Is that really true now in the cost cap era, though? The midfield is pretty tightly bunched and performance seems to be based according to track rather than much else. I'm sure that was as the regs intended, yet RB are miles ahead somehow.
Poll: Official 2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix Thread - Corniche Circuit, Jeddah - Round 2
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Soldato
I think each team can run 3 cars even now but with the budget cap that's not really going to work, especially if you're unlucky with reliability or crashes.
Or Lance Stroll is driving for you.
Is that true? I never knew that. Is it technically unlimited how many cars they can field then?
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They used to have a fully assembled spare car at the race weekend in case of accidents etc, I would happily boot out a team and let the remainder have 3 each, I've always thought it would be hard for teams to favour one driver in that scenario as the other two could gang up on them. That or a spec series but I realise that is an unpopular view so I will compromise on 3 car teams 
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Imagine a RedBull 1,2,3 every race though...They used to have a fully assembled spare car at the race weekend in case of accidents etc, I would happily boot out a team and let the remainder have 3 each, I've always thought it would be hard for teams to favour one driver in that scenario as the other two could gang up on them. That or a spec series but I realise that is an unpopular view so I will compromise on 3 car teams
At least another team can nab a podium at the moment.
Soldato
It's up to the rest of the field to just catch up, just look at how Mclaren improved their performance last year, and not to attempt to 'fix' the performance of the Red Bull's to dumb their performance down.
The only way you'd equalise the performance of the cars would be if they were exactly the same and, for someone like myself who enjoys the technical side as much as the races, it would be a bore fest.
I have no problem with this current season, as I haven't with any,...
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Put Alonso and Hamilton in the other two seats and it’s a deal.
Soldato
It was called the 'T car' and it was setup in turn for each driver. They could even swop between the cars in practices and then choose which they found better to drive. It was even the case in the past where the number 1 driver could 'steal' the car from the number 2.They used to have a fully assembled spare car at the race weekend in case of accidents etc, I would happily boot out a team and let the remainder have 3 each, I've always thought it would be hard for teams to favour one driver in that scenario as the other two could gang up on them. That or a spec series but I realise that is an unpopular view so I will compromise on 3 car teams
Soldato
I thought they were allowed 3 but guess I was wrong.
wasn't that something touted before the 3 new manufacturers joined the circus as a means to bolster the grid? feels like a long time ago now that, scary.
As for clipping RBRs wings, not a fan of that approach but there is precedent if "only one team" cracked the code. They'd need to find something very specific RBR are doing though but odds are they've got the total package working that much better than everyone else so not sure what they can nerf in isolation.
As for clipping RBRs wings, not a fan of that approach but there is precedent if "only one team" cracked the code. They'd need to find something very specific RBR are doing though but odds are they've got the total package working that much better than everyone else so not sure what they can nerf in isolation.
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That's the key. It's not about Red Bull. It's about the fact that the other teams are all producing an inferior product, in some cases unacceptably so. If you were in any other business and failed to achieve necessary targets, by as much as many have (including large teams), you'd be sacked. It's the same as the Horner/Jos/Marko etc news - is it news, yes? Is some of it important and needs to be in the public eye? Absolutely, yes.
However, for most of the other team principles, it's just an opportunity to deflect and buy themselves time. As the reality is, they're running dysfunctional teams producing **** cars, it's that simple. Ferrari have been a joke for years, Mercedes dominated once (from the very beginning of a new set of regs etc) but never innovated in that time (resting on laurels etc) and were slowly reeled in ironically by RBR, Williams by all accounts were tracking their car parts using an excel sheet (TP said as much), McLaren have been going through "a transition phase" from Ron Dennis for years now. So, ironically, the teams that likely actually have the poor/toxic environments are the same teams pointing fingers at RBR constantly.
This isn't about being biased, it's just simple deductive reasoning and logic - last word will scare many in these threads, obviously.
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I miss the days when F1 fans were less like football fans. Last decade or so the overall fan base has changed massively, for the negative in my opinion.
Used to be about the pinnacle of speed, innovation and engineering, with racing the vessel for it all.
Now it just nonsensical children bickering, like football fans having a punch up because they wear different colours to each other. Pathetic.
Used to be about the pinnacle of speed, innovation and engineering, with racing the vessel for it all.
Now it just nonsensical children bickering, like football fans having a punch up because they wear different colours to each other. Pathetic.
Absolutely, the constructors were owned and run by the founders Williams, McLaren and others. Its all gone corporate and nice and fuzzy. Without Ross Brawn Ferrari wouldn't have won a thing, even with Schumacher.
I partially agree but I don't think it's that simple. Of course Red Bull (well Adrian) have done a good job in terms of design, but they did breach the cost cap and benefit from that without suitable punishment to truly hamper their advancement on the competition. They got a leap and it's been hard to claw that back.
This also seems to be a reg period with perhaps the most difficult cars to setup. They are really on the edge of being way off vs something competitive. I think this is a result of many things - probably too many to go into - but most notably the requirement to run such low cars to allow for ground effect performance to actually work, in combination with not running too low so as to create porpoising. I mean Merc and Mclaren are still suffering with this as you can audibly hear it on the Halo cams.
What is the solution? As you say, teams frankly need to just do better. There is really no other way currently. With Merc, they gradually nibbled away at their advantage through rule changes and protests against any innovative feature that became realised. I think the trouble right now, especially since Red Bull just changed concept more radically than first anticipated, is that teams don't really understand why/where/how the RB20 is quick. So they can't even attack flexi wing X or suspension feature Y. Even if Red Bull stand still now for 2024, they will probably only be caught in 2025, where they can gamble on still having enough to compete whilst throwing everything into the 2026 reg changes. The RB20 may well not be beatable now as once the concept is understood, it will probably require chassis and design changes not possible locked inside a current season.
Not dismissing/ignoring your first point about the breach, I just think we can't really comment on it as it's impossible to quantify the advantage it gave - so I'd rather table that, for this discussion.
However, I agree that it's similar to the advantage that Mercedes had at the beginning of the hybrid era, just with their engine really. I also think that due to the cost cap, the FIA has limited themselves in terms of being able to simply ban X & Y - as if many teams have already committed substantial budget to it, you can't do a U-turn, just from a monetary standpoint anymore.
I honestly don't have the answers for the teams, I just know that it's extremely evident (even just from a body language standpoint during interviews etc) that most of the teams are struggling to do their job. I mean Toto has now gone to the length multiple times of admitting that 1) it took them way to long last year to just accept they were wrong and 2) that they are still struggling to understand why they were wrong, the first point especially is a great example of a very poorly run business. We see it with Ferrari all the time, the constant firing and hiring of managers, their refusal to change their internal processes etc.
I suppose that's the difference, in my eyes, between them and Red Bull. In my many decades of watching & working in F1 (I'm the wrong side of 50 unfortunately, retired), I've never seen a team able to adapt and react as quickly as RBR do - even when they're behind. I mean when Vettel won their engine was down on power to all the others and they constantly innovated elsewhere to make up for it.
That's why I don't like seeing the "toxic culture/company" comments about RBR, as it's just clearly not true. You can't function as a team at as high a level as they do, consistently, without a strong team ethic etc. That doesn't excuse anything that's happened recently, obviously.
And I agree, I don't think anyone can come even close to RBR/Max until the upcoming engine change, which will shake everything up naturally - this doesn't bode well for competitive racing necessarily but it's still quite the engineering feat, to create something that dominate. I like that in a way, even if I want to see wheel to wheel action
. I'm a retired engineer though, so naturally, I want to appreciate the machine itself, as well as the driver in it and the team that built it.
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Soldato
Hamilton in a Ferrari that The Moderna Mafia let Newey have a free hand in designing could cause an upset before 2026.
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