nico5 wrote: ↑Sat Jan 11, 2025 12:27 am
Pretty obvious I meant changing to a brand new engine. If that meant they could get more than the standard new-engine improvement, they would have certainly done it. Instead, no such extra power mode exists (i.e. been tuned, tested etc.)
It's very well known that such engine modes do very much exist. Hell, they were used constantly before party modes were banned.
Mercedes is well known to have had different engine modes available, but wouldn't use them out of reliability concerns, yet both Hamilton and Rosberg would enable them anyway to get the upper hand. Obviously you can't revise your engine mode upwards after Q1 these days, so you can't do such things. You have to pick an engine mode that you're confident will last the race distance.
Like yes, they could've broken parc ferme and given him a new engine after the qualifying disaster, but that would mean a pitlane start. In hindsight they probably should've given him a fully new engien before quali, but they probably expected him to start around p13 and preferred that over p20 with a new engine.
So their choice was p13 and a slow engine or p20 and a really fast one, which turned into p19(?) and a slow engine or pitlane and a really fast engine. You probably still take the former if the difference isn't something like half a second per lap. The preference for pitlane starts before the end of the season is because you get to carry the advantage of an extra engine with you for the rest of the season, but you get no such advantage in the last race.