Cs98 wrote: ↑05 Mar 2024, 16:50
You revived this old thread to grace us with another low quality attempt at deception which took about two minutes to debunk. Analysis is not for everyone and requires an honest analyst willing to make actually relevant comparisons. I will gladly defer to you on matters of aerodynamics, but when you stand in denial of data and all reporting from people in the know, you can't be taken seriously.
Let us not stoop to infantile attempts at discreditation and stick to the topic, shall we?
I enjoy being challenged on all topics I consider myself knowledgeable enough to discuss, it "forces" me to be absolutely sure of what I'm saying and recap several times before I do. You don't see me attempting to unravel the mysteries of suspension or PU design. Aero and performance go hand in hand, on the other hand...
So, back to the topic and, more importantly, my "honesty" as "analyst"
You've compared laps later in the stint, but they aren't comparable laps. There's always a push lap before the inlap (Race Lap 16 and Test Sim lap 31 - not Lap 30), and typically acceleration and top speeds are just a bit higher. To be honest in our comparisons, we must take this into account:
Even though the track must have been far better in the race (cleaner + cooler), we have several indicators Max' grip levels in the test sim were better - he wasn't pushing and didn't use the tyres in the early laps and was also slightly lighter in the sim, according to testing reports.
We have two points of notable difference in top speed between the sim and the race. Both were followed by higher acceleration in the sim - as allowed by the better state of overall grip,
but still requires more power during acceleration. T14 braking point also saw higher apex speed in the sim, a benefit of lower top speed it would seem. So we have more harvesting followed by higher acceleration. This is also present in T1 in the sim, but it's such a small difference and I'm not comfortable attributing it solely to this test-sim-PU-mapping feature.
Was there a massive detune in testing? Absolutely not. Was there any detune at all? Possible, different mapping no doubt. Were the pros of such "detuned" mapping exploited? Absolutely.
Most importantly - was there a major difference in lap time between these two mappings, observing only time gained and lost on straights and acceleration? No major difference, a generous estimate would be
0.1-0.15s lost with test sim PU mapping.
Finally, if we are calling this a "detune" or a "massive detune" how do we then call the difference of Sainz' PU mapping in Stint 3 of test sim and the race? An actually big difference on the SF straight overall speed of 4-5kmh gave him an anticlimactic 1 full tenth of advantage in the race -
0.1s. There's also the T14 braking advantage like Max had - but no acceleration advantage anywhere after more harvesting in the sim. Shockingly (not), it's an actually detuned mapping.
RB's ERS doesn't deploy at peak capacity on the first few laps of a race (which is obviously why Vanja picked lap 2 
You'd expect Max to be deploying hard on lap 2 trying to get out of DRS, and maybe he was, but two laps later when he is in the clear and presumably not deploying more than normal he is getting better speeds. Have a suspicion it's temperature related because I've seen it for years now.
