Porpoising, what if?

[TypeRTim]

HustleRussell said:

TypeRTim said:

I'm surprised Merc aren't being more vocal about the cost cap considering how much they must've had to spend in both time and materials trying to get their car to work...let alone work quickly and consistently! They must be cutting it pretty fine with the limit considering that they had the smallest budget to begin the year.

I don't know how much they will have spent. They had had incremental developments but no major upgrade package until Silverstone.

They have also finished every race with both cars. I can't remember either of the drivers knocking a corner off. No mechanical failures.

It has looked to me as though they have basically expended a lot of energy into 'understanding' it and have not yet committed a significant amount to 'fixing' it.

What if Ferrari and Red Bull have simply overspent and Mercedes' performance is because they have strategically chosen a flatter development curve where they study and experiment with their first iteration car, ensure it is reliable and plan to take their major developments deeper into the season when they are able to fully understand them and execute them with confidence.

Ferrari and Red Bull have both blown up a good few PUs.

I don't think Mercedes are mugs. I predicted at the start of the season that they would be a factor by the start of European leg of the season. Could they have played it very cool and rigidly executed a conservative strategy which avoids reliability problems and budget dramas?

I don't doubt that RBR have possibly spaffed the majority of their budget early in the naive hope they can 'persuade' the powers that be to raise the cap later in the season. Banking on early dominance is a risky strategy though, you need reliability and that has so far been lacking for both RBR and Ferrari. I don't think that will be a factor in the cost cap though as the PU's are supplied to them based on a maximum cost - almost a fixed price supply so that there aren't extra financial penalties to the teams for PU reliability issues, the supplier/manufacturer simply can't recoup the costs of replacement/extra units from my understanding.

Mercedes have definitely been forced in to a long period of 'fact finding' around their car, from what I've seen/read they've had several different floor designs and a few different front wing designs as they have trialled things to try and dial out the porpoising whilst keeping their ride height low.

[Sandpit Steve]

In definitely, totally unrelated news, Red Bull have just announced a new £6m ‘hypercar’, with a simple render and little else. On the PH front page this morning.

It’s almost as if they need to find some work, for a lot of bored designers and engineers.

[RobGT81]

Sandpit Steve said:

It’s almost as if they need to find some work, for a lot of bored designers and engineers.

Or a mule car and something outside the budget cap to try things with.

[Big Nanas]

From what I read, FIA will continue to gather data on the porpoising issue this weekend and won’t implement any technical directives.

Edited by Big Nanas on Thursday 30th June 19:59