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Originally Posted by GTRMagic
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I can't remember which team/driver this type of thing happened with in recent past. I remember that someone was complaining about weird issues and the team swapped out a new chassis to try to track down if it was a chassis issue. I would think that today that things like hidden cracks, etc. that effect handling are unlikely to escape modern inspection. That between things like ultrasonic examination of carbon layers and ability to test chassis on rigs to see if there is any unexpected flex or stiffness is not up to specification. And I know sometimes even if a driver has access to more than one "equal" chassis that a driver may prefer one over another with the implication that they "feel" the performance may better in one vs the other. How much of that is real vs. a favorite chassis is superstition (i.e."lucky underwear") I don't know. I expect you can find examples of both being true.
What I think is interesting is that RB said they had an extra chassis in the works. That this was not being built just for Ricciardo. How many chassis might a team expect to create for a season? Two minimum of course, three for a single spare, four if you want two spares, more if you are introducing revisions (such as weight reduction). My point is... Is RB in the same boat at Williams in that they are racing with just two chassis? If they had a spare today and it was viewed as equal quality why not just swap Ricciardo over into the spare now vs. waiting for a new chassis in China?
It also seems they are fully giving him the benefit of the doubt here. If he still underperforms against Yuki in a new chassis, maybe he will have nowhere else to hide?
Richard