Quote Originally Posted by Mirek View Post
That's natural because even when restricted the development goes on (mainly in the dampers and tyres). However the point is that the gr.B would make a step forward in the same time period as well - and most likely greater than gr.A cars thanks to the bigger freedom of the rules.
the steps forward are different.

during the group b era, teams would put their money on making more powerful engines or bigger aero, since there were big improvements to find there.
that created very powerful but difficult to handle cars.
nowadays with much technical limits, gains are very small so teams put much money in creating cars with better drivability. there are no big inventions anymore, they will never find something that will give them 50 extra hp anymore, all cars are almost identical. so they go and test 50 different kinds of shocks to see which one will give them a 0,1% advantage.

and racing has never had much to do with the current technology. you don't see water injection, anti-lag, water cooled brakes, inverted shocks, sequential gearboxes, lsd, spoilers, ... on ordinary cars.
it's all about marketing. the racing car has to have the logo, and preferably some looks in common with the car people can buy at their dealer. nothing more