Quote Originally Posted by Nitrodaze View Post
Do you remember what it was like at the end of the Schumacher era? It was kind of like this actually. Everyone thought Ferrari would bounce back, but somehow they didn't. Renault sneaked away with two championship wins.

I think there have been some fundamental changes to the Mercedes chassis. For a start, it now has a rack. Converting a low rack car to a high rack car would certainly mess with the fundamentals of the original architecture of the car. We hear of chassis swapping and performance characteristics of the car have obviously dropped below what we saw at Barcelona. They are trying new things and may well find an answer at some point.

But it would not be respectful to Redbull to not acknowledge that they are genuinely the faster car and Mercedes are playing catchup. If Redbull wins at Paul Ricard, they are very much set to win the triple header. Which would effectively set the stage for a Redbull and Verstappen championship win.

This is not a drill, this is real.



I think you mean 'rake' which I agree most likely will have messed with their core design but it seems losing their DAS has also set them back.
For me it is a pretty obvious attempt to slow Merc down... and it's clearly working.

It has always been this way in F1.. but is it wrong to manipulatively knobble dominant teams this way?
As a racing fan first and foremost I love seeing the current extremely close competition, so I accept that it probably has to be this way to remain a spectacle and not a borefest.
However, I can also understand why that might upset those who are strictly fans of individual drivers or teams feeling they are being conspired against.. well, because they are really. :/