F1 Fanatic

@Michael
I see your question and is really a very good question.It’s a question that i have posed for years.

My personal answer is no. We don’t know and we will never know. Not only us but most of the people that even work in formula 1 or also the driver itself doesn’t know 100% if he had the exact same technical specifications as his teammate. Even his race engineer (and believe me i’m an engineer not in cars but in another sector) doesn’t know exactly. In fact the only persons (which are few in numbers) that knows exactly are the General director, technical director, designer, some providers, executive builders and some engineers of the cars, the others persons even if they work in the same team do not know or are not allowed to know. I’m not talking about visible parts…things that the tv-s or newspaper or photos can reveal to fans,i’m talking about a full complex infrastructure that starts with drawing the car in paper and finish with seating the driver to drive. Nobody is allowed to talk not because they don’t want to talk but there are contracts that doesn’t allow you to talk and if u don’t respect them…you pay the price and remember that talking to the media is the same as giving information to your direct opponents.

Even when a driver says: “i didn’t have the same car as my teammate”. I don’t believe 100% not because he’s a liar but because maybe a driver can just find a justification why he is losing against his teammate…and give the fault to “the cars were not identical”….but maybe he’s right…maybe not…in the end of the day we simply don’t know… it’s all i’m saying. Now there are some case when is visible (silverstone 2010) and we all knows, but there are also what i call the dark components of the cars that we simply don’t know.

Remember that program and build a F1 car is secret to each team. You don’t know how they operate at least if you dont work in those two sectors (program and build) for that team…and not just a normal employer but with a highly position there.

There are only some personal opinions fans. Every fan is allowed to have opinion if one or another driver have the same spec as his team mate, but these remains personal opinions.
I’ll give you my personal opinion. I think that when a team is so dominant it’s more easy to manage the cars. I’m referring to Ferrari 2001-2004 and red bull 2010-2012. I personally believe that Barrichello first and Webber second had not and have not the same cars as their teammates. I have 1 thousand reasons (which remain personal reasons) and it will be long to explain them. I think that in the 2001-2004 maybe only the 2004 championship could have had a different winner if the cars were identical…maybe. I’m personally quite sure that in 2010-2012 If webber would have had the same car with Seb maybe we could have had a different WDC in these years.
As i say these remains personal opinions and i’m not able to prove them (as all the others personal opinions) but i believe that my opinion is right.

My message was a little bit too long but i hope you get right my opinion, and i also i think that your thread is a good one. I’m also not strong in grammatical especially in english but i hope i explained my opinion right.

I’d have thought the cars built by each team are pretty much the same.After all Red Bull said in 2010 that they would be building their car round Vettel, they didn’t say; one would be built round Vettel and one would be built round Webber.

@raymondu999 @bobthevulcan I remember Vitaly Petrov having trouble getting into the Renault R30 as well!

@Frain stermin Thank you for the detailed answer and for sharing your opinion. The most important I picked out is the following:

“I think that when a team is so dominant it’s more easy to manage the cars”

I definitely agree, it only makes sense to change/manage the cars when the team has a dominant car. It makes no sense for a team fighting for 2nd or 3rd in the WCC and with a chance in the WDC to do that. The midfield and backmarkers really can’t afford to take away any performance out of the car.

If a top team has a commanding lead in the WDC AND the WCC, that is the only time when a team has the luxury of “managing” – I like that choice of word as opposed to tampering;-) – the cars. As you pointed out this situation of having a super dominant car over the past 15 years through the entire season has only happened with Ferrari and Red Bull and in both cases there was a confirmed #1 driver.

@katederby
Thank you, I wasn’t aware that the RB6 in 2010 was built around Vettel – I knew that the RB7 and RB8 had been after he won his 1st and 2nd WDCs. That fact makes a Vettel/Webber comparison very tough and subjective. We’ll never know how Vettel would have performed if the car had been built around Webber.

Interesting that everyone jumps on the Redbull discussion. If there’s one team that i’d expect to run slightly different cars, it would rather be Ferrari. Especially with recent rumours about Massa pre-testing updates to make sure Alonso only gets the updates that actually work. Oh well, we’ll never know..

@me4me Massa and Alonso have often had different cars. Most visible is generally the front wing, but they do differentiate other parts as well.

Red Bull have done this too but generally it’s been driver choice. I know Silverstone 2010 gets bandied around a lot, but lost in all the hoo-hah was how Webber actually had said in FP2 that he preferred the old wing and would stick to it. Hence why he stuck to his older-spec front wing in FP3 – while Vettel was already on the new-spec in FP3, having decided that he liked the new-spec better (the wing broken in FP3).

Given that Webber wasn’t using the new front wing (on his own volition) the team had one spare new-spec sitting around. The team then stress tests it at the factory, and happy that a similar failure won’t happen, they put it on Vettel’s car.

A large part of the whole “ZOMG Vettel gets new front wing Red Bull favouritism!” back then was a good bit of sensationalising by the media.

A lot of people also have been saying how the car’s characteristics have been made to suit Vettel etc, but to be frank – Webber and Vettel often copy each other’s setups, indicating that they have similar wants and needs from the car in terms of car balance.

@Enigma – That video never gets old:-) Man, I miss those interviews – you could tell so much about the teammates from their body language or even better when they showed their dismay as Mark did there!

I have no idea what the FIA is up – there should be a regulation that glasses be made available at any interview and be well within reach of the driver!