jjn9128 wrote: ↑25 Aug 2018, 11:49
Juzh wrote: ↑25 Aug 2018, 10:09
yelistener wrote: ↑25 Aug 2018, 04:05
Hey Juzh, yelistener from youtube.
Last year's summer break pu upgrade was really good. In quali they reached the same BSP1 speed as 2016 (in races before spa it was usually 7-10kph lower). Probably will not be the same this year as top-speed-wise 2018 dropped quite a lot comparing to 2017.
Halo added lots of drag, also some weight.
Yeah the halo added about 1 point of drag, a fairly insignificant amount compared to the total of the car (or about 5kW or 7bhp or Power at 300km/hr which is a smaller deficit than the power gain from the PUs since last year). Cars have been quicker around most tracks this season (excl' Azerbaijan and wet) by between 0.5 and 3s - which indicates a lot more downforce, hence more induced drag.
They also have fewer power units for the season now so they have to be more careful in practice and races with the engine modes and ERS deployment. The difference between fastest quali and fastest race laps this year has typically been 3 to 4.5s, which is all about PU management. They do a lot of clipping, where they get to a constant RPM and speed then just stop accelerating, which is balancing the MGU-H charging, fuel flow, lap-time. All the teams are doing that between Paul Frere, Blanchimont, and the chicane here in P1 and P2.
I was talking about qualifying where the 3 pu is less relevant. Azerbaijan in particular comes to mind because if you compare 2017 vs 2018 pole side by side, the 2018 car loses around 0.8s in the final straight. I've seen troughout this season top speeds have dropped somewhat compared to 2017 and there really isn't that many other reasons apart from the halo adding drag directly or indirectly trough DF loss and having to compensate with dirty and inefficient downforce. I could be wrong ofcourse, it just seemed sensible.