F1 Fanatic

I’m just curious as to how drivers, the FIA and the public know that 2 cars within a team are the same? Are there regulations that enforce that?

@Keith Collantine Thanks for the reply – I read your article about the 2 roosters @ Ferrari – very interesting.

Yes, indeed drivers are one of the sources.

How would the drivers though know that their car has gotten the same improvements as their teammate’s down to the nut and bolt? For instance, let’s take Red Bull where they recently installed the Double DRS. How do we know that Mark’s car is capable of the same performance as Seb’s? We can assume that Red Bull made the exact same part for both.

After they install the improvements, does Mark take Seb’s car for a spin to determine that the improvements are the same?

I’m not saying they are different or that there’s foul play – I’m just saying is there a way we can know for a fact that the cars are not different at any constructor (aside from setup differences)?

Simple Answer: We don’t.

Although to be honest, I cannot imagine a difference more than a tenth, maybe 2 tenths at the very maximum between the two cars from the team.

Given the exacting standards required of a Formula One car’s construction, all the finite structural tolerances, no margin for error in parts fitting, and so on, I would assume the cars would be nearly identical in performance (for the big-budget top teams like Red Bull at least, not sure about HRT). Unless one driver has the latest update and the other doesn’t, of course.

Obviously if a flap is different or the exhaust is smaller, it would be easier to figure out. We’ve seen different teammates including Red Bull try different upgrades to determine which one is optimal.

However, I would imagine that many parts of an F1 car are concealed or sealed thus preventing closer inspection. I would also expect software to play an increasingly important role in F1 and to offer the capability to alter a car’s characteristics over another car’s and the driver would be none the wiser.

Supposedly all software in F1 is checked or something like that but good luck going through 500,000 lines of obfuscated code (we’ll be done by 2020)

I guess if a team wants to have different cars for each driver there’d be no way to find out nor a way to stop them. Probably it would be best for the driver not to know as there is really not much he can do about it but leave.

@Powderfinger no, I’m saying it’s not true that we don’t know if the cars are the same. I’m saying we’ll know of it. Maybe not the average fan, but there is a group of guys, as I said above, that will follow each and every part of every race religiously

Given the height difference between Webber and Vettel, and the different ballast the cars would have as a result, Webber would probably perform worse in Vettel’s machine if his legs would fit in it at all. Likewise in reverse, if Vettel could reach the pedals.

So would it be safe to say that no 2 cars are alike even if made by the same team for the following reasons:

1. Simple manufacturing variances will make each car perform differently. We don’t know what that tolerance is but we expect it to be very small for top teams.
2. Each car is tailor-made for the driver and therefore will perform slightly differently.
3. Race Setup will affect the performance of each car – this factor has the biggest performance impact of all here.
4. The sinister possibility that the constructor may “slow down” a car through various methods that would be impossible for the driver to detect.