Ryar wrote: ↑Thu Jan 27, 2022 6:09 am
henry wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 10:43 pm
Just_a_fan wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 2:52 pm
I think AT will be used as a test team for the senior team at Red Bull. Try stuff on the AT, using AT's development allowances (budget, wind tunnel and CPU time) and then if it works, try it on the Red Bull. It would be a sensible thing to do if they can get away with it.
Quite how the FIA stops this sort of thing happening between closely aligned teams is going to be interesting.
Is there much evidence of this happening in previous seasons?
It's a theory. So far, AT used their own wind tunnel (50% model) and their own development path, except for the last couple of years where they started using a lot of components from RB, motivated by Haas and Ferrari transactions. With 2022 car, AT has started using RB wind tunnel (60% model) and continue to buy parts from RB. A new and more robust wind tunnel should help better correlate the data, develop teh car better and keep them in contention with bigger teams facing budget restriction. IMO, they have left Gasly at AT and not moved him to RB as they probably bet bigger on the success in 2022 at AT and need a strong team leader. Will they be used as a guinea pig for RB like just_a_fan says, is difficult to imagine and can only be potentially possible if both cares are absolutely identiical. Otherwise, testing "stuff" on AT if their car has, even slightly different aerodynamic characterstics is a useless exercise for RB. It remains to be seen if there can be utilization of AT wind tunnel allowance by RB, which would be violation of the regulations, but how do they practically monitor it and finds out would be interesting.
They do not have to monitor. Someone is always singing (crashgate, spygate just as big examples) and here we are talking about involvement of low employees that switch teams without gardening leave. No one can outsource or share projects like this.
What is more difficult to police is if the CTO of one team is calling the one from the partner team. But I do not think that is a super beneficial way to deal infos in modern F1.
Ferrari and Haas were different as Haas was out of the rules.
So let us look at what is possible and I think there are very relevant parts shared:
- Brake ducts. As the rules are completely new here the improvements will be strong. I can not imagine that RB buys them from Torro...but that would be an interesting sneak through the rules...
- Air flow and cooling inside the car. A very, very relevant point. I think the engine manufacturer can share info on cooling requirements and tipps and tricks between the teams and can get feedback.
- Wing concepts. If two teams share one wind tunnel, of course they can see the models of the other team and at least see/identify concepts.