FRIC as it was, is banned. Doesn't mean they haven't found a way to replicate the results. They were one of the masters of it before, it wouldn't be at all a surprise if they'd re investigated it. There's an awful, awful lot of evidence to suggest trickey with their suspension. From the types of areas they are strongest right through to the areas they are weaker. On both sides of the coin, Their strengths all come to the fore strongest where FRIC would be most beneficial, (Particularly in clean air, mid to high speed corners where they can stabilise the whole car mid corner to give a much more stable aero platform, make the floor work harder = much more downforce) likewise their weaknesses are exactly where FRIC is either little use (Low speed corners, low end straight line traction) or would be compromised. (such as running in turbulent air, where a car that can't be ruffled at all in clean air suddenly suffers more than others due to them losing their advantage, basically magnifying the effect of turbulent air because they have more to lose). For what it's worth, i don't think they are the only ones doing it. I reckon Ferrari have something half baked on the rear and Red Bull are doing something similar just on the front (Hence their sudden extreme secrecy about shielding their front dampers to camera).
I agree, they definitely have a clear advantage I still think they have the strongest chassis - or trickery! What's was most noticeable at Monza was their time advantage was under braking and mid corner traction.
I thought it was a decent race, if you looked past the winner, there's a variety of 'best overtakes' in the awards, which shows it wasn't that bad. None mention Hamilton though, which I find surprising. As much as I detest him as a person and the way F1's administrators turn a blind eye to his, (and Verstappens) shenanigans for profits, I thought his overtake of Bottas was the pick of them, and showed why he's better than Rosberg. My major complaint against Rosberg comes from Bahrain '14, he kept trying the same move over and over again, Hamilton had to do something different if he was going to get passed, so he did.
From a technical perspective it was a good move, and probably overlooked as it looked easy when he passed Bottas well before the braking zone into turn 1, but the work for it was done right back to the Parabolica when he took a different line to get underneath his rear wing early on, as otherwise even with DRS the Merc didn't have the straightline speed to get past the Williams. I think Ricciardo's looked the more impressive on the camera's as he put he RBR right on its nose to dive into Turn 1 and make it stop. Didn't need to push Bottas out, or straight line the apex et etc, was a good clean well executed move.
the bolded bit is exactly what I meant, Rosberg wouldn't have done that, he would've just tried to do the same thing over and over again. It was less impressive aestheitcally, but unlike the other overtakes, it wasn't reliant on DRS.