Nah. If Penske wants to be the sanctioning body and a competitor he better be above board on everything. Considering that Penske is the only team that has received penalties for technical breaches in recent history no not everyone is cheating. Not only that but this is a safety critical component that has not been crash tested in this configuration. It is essentially the same as hollowing out the halo to save weight.
Aesthetics? You bet! I’ve been in the Detroit GP paddock many times and seen Penske personnel cleaning and polishing the car hauler. The car hauler! So yeah I can see Penske cleaning up that attenuator to make it look nice.
And to your other point, I’m sure you know there was a racer, can’t remember who, quoted as saying “if you ain’t cheatin’ you ain’t tryin’!” The only thing different here is there already was a specific rule in place banning modification of single source parts. A lot of the other historical cheating, like acid dipping bodies, covered areas not previously covered by the rules.
Glad to get confirmation of my hunch that this was, being a Penske operation, primarily an aesthetic "modification".
Nah. If Penske wants to be the sanctioning body and a competitor he better be above board on everything. Considering that Penske is the only team that has received penalties for technical breaches in recent history no not everyone is cheating. Not only that but this is a safety critical component that has not been crash tested in this configuration. It is essentially the same as hollowing out the halo to save weight.
Aesthetics? You bet! I’ve been in the Detroit GP paddock many times and seen Penske personnel cleaning and polishing the car hauler. The car hauler! So yeah I can see Penske cleaning up that attenuator to make it look nice.
And to your other point, I’m sure you know there was a racer, can’t remember who, quoted as saying “if you ain’t cheatin’ you ain’t tryin’!” The only thing different here is there already was a specific rule in place banning modification of single source parts. A lot of the other historical cheating, like acid dipping bodies, covered areas not previously covered by the rules.