Originally Posted by DEmberton:
“Is that true? When we've had one team being able to do something innovative either it's been promptly banned (fan car) or once the legality has been established the other teams have copied it (double diffuser). I can't think of a time where there were ever significantly different cars of equal performance, except maybe when we had some cars with KERS and some not.”
Even as recently as 2007/2008 (which weren't particularly open regs) you had Ferrari and McLaren with similar levels of performance but cars which worked better in different conditions and at different tracks. McLaren much better at mechanical grip, the Ferrari the best car aerodynamically.
Quote:
“Chances are if it did happen certain cars would have a big advantage at some races, and the others at different races, which is often what happened with the tyre war. Might have made the championship closer, but the individual races were dull (though Damon Hill nearly winning for Arrows in Hungary was something special).”
97 was a really good season, the big problem was it was at the peak of overtaking being difficult (the Italian GP was an extraordinarily close race but no one could get past anyone else !), would have had a lot more classic races that season but for that.