Mercedes-Benz wrote:
Lotus49 wrote:
I think the engine change was more harmful to their chassis than they'd like to admit or had anticipated. The Honda gave great packaging advantages,their suspension was praised and a fair amount of drag comes from poor internal packaging which wasn't an issue with Honda as the car was built for it. They had to change their gearbox bell housing and suspension at the rear as well to fit in the Renault.
As poor a job as they did with the new suspension and rear of the car in general, I think if that was the only change they made over the winter it would've went better but they massively changed the front of the car as well with the new nose concept. And they struggled to get it past the crash test, it was 3 months late and only passed on 11th April I believe. So until Spain they had the old front of the car mixed with the new rear and not optimised packaging of the Renault through lack of experience which can cause more drag.
That's 3 pretty sizeable changes for just one winter so you can imagine the strain on each department, they'd have had to split the work and this doesn't include those working on other aspects like the floor,diffuser,bargeboards,front and back brake ducts,front wing,rear wing and of course the halo.
That's a helluva workload for one winter that would've had even the half billion dollar and 1000+ workers teams in a mad rush to get it to track.
We can tell there is a fault in this particular chassis that wasn't present on last years by looking at performance on Saturday and Sunday. Last year if they were 5th or 6th fastest then they were 5th or 6th fastest on both days. This year they've regularly been 6/7th fastest on Saturday, sometimes worse like Canada where they looked 8th/9th, but still on a Sunday they are fighting for 4th quickest, even in Canada on Sunday Alonso was matching Hulk's pace in the race. Now Alonso's good but he aint that good. There's clearly an issue in how they work the tyres on a Saturday which wasn't present last year.
It's such an obvious fault we don't have to guess if last years car was as bad as this, we can see it in the data it had no such problem like that. That doesn't mean it was a world beater to be clear but it didn't share these faults, we can see that.
Mclaren seem to a bit better in race but I do not think they have been 4th best in any weekend this year. Obviously there is not much overtaking so qualifying pretty much decides the race on Sunday. Australia Haas were the 4th best team and K Mag had a solid P6 in Spain. FI had podium in Baku and a good P6 in Monaco. Gasly had that amazing weekend in Bahrain etc ... Renault have been fairly consistent. The midfield battle is going to be interesting through the year. I would say Mclaren is 5th or 6th best team and today they hit a new low. Alonso has qualified only twice in Q3 that pretty much says it all.
But I still think RBR will not join this group next year lol. They should be quite way ahead of this pack though with Honda may have more DNF hopefully it will be on Friday or Honda and diagnose and fix this issue before next year.
They've not been outright 4th no, but they've been on the 4th teams pace in the race in clear air a few times with Alonso, China,Monaco and Canada off the top of my head, and fighting for 4-5th in Spain and Australia. Alonso has done plenty of overtaking, they've been qualifying in 12-15 usually and he's been running in the points every race.
The difference between Saturday and Sunday has been quite clear with only Australia and Spain looking like doing the same on a Saturday. Monaco I'm not convinced wasn't a case of others blowing it and Alonso not in Q2.
It's not new though, this is the same as Canada, as predicted. On predominantly slow speed corners and straights they look the worst car out there tbh, the Williams is getting let down by the drivers. They'll be bad in Austria as well and then back fighting for Q3 in Silverstone with or without upgrades (But they'll have upgrades).
No quick fix either as they need either a new suspension which means new gearbox bell housing design and suspension design or a shed tonne more rear d/f which if they pile on with the rear wing kills them on the straights. They've been trying to run more d/f but most d/f comes from the floor and diffuser and they're obviously not cutting it either.
Red Bull will be fine, the Honda is smaller,lighter and better packaged. Performance wise they're close enough in most areas and there's no real reason to expect them to fall way behind again, they won't try a new concept as there's nothing hindering this one.