2021 Rules hit Mercedes hard. Not a coincidence.

[JordanMugen]

I thought about why Wolff didn't react...

The plot thickens...

Otmar Szafnauer:

Number one, there was never a vote. Number two, there was an indicative vote. So that was just at the technical under committee [working group], that all the technical directors had to have an indicative vote, and three teams voted against it.

You've got to remember only two teams have a low-rake concept. So even one of the high-rake teams voted against it. So nowhere near unanimity. And it wouldn't have even passed on the eight out of 10 rule. Because three voted against.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/asto ... f/6043768/

It seems Mercedes were aware the regulations could be a problem and voted against them after all.

[JordanMugen]

That one is not much better...

It was decent. There was nothing in there which was "obviously wrong" as far as I could see. Some of the wake patterns would be more for laminar flow (like the von Karman street shown behind the tyres), and obviously the sketches of the vortex cores were simplified, but there is nothing wrong with that!

Of course, they used the phrase "sealing the floor" which is not strictly corrected as jjn9128 has explained many times (more like keeping the wake of the front tyres away from the floor), but that's fine.

I trust the opinion of jjn9128 as they have a PhD in Formula One car wakes.

Willem Toet of Sauber are just the thing if one wants to understand the detailed workings of F1 Aero.

The same Willem Toet who says there is vorticity going everywhere on a modern Formula One car, and that it's not so easy to understand without knowing the reasons for things. Ultimately, at the top level it's the same as always, maximise the performance of the the downforce generating surfaces, by managing the effect of these great big spinning tyres!

[jjn9128]

Another article on this topic from the(don't forget the hyphen)race. I think the quote from Toto in the opening is interesting as it can be read one of two ways. The way Mark Hughes has read it - whereby Toto is saying it's been done specifically to peg back Mercedes. But it could also be read as "they've done it to reduce downforce for the new Pirellis, but lower rake (Merc and Aston) seem to have suffered more". The second interpretation seems to be more in line with what I've seen attributed to James Allison on these floor changes. Of course --- stirring and wild interpretations of technical innovations and regulation is nothing new for the F1 press.

The Szafnauer quote would seem to indicate that nobody was certain that the lower rake cars would be more affected before quali in Bahrain. Even though there was a quote here earlier saying he voted against it because he knew it'd affect them worse. Inconsistencies from Force Point Racing Martin is also nothing new (should point out here I like the team but they've certainly got a history).

“I think the rude awakening happened in qualifying,” said Aston Martin’s Otmar Szafnauer in Bahrain after the opening race of the season, “when we realised, after analysing the data, that the low-rake cars were hampered significantly more by the regulation change.”

Mercedes’ Toto Wolff was even more explicit. “It’s no secret that what the changes have… of course they’ve been done to peg us back… I think we’ve probably suffered more with the change of regulations than the cars with the higher rake.”

[Partymood]

Does anyone else feel this 2021 regulation change is suspiciously damaging to the low rake cars?

I do not believe it is a coincidence that FIA finally achieved at this time, what they want, which is to handicap Mercedes.

FIA have a technical department at their disposal, and they had many years to figure how to slow Mercedes, and couldn't. They banned team radio. They limited oil burning. They changed to wider cars. They changed the front wings. Banned FRIC. Banned the DAS. Banned quali-modes. Banned blown spokes. All sorts of monkey business which did not work. Yet this last change, at this time... hit like a master stroke! With their poor record of slowing the cars, I don't believe that the 2021 rules were deduced entirely by the FIA. Conspiracy was definitely at play.

Either someone inside the FIA was very good at finding the needle in the aerodynamic haystack; kicking Mercedes in the left nut - cutting back the edge of the floor through some sort of devil-worshiping work in the windtunnel. Or they got some sort of 3D scan of the W10/W11 floor.

How else could they know?! How else could they know that cutting back the floor would hurt Mercedes so much?! Racing point had Mercedes W10 clould data. Remember that? RP had to hand it over for scrutiny...

That oppounity would have flashed like a bomb for the FIA. FIA would have analysed the hell out of that Mercedes 3D cloud data.

They not only figured out how to slow them. There was another golden opportunity. Mercedes could not react to any changes to hurt them in the wind- tunnel because the change would be too drastic to make. It was the perfect scheme. Hit Mercedes where it hurts and when they can't recover. To rub salt in the wonds the budget cap was argued down even lower than the original $175 million. Too many factors to be a coincidence.

If FIA wanted to slow Merc they would have act on the tyres. They did it with Ferrari back in 2005 and it worked.

[Partymood]

Does anyone else feel this 2021 regulation change is suspiciously damaging to the low rake cars?

I do not believe it is a coincidence that FIA finally achieved at this time, what they want, which is to handicap Mercedes.

FIA have a technical department at their disposal, and they had many years to figure how to slow Mercedes, and couldn't. They banned team radio. They limited oil burning. They changed to wider cars. They changed the front wings. Banned FRIC. Banned the DAS. Banned quali-modes. Banned blown spokes. All sorts of monkey business which did not work. Yet this last change, at this time... hit like a master stroke! With their poor record of slowing the cars, I don't believe that the 2021 rules were deduced entirely by the FIA. Conspiracy was definitely at play.

Either someone inside the FIA was very good at finding the needle in the aerodynamic haystack; kicking Mercedes in the left nut - cutting back the edge of the floor through some sort of devil-worshiping work in the windtunnel. Or they got some sort of 3D scan of the W10/W11 floor.

How else could they know?! How else could they know that cutting back the floor would hurt Mercedes so much?! Racing point had Mercedes W10 clould data. Remember that? RP had to hand it over for scrutiny...

That oppounity would have flashed like a bomb for the FIA. FIA would have analysed the hell out of that Mercedes 3D cloud data.

They not only figured out how to slow them. There was another golden opportunity. Mercedes could not react to any changes to hurt them in the wind- tunnel because the change would be too drastic to make. It was the perfect scheme. Hit Mercedes where it hurts and when they can't recover. To rub salt in the wonds the budget cap was argued down even lower than the original $175 million. Too many factors to be a coincidence.

The FIA brought Ferrari to the ground in 2020 for “cheating” even though they couldn’t not figure out what they were doing even if they life depended on it. you were the one cheering the most when this happened

The FIA has most definitely helped Mercedes back then before the hybrid engines were introduced (words of a man called Bernie Ecclestone, which do seem to make sense)

The FIA AND THE FOM have been creating a type of narrative in which Mercedes is the good, intelligent, fair-player, harmonious, unbeatable team for years now. A clear case of this is the DAS which anyone can see it was kind of bs with the

“yeah hehe you can use it this year but the next one it’s gonna be banned”

yet you come here and say the FIA wants mercedes to be slower? youre out of your mind, and in any case, Mercedes has been getting aid from the FIA even before 2014

[PlatinumZealot]

Does anyone else feel this 2021 regulation change is suspiciously damaging to the low rake cars?

I do not believe it is a coincidence that FIA finally achieved at this time, what they want, which is to handicap Mercedes.

FIA have a technical department at their disposal, and they had many years to figure how to slow Mercedes, and couldn't. They banned team radio. They limited oil burning. They changed to wider cars. They changed the front wings. Banned FRIC. Banned the DAS. Banned quali-modes. Banned blown spokes. All sorts of monkey business which did not work. Yet this last change, at this time... hit like a master stroke! With their poor record of slowing the cars, I don't believe that the 2021 rules were deduced entirely by the FIA. Conspiracy was definitely at play.

Either someone inside the FIA was very good at finding the needle in the aerodynamic haystack; kicking Mercedes in the left nut - cutting back the edge of the floor through some sort of devil-worshiping work in the windtunnel. Or they got some sort of 3D scan of the W10/W11 floor.

How else could they know?! How else could they know that cutting back the floor would hurt Mercedes so much?! Racing point had Mercedes W10 clould data. Remember that? RP had to hand it over for scrutiny...

That oppounity would have flashed like a bomb for the FIA. FIA would have analysed the hell out of that Mercedes 3D cloud data.

They not only figured out how to slow them. There was another golden opportunity. Mercedes could not react to any changes to hurt them in the wind- tunnel because the change would be too drastic to make. It was the perfect scheme. Hit Mercedes where it hurts and when they can't recover. To rub salt in the wonds the budget cap was argued down even lower than the original $175 million. Too many factors to be a coincidence.

The FIA brought Ferrari to the ground in 2020 for “cheating” even though they couldn’t not figure out what they were doing even if they life depended on it. you were the one cheering the most when this happened

The FIA has most definitely helped Mercedes back then before the hybrid engines were introduced (words of a man called Bernie Ecclestone, which do seem to make sense)

The FIA AND THE FOM have been creating a type of narrative in which Mercedes is the good, intelligent, fair-player, harmonious, unbeatable team for years now. A clear case of this is the DAS which anyone can see it was kind of bs with the

“yeah hehe you can use it this year but the next one it’s gonna be banned”

yet you come here and say the FIA wants mercedes to be slower? youre out of your mind, and in any case, Mercedes has been getting aid from the FIA even before 2014

I only recounted the rule changes made out nowhere that suspicoulsy served no purpose in racing. No purpose other than to "equalize" the field. Everyone was burning oil for example. Everyone had some sort of FRIC. But Mercedes was doing these things the best. The same for their aerodynamics and engine modes.

I stuck my neck out when I started the thread but I feel vindicated that Toto Wolff see it the same way.

https://the-race.com/formula-1/toto-wol ... team-boss/

Under Wolff’s leadership, Mercedes has endured a few rule changes some – including Hamilton – would say are the legacy of parties pushing anti-Mercedes agendas, with the express intent of toppling Mercedes from its perch.



Last year’s ban on qualifying engine modes was one. The reduction of rear downforce for 2021 – done in the name of safety – was another, seemingly stripping away less performance on higher-rake cars, with Mercedes being one of only two teams employing a low-rake philosophy.

“There are areas where I see bias against Mercedes,” Wolff says. “And here in the group we discuss, is it a pure bias that somebody wants to just penalise us in a way which sometimes is triggered by other teams, or is this something that is really important for the sport?

“We have even accepted some of the biases, because we knew about them. We took the conscious decision to accept it. But then there are clear, obvious actions against the team with the only aim to hurt us. And I will be always fighting this.

[nzjrs]

I find quotes from Otmar or Toto made after the first race that "the FIA was out to get us" about as persuasive and insightful as people making "who will win the 2021 wdc" predictions midway through the season.

It's the same reason I found the timing of this thread, aka you "sticking your neck out" after one bad session just unimpressive.

[LM10]

Weren’t there people expecting Aston Martin to do well particularly because of them having had both high- and a low-rake cars, thus having valuable knowledge and the possibility to directly compare both concepts? Shouldn’t they have been able to see the effects of the 2021 reg changes the best and already way before qualifying? Would a rake concept change have required too many tokens overall?

[Just_a_fan]

Weren’t there people expecting Aston Martin to do well particularly because of them having had both high- and a low-rake cars, thus having valuable knowledge and the possibility to directly compare both concepts? Shouldn’t they have been able to see the effects of the 2021 reg changes the best and already way before qualifying? Would a rake concept change have required too many tokens overall?

They have, in effect, a copy of the Mercedes. That car was designed for low rake and you can't just take it and jack up the rear. If that was possible, Mercedes would have done it. The whole car's design has to be done with its rake in mind.

[SiLo]

Anybody making any reference to Ferrari and FIA about 2005 really needs to stop pedalling that story. The FIA made changes that affected everyone, the fact that Ferrari ended up being hit the most might make it seem like that was the intended purpose, but it really wasn't. The same is happening here.

[KiLLu12258]

Anybody making any reference to Ferrari and FIA about 2005 really needs to stop pedalling that story. The FIA made changes that affected everyone, the fact that Ferrari ended up being hit the most might make it seem like that was the intended purpose, but it really wasn't. The same is happening here.

Its pretty normal that the FIA is trying to end dominance with rule changes. This happend dozen times in the history of f1 over the last 20-30 years.

The difference is that Mercedes is just such a outstanding team that overcome more then one completely rule overhaul over the last years and for that were being soo dominant.

The change this season is very sus i think. I mean for which reason you make those changes one year before the real rule change which will lead to completely different cars. It makes no sense.

But in the end, thats f1. Everyone hates dominance- especially the fia and everyone behind the sport. If some team is too strong, they try to change that. This time it seems like it worked for now.

[nzjrs]

You and PZ both make slightly different forms of the same argument - the FIA is so good and determined at slowing down the fast team they failed to do it for 7 years (insert list of failures) until the were actually really good at doing it because this one time I say it worked (which is both what they always do and is simultaneously this time a conspiracy).

[SiLo]

You and PZ both make slightly different forms of the same argument - the FIA is so good and determined at slowing down the fast team they failed to do it for 7 years (insert list of failures) until the were actually really good at doing it because this one time I say it worked (which is both what they always do and is simultaneously this time a conspiracy).

Pretty much. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes leaving it alone find teams converging together on speed and performance.

[Big Tea]

Its what they do, and always have. It is not anti Merc, just the team that stays in front too easily. They did it with Red Bull Williams Mclaren Brabham etc.
It is what is expected. Not Anti Merc, just lets slow the leaders down more than the others, and it happens to be Merc this time.

[Partymood]

Anybody making any reference to Ferrari and FIA about 2005 really needs to stop pedalling that story. The FIA made changes that affected everyone, the fact that Ferrari ended up being hit the most might make it seem like that was the intended purpose, but it really wasn't. The same is happening here.

Sure