking at just 2023 pace is misleading because they came with a really bad car to start 2022. A concept that was conceived early 2021, but that was stopped by late 2021. Their B spec (green bull) made a lot of gains.
You can expect one second gain from 23 BAH to 24 BAH, which is a 12 month development. That's the kind of standard that would be possible in these regulations, cost cap and performance penalty (restricted aero time). Only bad concepts can make bigger gains, like may be a Haas in 2024. Or a revolutionary new concept, if that works!