Mclaren MP4-30 Honda

[j.yank]

J.yank

Bassiscaly if your logic was right( which is clearly not)and Honda is 80Bhp down on Mercedes and that is a deficit of only 0.3,that would mean the rest of the gap to Merc of around 1.7 seconds is all down to chassis(which is clearly not)

I see that you didn't catch the calculator logic and what I am saying. Let suppose that the full power of Mercedes PU on the straights is 860 hp (there are many reasons to accept this, including the real world data). This will mean 317.98 km/h speed trap and 10.56 sec elapsed time to pass the straight (Rosberg real data speed trap is 317.4). If everything else is equal (CFA, CDA, DTL) and Mac-Honda have 780 hp then their speed trap will be 307.85 and elapsed time 10.87 sec. The real data shows that Button speed trap is 307.6 but obviously this is recorded BEFORE the ERS failure. When he is losing ERS he is down additional 80 hp (because MGU-K is 160 hp) and he had available 700 hp. With 700 hp and everything else on Mac-Honda equal you will get 297.00 speed trap and 11.23 sec to pass the straight which is very close to these 0.3 sec additional loss that Button talks about. Hopefully this helps to clear what I am talking about.

Also, note that we are estimating only the max PU power on the straights in qualifications were all teams are with lowest fuel, and best settings for speed. We can not judge were the other losses in the laps are coming from.

[dr_cooke]

lol....0.3 to what Honda PU can produce,not 0.3 to Mercedes!

Read carefully what I said - 80 hp difference is giving 0.3 sec loss on the straight. It doesn't matter whether they are to what Honda PU can produce or what Mercedes can produce. You can make the calculation, too.

Am I missing sthg? If you want to know lap impact of losing ERS just look at Kimi before and after. That's what a Top team gets from ERS

[trinidefender]

J.yank please provide your sources for CD values, corner exit speeds and such and then you can talk about how using that calculator is in any way more scientific.

Secondly your calculations don't factor in many things. Let's go over these points:
1.(a) Each track, each car and each driver will have its own optimum setup when it comes to trading downforce and drag. The relationship between losing downforce and drag reduction is not linear so not that easy to work out. To add to that, each driver will have their own style of racing lines and speeds into and out of a corner which will change what each cars optimum L/D ratio is for that track.
1.(b) Evidenced but the fact that the front wing is regularly not shown to be at its maximum AoA and that no monkey seat is run (which has a large drag coefficient for its effect)(and a monkey seat was tested twice this season), I deduce that Mclaren does not run at their maximum downforce setting. Even for Hungary. This means that McLaren is shedding drag to improve straight line speed so that it is not ridiculously easy for cars to overtake there. This shedding of drag also loses downforce and hence reduces corner speed. As the straight line speed as not as low as it should be (were they running maximum downforce) it makes the power deficit seem smaller than it actually is.
2. Your equation does not factor in drivability which is shown to have a huge effect with these high torque engines. There was an interview with a driver some time back (I think last season) who said that a big difference was that with the V8's coming out of a corner they could be on full throttle early at a high gear. The smooth torque rise as the revs climbed helped prevent wheel spin coming out of a corner and made the cars easy to drive. Combine that with diffuser blowing/sealing and you had cars with high levels of corner exit grip. This generation of cars, as was said by driver, are much more aggressive in their power delivery meaning that drivability is all the more important. It was noted earlier on this season that the drivability of the Honda is shown to be somewhat lacking compared to other PU's. Supposedly it has improved somewhat but from what I can see they still have a somewhat ON/OFF nature to their throttle. This can hurt lap times a fair amount.
3. Should honda be able to improve their power over the course of the season which I don't doubt they will then end of straight speeds should be higher and the temperature in the tyres should be higher leading to better grip. I only included this point because it was said before that Mclaren was having problems with the tyres not coming up to temperature. I have not heard reports of this recently so maybe they have sorted out this problem.
4. Last and definetly not least. Your calculation only factors in the time lost on that one straight. The lower power produced by the Honda means that the car is losing time ALL THE TIME that they are full throttle vs other cars at full throttle. There may be only 1 long straight but that isn't the only time when the cars are full throttle. If you factor that in with the reduced drivability (if that is still a problem) then it means drivers are on the throttle later. This too will cause a fair increase in lap time.

[turbof1]

Trinidefender, this is kind of an issue from you frequently. While I get you try to emphasis that it is complex and why it is complex, you always forget, purposely or not, to give an estimate yourself considering all those factors.

Sometimes you need these blunt but clearcut numbers. Fair enough they are general speaking numbers and aren't that accurate for any given track, but atleast it is something, and in my opinion often better then getting yourself lost in all the variables and leaving you with nothing behind.

Also this is quite annoying:

4. Last and definetly not least. Your calculation only factors in the time lost on that one straight. The lower power produced by the Honda means that the car is losing time ALL THE TIME that they are full throttle vs other cars at full throttle.

Did he at any moment said he was talking about anything other then the straight? The guy simply and openly limited himself to the straight, without commenting on the rest of track. I don't feel we should give criticism for things he not say and things he also did not intend to say. That's just not fair. He purposely limited himself on the straight since this would atleast exclude some of the variables and make the ordeal a bit simpler.

Also note the guy inmediately made this sidenote:

I don't expect Boullier to tell the truth and only the truth. In this case the loss should be around 0.3 sec per lap. Of course, this is hard to calculate the impact of other factors as downforce, tires, etc. but we are speaking only about the available power. Specifically on this circuit there are no more straights and that’s why Maclaren are capable to perform well against the other teams.

Rendering your own criticism kind of redundant, since he himself admitted to it already.

I simply do not like that somebody who actually tries an effort and sticks his neck out to be that attacked. Criticism is fine, but should first and foremost be about correcting, not pointing at how complex it is, I'm sure he knows that as well, and neglecting to come up with "corrected" numbers yourself.

I also get that a lot of discussion revolves around what Bouiller says. Given what we saw at Red Bull and how dramatic they were about their own deficit, my impression is that team principals aren't reliable resources. Meaning that if they say there's a deficit, there will be one, but you'll have to put corrections on it.

In all honesty, I don't really believe that the deficit is 160 bhp. Remember Abu Dhabi last year where Rosberg suddenly lost the equivalent of that by loss of the ERS systems? He dropped completely away, lost several seconds a lap towards everybody. Kimi on his turned lost it during the Hungaroring race. Alonso simply had more power and undoubled himself. You don't need to put numbers on it to know that. A Ferrari without 160bhp was very visible slower then a mclaren, which should not have been the case of mclaren was 160bhp down. Making matters worse it was very visible on a circuit that is one of the least power demanding ones on the calender. Conclusion should be that mclaren's deficit is not anywhere near 160bhp.

I've readed that generally speaking 60bhp amounts for a second in laptime. 80-100bhp sounds more reasonable in that regard.

Guys, does a 0.3 loss on the straight only at the hungaroring sound that strange? This only factors in the straight, and not loss due shortage of power over the rest of the lap. They loose out a lot due acceleration out of corners. But j-yank is only talking about the straight and not the complete lap. Take that one little piece of the lap into isolation and 0.3 does not sound irrational.

[trinidefender]

Trinidefender, this is kind of an issue from you frequently. While I get you try to emphasis that it is complex and why it is complex, you always forget, purposely or not, to give an estimate yourself considering all those factors.

Sometimes you need these blunt but clearcut numbers. Fair enough they are general speaking numbers and aren't that accurate for any given track, but atleast it is something, and in my opinion often better then getting yourself lost in all the variables and leaving you with nothing behind.

Also this is quite annoying:

4. Last and definetly not least. Your calculation only factors in the time lost on that one straight. The lower power produced by the Honda means that the car is losing time ALL THE TIME that they are full throttle vs other cars at full throttle.

Did he at any moment said he was talking about anything other then the straight? The guy simply and openly limited himself to the straight, without commenting on the rest of track. I don't feel we should give criticism for things he not say and things he also did not intend to say. That's just not fair. He purposely limited himself on the straight since this would atleast exclude some of the variables and make the ordeal a bit simpler.

Also note the guy inmediately made this sidenote:

I don't expect Boullier to tell the truth and only the truth. In this case the loss should be around 0.3 sec per lap. Of course, this is hard to calculate the impact of other factors as downforce, tires, etc. but we are speaking only about the available power. Specifically on this circuit there are no more straights and that’s why Maclaren are capable to perform well against the other teams.

Rendering your own criticism kind of redundant, since he himself admitted to it already.

I simply do not like that somebody who actually tries an effort and sticks his neck out to be that attacked. Criticism is fine, but should first and foremost be about correcting, not pointing at how complex it is, I'm sure he knows that as well, and neglecting to come up with "corrected" numbers yourself.

I also get that a lot of discussion revolves around what Bouiller says. Given what we saw at Red Bull and how dramatic they were about their own deficit, my impression is that team principals aren't reliable resources. Meaning that if they say there's a deficit, there will be one, but you'll have to put corrections on it.

In all honesty, I don't really believe that the deficit is 160 bhp. Remember Abu Dhabi last year where Rosberg suddenly lost the equivalent of that by loss of the ERS systems? He dropped completely away, lost several seconds a lap towards everybody. Kimi on his turned lost it during the Hungaroring race. Alonso simply had more power and undoubled himself. You don't need to put numbers on it to know that. A Ferrari without 160bhp was very visible slower then a mclaren, which should not have been the case of mclaren was 160bhp down. Making matters worse it was very visible on a circuit that is one of the least power demanding ones on the calender. Conclusion should be that mclaren's deficit is not anywhere near 160bhp.

I've readed that generally speaking 60bhp amounts for a second in laptime. 80-100bhp sounds more reasonable in that regard.

Guys, does a 0.3 loss on the straight only at the hungaroring sound that strange? This only factors in the straight, and not loss due shortage of power over the rest of the lap. They loose out a lot due acceleration out of corners. But j-yank is only talking about the straight and not the complete lap. Take that one little piece of the lap into isolation and 0.3 does not sound irrational.

The reason I didn't try to come up with numbers is simple.
1. At present I do not have the time to go and find sources.
2. Many of the sources required for these numbers are not freely available on the internet.
3. Many of the numbers available are from ~2005 and back.
4. With the information I do have I'll be purely guessing. I'm sorry but I'm a science guy. If I don't have accuracy in numbers then I would rather explain the effect something may have whether it be aero or whatever and let other who may or may not have more accurate numbers use my information. Me making a pure guess is just misleading people which I do not want to do.

Honestly the only reason that I made such a lengthy reply which may have come across to you as attacking him was because of how he stuck to his 0.3 figure and 80 hp figure without considering other options (from what I can tell from his posts). He was set on that figure. There is nothing wrong with that, that is your opinion based on your calculations. My aim was simply to provide evidence of many variables that his numbers did not (and most likely cannot) incorporate.

Honestly before you want to accuse me of something then get your facts straight, he did claim 0.3 seconds for the whole lap. Right here, "On the Hungaroring straight a 160 hp difference (and everything else being equal) makes 0.6 sec loss per lap. However, on my estimates Maclaren are only about 80 hp behind Mercedes." He then goes on to admit that his calculation is only for one straight but still wants to only claim 80hp deficit to Mercedes (for the whole lap). That is just conflicting yourself.

My last quote. The guy simply has a problem accepting another view than his and claims his calculations are "hard proven math." Don't believe me? Well then here, "This is up to you what to believe - media rumors or math calculations. The calculator that I posted is using "hard proven" information (length of straight, corner exit speed, speed trap), various internet sources (F1 car frontal area, F1 CDA, DTL) that have reasonable small margin of error, and what remains is the power. 120 hp difference simply can not match what we know for CDA and car frontal area of F1 cars. Also, as I said this calculation perfectly matches what Button says about 0.3 sec loss on the straight." - the problem is that in my eyes his calculations have HUGE margins of error and to many variables that simply cannot be filled for a pure simple math calculation like this to be reasonably accurate.

So yes to sum it up, I do usually, quite purposefully, tend to leave out numbers that I cannot be accurate on for whatever reason. I am not mandated by anybody to give numbers, especially when I know those numbers are inaccurate.

I do not want to derail the thread any more as your comment and this one has done so that is all I will say on the matter here. If you have a problem with the way I say or phrase things you are welcome to PM me.

Lastly. Maybe his numbers are reasonably correct. Problem is that with the variables I introduced in the previous post it leaves to large a margin of error to claim hard math as he did. That is all.

[trinidefender]

There is a lot of talk about Boullier claiming a 120hp deficit. Yet something that has struck me as odd is that I have only seen it from one article and I think one or two other copycat articles. If he actually was quoted as saying this then all or the big name magazine titles would have jumped on it and printed a story about it. Yet they didn't. To me that screams that maybe that quote was made up (which happens more often than you think in F1 journalism).

The number may or may not be accurate however I am going to doubt it at least for now.

[hollus]

I think Trini is right in this one. This is far from a scientific approach. Cd.A is just a wild guess assumed constant between teams, which makes no sense. 790m is the lenght of the straight, not of the acceleration zone in the straight. Assuming the same exit speed is just not valid in this case, the Maccas are acknowledgedly the worst car at that right now. And top speeds are influenced by drag more than by power.
That said, it is a valiant modeling effort, and better some numbers than none. In this case j.yank did give all his numbers and assumptions (although spread over several posts), which is lovely and the thing to do. But it's a model, not the "hard" truth, and the 0.3s in the straight can be "calculated" in many different ways.
In the interest of transparency and because nobody called me to this discussion, I have to say that I also have a beef with the "hard proven" information claim, that's why I am here to suggest that the tone of the posts drops a level. A model is a model. I also have to say that the upvote for the numbers in the straight is also mine, as a hidden (now open) thank you to j-yank for actually explicitly saying where the numbers came from (more of that, please!).
One more comment:
Turbo, the performance drop of a car hat sudddenly loses 120HP, or whatever is always going to be larger than the lap time deficit of a car that knew that it was going into the race with that amount of power and that was set-up accordingly. In this case you carry less drag, need less fuel saving, you have the brakes tuned accordingly and your tyre temp can be made to stay in a reasonable range. I don't think that the deficit is 160HP either (anyways, is that peak power, average power or what?!), but the comparison with the limping car from Raikkonen or Rosberg is probably the wrong one to make.

[Thunder]

For what it's worth, the following is from the Autosport forums where a user questioned Mark Hughes.

This is what the original post was:

from now on i couldn't care less if anyone says chassis is "3 rd ranked" non-sense unless i see it on the track, those deficit calculations to determine chassis rank by benson or hughes etc are utter non-sense.

Look at redbull they clearly showed what a good chassis can do they took it to ferrari, and McLaren are struggling to make any difference, and ppl say they are behind Merc n similar to ferrari in terms of chassis BS non-sense.

And Mark answered that:

Hi **********,

Re your comment 'unless i see it on the track, those deficit calculations to determine chassis rank by benson or hughes etc are utter non-sense.'

So aggressive! Anyway, quite happy to explain how they are derived. The teams measure each others' engine power from sonic readings. They know to within a very high degree of accuracy what horsepower they all have. They also know with a good level of accuracy exactly how much lap time around any given circuit the horsepower is worth (obviously it's worth more around Monza than Monaco, for example). So that makes it quite a simple task of maths to work out what the remaining deficit (if any) is. That tells you with a fair degree of certainty how far off the chassis is. That tends to be simplistic however - because a lack of power usually also means the car cannot run as much wing as it would be able to if it had more power, so tending to exaggerate the deficit. But using this method, the general consensus from teams in the paddock is that the Mercedes is the best chassis but that both the Red Bull and the McLaren are better than Ferrari and Williams. You mention Red Bull showing more convincingly than McLaren the quality of their car. But the Red Bull is only around 50bhp down on the Mercedes whereas the McLaren is around 130bhp down. That power difference (between Renault and Honda) is worth around 0.9s of lap time around an average length track.

Call it BS if you wish, it's simply an order of magnitude calculation.

Best wishes

Mark Hughes

and

It shouldn't matter if I follow thread or not, really. But anyway, no problem. I'm not offended.

Red Bull has proved a lot since Silverstone. You can read all about why in my Hungary GP report here:

At Hungaroring horsepower not worth as much lap time as many other tracks. Hence why Red Bull as quick as Ferrari despite having 30bhp less. At Spa and Monza expect Ferrari and Williams to both be quicker as the horsepower counts for a lot more lap time at those tracks.

The McLaren aero is developing at about the same rate as that of Mercedes - as the percentage gap since Melbourne to now remains about the same. Merc say its car is now around 0.6-0.7s faster than it was at Melbourne. McLaren say their car is about 0.7s faster. So the gap remains much the same. Since its recent updates the Red Bull is probably more like 0.75-0.8s faster than in Melbourne.

Average track 10bhp worth about 0.13s per lap.
Renault engine 50bhp less than Mercedes = 5 x 0.13 = 0.65s. So 0.65s of Red Bull's deficit of about 1s is engine. The rest the car (about 0.35s).
Honda engine 130bhp less than Mercedes (in qualifying. Further away in race trim). = 13 x 0.13s = 1.7s. So 1.7s of McLaren's deficit of about 2s is engine. The rest is car (about 0.3s)
Ferrari engine 20bhp less than Mercedes. = 2 x 0.13s = 0.26s. So 0.26s of Ferrari's deficit of about 0.8s is engine. The rest is car (about 0.54s).
Williams has Mercedes engine. Therefore all its deficit of about 0.8s is car.

Therefore order of chassis/aero: Mercedes/McLaren/Red Bull/Ferrari/Williams. Probably Toro Rosso is ahead of Ferrari on chassis too.

Hope that clarifies.

Not saying anything of it is correct, but it adds to the discussion i think.

[turbof1]

Honestly before you want to accuse me of something then get your facts straight, he did claim 0.3 seconds for the whole lap. Right here, "On the Hungaroring straight a 160 hp difference (and everything else being equal) makes 0.6 sec loss per lap. However, on my estimates Maclaren are only about 80 hp behind Mercedes." He then goes on to admit that his calculation is only for one straight but still wants to only claim 80hp deficit to Mercedes (for the whole lap). That is just conflicting yourself.

Sorry but that is either very subjective reading from you or deliberate trying to warp it in your advantage. He starts the sentence with "on the hungaroring straight". Please tell me how the straight is the whole lap. His statement should and can only be interpreted as "on the straight alone, they loose 0.3s a lap", which means he does not make any statement about the rest of the lap.

I got my facts atleast straight. Try to read the statement straight, then we'll argue. I also feel this has to be done in the topic itself because a correction needed to be done. With success I might add, since the guy gave a detailed explanation on what he meant, on where he got his data and his point of view.

[j.yank]

trinidefender
I will try to lay down my case as systematically as possible.
1. Purpose of the study: to find the HP difference between different engine manufactures in F1. I should specifically emphasize that I am not trying to pinpoint the exact HP of their PU’s. I assume that this is impossible even for them (to know the competitor’s exact HP).
2. Approach. There are two ways to make a model of the real PU’s differences: detailization and generalization. The first one is to put as many as possible parameters and thus to find the closest to the reality output. Of course, this is going away from our “Purpose of the study”, but most importantly, if you don’t have real world data for each of these many parameters, you will increase the error margin, and basically you will create a model of non-linear chaotic system which is sensitive on initial conditions. This is something that I would like to avoid. The second way, generalization, is to reduce the parameters to as less as possible. In this case your probability output range will be wider but the error margin will fall into this range. This is OK with our “Purpose of the study”, because the same error margin and the same probability range will be relevant for each PU and we can work with the centered value of the range: let say 860 (+/- 20) HP for Mercedes. The same (+/-20) will apply to MH, RedBull and Ferrari. In this way we can reasonably talk about the difference between them, not about their actual power. Very important initial condition: we should try to model only the speed trap real world data in qualifications, because only then the teams all are running with lowest fuel just above the minimum car weight, and all drivers are trying to put the whole available power on the speed trap straight. If you try to make the same exercise with speed traps from the race, you will compare apples with oranges.
3. Data Sources. I will outline each of them separately. Note that for some of them I am talking as “hard proven data”, not as “hard proven math” (as you tried to put wrongly in my mouth).
3(a). Straight Length, Corner Speed Exit, Speed Trap: go to FIA site and you will find a map describing the values for each corner and speed trap points: http://www.fia.com/events/fia-formula-1 ... uit-data-8
Then you can go to Google Earth and trace the length of the Speed Trap Straight. The Speed Trap for Qualification you will find at the same place on FIA site. These are the “hard proven data”.
3(b). Car Frontal Area (CFA). There are many speculations about F1 CFA but most are centered around 1.3 m2. The most accurate attempt to pinpoint this value I found here: http://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/ca ... passing-1/
this guy talks about CDA, too. Note that 0.01 in CFA gives you about 0.62 km/h difference on Hungaroring straight, but because of the F1 regulations the CFA of all cars are very close to each other. You can use CFA for very fine-tuning of the modeled output, which I think, is not necessary in our case.
3(c). Drag Coefficient (CDA). Many sources are talking about this but we can use the wiki article as good reference point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobil ... oefficient
You can guess that on circuits like Monza or Canada you should go with the lowest values of 0.7-1.1 range. For Monaco and Hungaroring values above or around 1.0 should be applied. Note that 0.01 in CDA gives you about 0.8 km/h difference on Hungaroring. In other words, the calculator is quite sensitive to CDA.
3(d). Drive Train Loss (DTL). Actually this is the most interesting and controversial parameter that can absorb much of the generalization of the whole model. Speaking about the DTL in its classical terms, you will find on the net that for sport cars this is pointed to be about 15%. Many people assume that specifically for F1 this value should be as low as 5%. On the same time, the classic sport cars don’t have such problems with the engine mappings like the current F1. So, we can factor the engine mapping losses into DTL. Taking this, we can assume that the cars of engine manufactures (Mercedes and Ferrari) or those that have special relations with them (McLaren, RedBull), have DTL about 7%. The client teams have higher DTL about 9% exactly because they have problems to synchronize the PU with the clutch, gearbox and wheels (because they don’t have firsthand data for PU regimes). Note that a 1 % difference in DTL will give you about 7-8.5 hp difference in power. Interestingly, I found that if we stick to some numbers for DTL throughout all races the modeled output values are more close to the reality, because the differences are better explained with the CDA and CFA rather with DTL. Yes, here we have a lot of assumptions and generalizations but they work for the “Purpose of the study”.
4. Processing and Results. I ran the calculator for five race in 2014 and five races in 2015. Because they are different circuits with different CDA, and CDF and DTL are almost constant (or very close), you can get the center point of the power probability range for each car. Based on this I got that in 2014 Mercedes had 790 HP, Ferrari – 740 HP, RedBull – 760 HP. In 2015 Mercedes has 860 HP, Ferrari – 850 HP, RedBull - 790-800 HP, McLaren – 780 HP. The fine-tuning for each race can give you very interesting insights about the possible strategies of each team on different circuits. At, example, all client teams are running with lower CDA to compensate the DTL and this often gives them the best speed traps but they are sinking in the corners. In Monaco McLaren had tried to emulate this strategy but they ended behind the Mercedes clients because they lack their speed on straights. When the qualification speed trap of Hungaroring became available in Saturday, I found that this time McLaren were running with higher CDA than the client teams and that there are good chances in the race they to leapfrog them. Which happened on the next day: despite all dramas with punctures and penalties, McLaren had equal tempo with the 6th car throughout the whole race, and in any case this would guaranteed to them at least 9th and 10th places.

Now, a final note about how important is to know the exact numbers of all these parameters and many more. If you have these exact numbers, you can run very detailed models and work with them not as chaotic system but as deterministic equitation of functions. In this way you can make very reasonable strategies for each race, and in this way to fight your competitors. That’s why I don’t buy any media statements about power differences. We should realize that the teams are fighting not only on the track but also in media. You must try to trick your competitor on every occasion. Again, this is not my “Purpose of the study”. I only want to find a reasonable guess what the difference between the powers of each PU is.

P.S. 0.3 sec loss on the straight is loss in the lap, too. Neither had I, neither Button talked that this is the only loss through the whole lap.

[Jef Patat]

Can anyone explain this?

The teams measure each others' engine power from sonic readings. They know to within a very high degree of accuracy what horsepower they all have. They also know with a good level of accuracy exactly how much lap time around any given circuit the horsepower is worth (obviously it's worth more around Monza than Monaco, for example).

How can they go from a sonic reading to a hp estimate?

[turbof1]

I think Trini is right in this one. This is far from a scientific approach. Cd.A is just a wild guess assumed constant between teams, which makes no sense. 790m is the lenght of the straight, not of the acceleration zone in the straight. Assuming the same exit speed is just not valid in this case, the Maccas are acknowledgedly the worst car at that right now. And top speeds are influenced by drag more than by power.
That said, it is a valiant modeling effort, and better some numbers than none. In this case j.yank did give all his numbers and assumptions (although spread over several posts), which is lovely and the thing to do. But it's a model, not the "hard" truth, and the 0.3s in the straight can be "calculated" in many different ways.
In the interest of transparency and because nobody called me to this discussion, I have to say that I also have a beef with the "hard proven" information claim, that's why I am here to suggest that the tone of the posts drops a level. A model is a model. I also have to say that the upvote for the numbers in the straight is also mine, as a hidden (now open) thank you to j-yank for actually explicitly saying where the numbers came from (more of that, please!).
One more comment:
Turbo, the performance drop of a car hat sudddenly loses 120HP, or whatever is always going to be larger than the lap time deficit of a car that knew that it was going into the race with that amount of power and that was set-up accordingly. In this case you carry less drag, need less fuel saving, you have the brakes tuned accordingly and your tyre temp can be made to stay in a reasonable range. I don't think that the deficit is 160HP either (anyways, is that peak power, average power or what?!), but the comparison with the limping car from Raikkonen or Rosberg is probably the wrong one to make.

Fair enough. That's a very reasonable counter argument. The 160bhp (or was it now 120bhp? I think those 2 numbers often circulate in the media) deficit however sounds very much as an excageration. even with re-optimization I don't think Mclaren would be capable of keeping up that much as they they do now, if we assume that deficit.

You also made a good question. j-yank said he took the qualifying data, so that'll be peak power what he discusses. In the race it's not 160bhp since the battery is not allowed to store that much energy throughout the lap. So it'll be lower then 160bhp on average you'll loose when the ers systems shut down. The mgu-k itself is quite fixed and I'll look into it later on. However, the mgu-h is unlimited in what it is allowed to generate. The answer on how much exactly a car produces on ers energy lies somewhere between what the mgu-k harvests and the 160bhp.

In the interest of transparency and because nobody called me to this discussion, I have to say that I also have a beef with the "hard proven" information claim, that's why I am here to suggest that the tone of the posts drops a level. A model is a model. I also have to say that the upvote for the numbers in the straight is also mine, as a hidden (now open) thank you to j-yank for actually explicitly saying where the numbers came from (more of that, please!).

I think you hit the nail right there. The tone of discussion went sideways, with j-yank feeling attacked and he on his turn biting back a bit too much. As you said and as I'm very sure he'll be inmediately to underline: it's a model. Something trinidefender failed to conceive, and something that is key. A model is an attempt to get closer to the truth, but is not put down as the truth.

[GoranF1]

Here is what a different "calculator" says...

Hi Alonsofan007,

Re your comment 'unless i see it on the track, those deficit calculations to determine chassis rank by benson or hughes etc are utter non-sense.'

So aggressive! Anyway, quite happy to explain how they are derived. The teams measure each others' engine power from sonic readings. They know to within a very high degree of accuracy what horsepower they all have. They also know with a good level of accuracy exactly how much lap time around any given circuit the horsepower is worth (obviously it's worth more around Monza than Monaco, for example). So that makes it quite a simple task of maths to work out what the remaining deficit (if any) is. That tells you with a fair degree of certainty how far off the chassis is. That tends to be simplistic however - because a lack of power usually also means the car cannot run as much wing as it would be able to if it had more power, so tending to exaggerate the deficit. But using this method, the general consensus from teams in the paddock is that the Mercedes is the best chassis but that both the Red Bull and the McLaren are better than Ferrari and Williams. You mention Red Bull showing more convincingly than McLaren the quality of their car. But the Red Bull is only around 50bhp down on the Mercedes whereas the McLaren is around 130bhp down. That power difference (between Renault and Honda) is worth around 0.9s of lap time around an average length track.

Call it BS if you wish, it's simply an order of magnitude calculation.

Best wishes

Mark Hughes

[turbof1]

Sonic readings will probably be much more accurate. Unfortunaly, this is also data that stays within the teams. We don't have that alternative to use for a model.

I have one big question mark on what Mark Hughes says: the numbers he mentions, can he actually confirm those sprouted out of the sonic readings, or is he basing himself on comments from team principals? I don't tend to think team principals are honest about this, trying to excagerate their issues.

I think the reality is that unless you have an intern contact with an engineer in the PU department, journalists know as much as any technically informed fan.

[j.yank]

OK, taking into account all criticism on the calculator approach, let see what we will have if put that MH have 80 hp or 120 hp down from Mercedes. The Rosberg speed trap of 317.4 km/h can be emulated pretty close with SL of 790 m, CES of 150 km/h (latest readings on FIA site), CFA = 1.312, CDA = 1.02, DTL = 7%, and power of 860 hp. Let assume that MH has all of these settings except that the power is 80 hp down - 780 hp. In this case the calculated speed trap is coming at 307.33 km/h which is only 2.3 km/h off from the actual speed trap of Alonso (309.6 km/h) and almost the same like Button speed trap which is 307.6 km/h. Now, let see what will happen if we put 740 (120 down) hp instead of 780. The calculated speed trap in this case is 302.02 km/h. To match the real speed traps we have to lower the CDA to 0.93 OR to make the CFA 1.2 OR to put DTL to 1%. 1% DTL is clearly impossible, 1.2 CFA can not be achieved with these FIA rules, 0.93 CDA is so low for this circuit that MH will loss all chances against other teams even in the low speed corners. So, the best guess is that 80 hp difference betwenn MH and Mercedes is much more realistic than 120 not to speak about 130 or 160 hp.