2019 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, March 15-17

[Capharol]

can you two cut it now....
because this discussion has nothng to do with AUSGP and both of you are right in some things, and then you both are wrong on other.

just agree to disagree

[matteosc]

Its how the car bounces on the bumps, not cornering performance that they're talking about. The mercs are quite stiffly sprung.

However, since it doesn't affect cornering grip, its hard to understand why many think this is slowing them down and equally difficult to see how they can gain much more speed by getting rid of their stiffly sprung set up.

Bouncing on bumps is very relevant to cornering grip, as the airflow below the car and therefore the downforce are highly influenced. I suspect that their soft setup and high rake doesn't work that well with bumps an uneven surfaces.

Its not that simple, especially as the Merc is much faster than most through the corners.
A lot depends on how the various parts of the car compensate (or not) aero performance when in oversteer or understeer conditions.

Obviously is just one of the effect, but the Mercedes has a very low rake, so that it should be less sensitive to changes in height. It is just a different approach as is looks like Ferrari generate more downforce from the floor than Mercedes. A lot of factors are involved in the stiffness of the springs, I don't think we can just compare two very different approaches by focusing only on one factor.

[Wynters]

The truth probably lies in the most underrated aspect of our sport which is team work. I think Lewis was awfully managed at McLaren and I think the same is happening for Seb at Ferrari.

I think that's an astute point.

[Artur Craft]

I didn't spot this initally, but here's bottas absolutely bossing T11-12 on his second q3 lap:

https://streamable.com/jdc51

Because of a bit slower entry speed (5 kmh down on the straight) he almost takes it flat

Amazing, quite a bit faster than LH

That is where Hamilton’s strong point is the last couple of years. He just doesn’t make (big) mistakes and rarely is off pace. Where Vettel and Verstappen have off days or silly costly mistakes he doesn’t.

I'm not sure which F1 you were watching, but one thing that can not be denied is that hamilton did have off weekends in the last couple of years where he simply wasn't on the pace. I remember russia in 2017 and canada last year off the top of my head, maybe there were some others. He didn't make any costly mistakes though.

On the other side, verstappen and vettel are pretty much never off the pace, but are more error prone.

agree. Hamilton was massively off the pace on Monaco 2017 as well. And that to stop on 2017/2018.

Your condesending theory falls flat on its head because RB14 was faster trough pretty much every corner in 2018 than RB15 is in 2019, and was also faster than mercedes (not even gonna include ferrari here), something that clearly isn't the case this year. Comparing red bull to mclaren is just dumb, no offence. RB has actually proven their worth by winning races where PU was not as important and by often times having the best non-power hungry sectors on various tracks.
All I'm waiting for you to say now is that renault PU was more or less equal last year and then I've seen it all.

It's amazing how one can compare RB to Mclaren. To make it simple, you just need to realise that RB beaten Mercedes/Ferrari on places where PU is less important

A simple explanation as to why Hamilton was slightly faster on Abu Dhabi s3 is because Merc can run all downforce they want while RB needs to compensate with a lower drag configuration. On a place like Monaco, where everybody uses max downforce, RB got pole/win

[Schuttelberg]

The truth probably lies in the most underrated aspect of our sport which is team work. I think Lewis was awfully managed at McLaren and I think the same is happening for Seb at Ferrari.

I think that's an astute point.

Thanks mate!

[komninosm]

Your condesending theory falls flat on its head because RB14 was faster trough pretty much every corner in 2018 than RB15 is in 2019, and was also faster than mercedes (not even gonna include ferrari here), something that clearly isn't the case this year. Comparing red bull to mclaren is just dumb, no offence. RB has actually proven their worth by winning races where PU was not as important and by often times having the best non-power hungry sectors on various tracks.
All I'm waiting for you to say now is that renault PU was more or less equal last year and then I've seen it all.

Would you like to answer my original question?
If RedBull had got back to 2018 downforce levels, and Honda have given them a huge power gain to compete, why are they only 0.5 faster?

Remembering Ferrari and Merc made bigger jumps but there's no way they have gained as much BHP as RedBull have over the winter.

3 explanations imo:
1. RB/helmut marko are lying about how much downforce they managed to regain.
2. merc/ferrari regained all their downforce and then some
3. both of the above

Option 3 seems the most plausible. Onboard footage and accompanying telemetry would confirm this. RB gained massive power boost, but dropped the ball on the chassis side, kinda like the start of 2017, but a stronger engine is compensating this year.

Or
4. None of the above cause you have no evidence for it and only weak conjectures.

[aral]

There are several posters who are at each others throats, both claiming to be more knowledgeable than the other! As a result , insults are being bandied about. This is supposed to be an amicable forum, so could those offenders please calm down. The Australian GP is done and dusted, so forget it. Just move on.