Well yeah. They get a ton of extra wind tunnel time and CFD time because they were at the back of the grid so they come in with more tested ideas. But then the rest of the year they’re on more or less equal footing from a testing angle.
This has confused me before, is there only one wind tunnel or something? Why on earth is testing time restricted? Can they not build more tunnels? Is there a safety reason it’d be bad to test the aerodynamics of the car a lot?
It’s for making the playing field a bit more level: the fastest cars get less testing time so they cannot improve as much as the slower cars that get more wind tunnel time. But this implies that you have a budget and personnel for this
Well yeah. They get a ton of extra wind tunnel time and CFD time because they were at the back of the grid so they come in with more tested ideas. But then the rest of the year they’re on more or less equal footing from a testing angle.
This has confused me before, is there only one wind tunnel or something? Why on earth is testing time restricted? Can they not build more tunnels? Is there a safety reason it’d be bad to test the aerodynamics of the car a lot?
It’s for making the playing field a bit more level: the fastest cars get less testing time so they cannot improve as much as the slower cars that get more wind tunnel time. But this implies that you have a budget and personnel for this
Or actual ambition. Gene Haas is perfectly fine watching cars drive his logo around the track while the value of an F1 team slot goes up