This is how I see it as well.AR3-GP wrote: ↑16 Sep 2024, 19:20It makes sense that the car's aero got more peaky as time went on. Remember how the RB18 launched with massively rounded off diffuser corners? It's like they were not even using the full expansion allowed by the rules. Details like this must have given the RB18 it's nice and progressive ride height insensitive aero characteristics. As the need to increase performance continued, they started using more and more diffuser volume, and more aggressive expansion details. This comes with the downside of peakiness and ride height sensitivity.
The floor and diffuser height regulation changes that were introduced in 2023 are probably also related to this. This is when Red Bull had to go away from running higher ground clearances in order to compensate for losing so much ground clearance due to the floor and diffuser throat being raised the 10-15 mm.
Interestingly, Merc started with a very aggressive concept with excellent WT values in theory and then faced the same practical problems 2-3 years ago.
Even more interestingly, Red Bull(and some other teams as well, like Aston) did not learn from their example, but probably thought they will be smarter than them and will do it better.