Dinostar77 wrote:

Mercedes have admitted RedBull is the class of the field this season at the moment. The car isnt as quick as RB's and more worryingly for them, they are struggling to get to the bottom of the issues with the snappy rear end.

Unless they are being economical with the truth.

It’s all in supposition I think it might be closer than previous years but I guarantee merc will turn up and be competitive

I think this season might be the toughest test Lewis will have had for a while. Max will win races, Perez will be a huge factor. Ferrari will be very close as well. Mclaren look quick. Cant wait for sunday.

i think Ferrari will be close - last season they were really hurt by the loss of engine power, but their cornering performance was often right up there with merc and RB...if they've sorted their engine/straightline speed without compromising too much elsewhere they could be right back in it.

then again, i don't know anything and there's not been much chatter along those lines on the F1 sites so maybe they're just another midfield runner again.

RamSteelwood wrote:

i think Ferrari will be close - last season they were really hurt by the loss of engine power, but their cornering performance was often right up there with merc and RB...if they've sorted their engine/straightline speed without compromising too much elsewhere they could be right back in it.

then again, i don't know anything and there's not been much chatter along those lines on the F1 sites so maybe they're just another midfield runner again.

They have gained back the lost HP according to Binotto. So in terms of engine they are on par with Renault / Honda / Mercedes. I dont totally understand how that works with the token useage for development in the offseason.

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/articles/single-seaters/f1/where-has-each-f1-team-spent-its-2021-development-tokens


Where has each team spent their F1 tokens?
Mercedes – The team opted not to divulge where it spent tokens at the launch of the W12, with technical director James Allison admitting that it was purely to prevent teams from having more time to copy any new designs the team will run in 2021. “We have spent our tokens, but we won’t reveal how we used them just yet. That’ll become clear in good time.”

Red Bull – Red Bull hasn’t revealed where it spent development tokens but after a year battling rear-end instability, a spend to introduce a rear suspension system similar to that of Mercedes would not be a foolish estimation to make as it seeks to regain lost downforce from the regulation changes.

McLaren – As per Article 22.8.6, the team has had to spend both of its development tokens fitting a Mercedes power unit into its chassis for 2021, under the watchful eye of the FIA which ensured that they weren’t making changes purely for performance gain. The team said last season it was not happy with the token system allowing Aston Martin to adopt 2020 Mercedes parts free of charge.

Aston Martin – Due to a loophole in the regulations, Aston Martin will adopt the 2020 Mercedes rear suspension free of charge, because it ran the 2019 version last year. This allowed it to spend its development tokens on modifying the survival cell of its AMR21.

Alpine – Another team to focus on the rear of its ’21 car, Alpine hasn’t said specifically where it has spent its tokens. “A lot of changes at the rear of the car, this is where we focused our attention because that’s where the regulations have impacted it,” Alpine executive director Marcin Budkowski said.

Ferrari – The new Ferrari features an altered front nose cone design to move closer to the Mercedes-style design but the team has focused its token spend on the rear of the car. The SF21 will have a new rear transmission and suspension in an effort to gain back lost downforce at the back of the car.

AlphaTauri – The team says it has spent its tokens on the front of its car, specifically a new nose and outboard front suspension. “We believe the chassis and power unit provides a good baseline, so we are happy to have spent our tokens elsewhere for 2021,” technical director Jody Egginton said.

Alfa Romeo – Alfa technical boss Jan Monchaux was upfront about the team spending its development tokens on the front of the car. A new nose design was the focus during the winter. “We decided to invest our two tokens on a new nose, so the nose box and the crash box obviously is brand new, which was mainly driven for aero reasons,” Monchaux said.

Haas – A team that is already fully focused on 2022, Haas hasn’t spent any development tokens iterating its VF-20. “We didn’t use the development tokens this year. I wouldn’t say it’s a holding season, more of a transitional season,” team principal Gunther Steiner said during the team’s livery launch.

Williams – Having already spent a single token in 2020, Williams hasn’t developed elsewhere.”We spent one of our tokens last year and I’m not going to divulge where we spent it because we spent one last year and that left us with only one over,” team principal Simon Roberts said. “There wasn’t enough to get into the nose or any of the structures.”

Tokens? The fuck is this shite. Have they introduced loot boxes to F1 now?

g.man wrote:

Tokens? The fuck is this shite. Have they introduced loot boxes to F1 now?

Tokens have been in play since the turbo hybrid era. It’s to stop the bigger teams out spending on development

It should be tiered system though. The fact that Williams have used up their tokens last year and were still shit doesn't really give them the opportunity to catch up.

g.man wrote:

I'm going to be very disappointed if these tokens aren't a real physical thing.

Eric wrote:

It should be tiered system though. The fact that Williams have used up their tokens last year and were still shit doesn't really give them the opportunity to catch up.

Its tiered this season onwards for wind tunnel time. Williams got 112% allocation and Mercedes had the least. This will have an impact over next few seasons.


New sliding scale on aerodynamic testing in F1

Red Bull or Alonso Renault?

FranticPea wrote:

Red Bull or Alonso Renault?

Perfect secret santa pressies for bob

top 8 within 1 second....then again, max's time is about 2s slower than he did in testing a couple of weeks ago, so there's obviously lots of room for improvement. Question is will that spread them out more or see them get even closer....

I just listened to it on BBC but a friend mentioned that Ted was reporting on Sky that it was "sandy".

Ooh, cheers

Early days but Norris, Sainz, Tsunoda, Stroll, Ocon and Giovinazzi all outperformed teammates who would really be expected to be beating them in FP2, Bottas, Perez and Latifi did not (some are still learning new cars); not much to say about Haas but it's fairly satisfying to see Mazepin running last.