Interesting comments from Mark Hughes, I'm not saying they're accurate but given who he is it's quite fun to read. Make of it what you will.
In response to a fan's comments...
"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
Further.......
"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."
If that is accurate it would tie in with Ron's "village idiot" interview with Brundle at Silverstone about McLaren knowing the 'numbers' from the car, and where they are/deficits lay.
