The problem with a performance patch is that you all got no clue what the real pecking order is.. Nor do Codemasters, commentators or the teams themselfes.. And me of course😂
The results we see are always dictated by the drivers, current Aston Martin could have been the fastest car this weekend over a single lap but a very average Stroll and clearly aged Alonso might not perform to its potential.. Might be the same that Alonso still has it and Stroll pulled out one of his few great performances and the car was actually barely 4th best, we cant say, there is no proper (scientifically acceptable) way of measuring driver skill and you never know if a driver just underperformed or his teammate performed miracles (e.g. Alonso-Stroll) and thus its even harder to gauge pure car performance.
Also a problem is that each driver performs different with every car, best example are Hamilton and Sainz who are (despite his age in case of Hamilton) really good drivers but struggle with cars not really matching them/their needs. Which makes cars like the Red Bull very hard to gauge, as Verstappen drags the car to top territory but his teammates often dont even make it out of Q1, is it just a bad car and Verstappens talent allowing him to perform miracles or is it such a difficult car to extract performance out of that only very few drivers can adapt to it and extract near the maximum performance but the performance itself isnt too bad? We cant say..
Next problem is that Codemasters tend to balance car performances with driver ratings (pace) so instead of making the Sauber car faster they often tend to give the drivers more pace or nerf the drivers of now slower cars.. Which wont get the wished for effect for every player who wants to race in said cars. Only the AI results get closer to reality (but those are far from it anyway)
Then we have this years AI inconsistency in qualifying due to making too many mistakes over a single lap which doesnt look like they will patch it at all.. Drivers dont perform within a range of over a full second IRL and so shouldnt ingame, yet the too high mistake rate leads to exactly that and results like McLaren drivers out in Q1.. So we wont get realistic results because of that too..
Then there is the overall probelm with qualifying pace and race pace which is not in a single way reflected ingame. There are the means with engine temps and tyre temps but as the AI isnt simulating either properly (or at all in terms of engine temps) there cant be what makes the McLaren car the dominant car it is or the Red Bull the qualifying merchant it was in many races.. Despite this being one of the few things we can guesstimate the most accurate out of it all as we can see the differences between qualifying performance and race performance - yes some of it might be driver related still due to driving style killing tyres but to a lesser extent than qualifying pace.. So the question here would really be what do you want in the game? Qualifying pace for the cars? Race pace for the cars? Because you cant have both in realistic ways and the whole race dynamic wont be very exciting due to no changes of pace throughout a grand prix or even qualifying session with weather changes like we saw in hungary qualifying..
Last problem would be the dynamic of car characteristics leading to different performance at different tracks, mechanical grip, low wing angle downforce/drag, high wing angle downforce/drag, weight distribution, engine power, drs efficiency, suspension geometry and of course engine and tyre temperature management (including brake temps). All these are not properly reflected in the game and cant really to a proper depth as it would require way too much data that the teams will never give up..
The best they can do with their fairly useless AI training in regards of temperatures is a hybrid between quali pace and race pace which could look similar like this IMO:
McLaren
Ferrari/Mercedes (different characteristics leading to different cars being ahead depending on the track)
Red Bull (as explained above, difficult to say)
Aston Martin/Sauber (different characteristics leading to different cars being ahead depending on the track)
Williams (spain TD seems to have hit them the hardest)/Racing Bulls
Haas (better on race pace than quali pace)
Alpine (better in qualifying than race pace)
