Just_a_fan wrote: ↑09 Aug 2020, 17:25
Do it between seasons, fine, no problem with that. Do it mid season to "spice things up"? That's amateur hour stuff.
The V8 Supercar championship cut the downforce twice on the Ford Mustang during the 2019 season, and increased the downforce on the rival Holden Commodore three times.
Even though that is a parity series, and the Mustang in the original condition proved it complied with the downforce limits (350 kgf at 200km/hr) in the pre-season airfield test. (V8 Supercars is too cheap to use a wind tunnel, so Ford Performance USA pushed the unregulated downforce in yaw to the maximum when they designed the bodykit but crucially it DID comply at 200 km/hr in a straight line where it needs to comply, by the letter of the rules.)
That followed an earlier in-season rule change where a minimum centre of gravity rule was introduced despite no former precedent, requiring Mustangs to carry 28 kg of ballast in the roof (since the mainly carbon Mustang bodykit is a lot lighter the other bodykits).
The modifications to be made [to the Mustang] are the reduction in the dimensions of the [rear wing] end plate, lowering the height of the rear wing gurney flap and a reduction in length of the front undertray extension.
April 2019
Reference:
https://www.speedcafe.com/2019/04/23/mu ... confirmed/
I.e., mid-season changes to penalise the leading team or car in a FIA series is
normal.
So you can be glad that at least the FIA aren't requiring the Mercedes-Benz to strap 28kg to their roll hoop, and then what that doesn't "work" (at stopping them winning) cutting the size of their aerodynamic devices twice, and then when that still doesn't working adding more aerodynamics to the rival cars three times!
[The Commodores will have] the addition of a gurney to the rear wing endplates along the trailing edge and the extension of the front undertray.
September 2019
Reference:
https://www.speedcafe.com/2019/09/12/fi ... o-changes/
Just_a_fan wrote: ↑09 Aug 2020, 17:22
I hope that they don't try to artificially control the championship with the tyres.
Yet it was OK for Ferrari to be eliminated from the 2005 F1 championship, which potentially would have given Schumacher his 8th WDC racing an improved F2004 on improved 2004 Bridgestones, by an artificial tyre regulation? That makes no sense!
The precedent is set: that tyres, mass-damper bans, exhaust position rules (to target Red Bull's blown exhaust exit aimed at the diffuser, so Red Bull had to go chase a complicated coanda effect solution instead) and other things are
routinely used to compromise the leading team.