Recently, there was a post here about how Russell started changing his own settings in the final laps of the race and found something that helped him. Someone else then pointed out that something similar happened to Max in 22/23. Some people here and elsewhere claim that a worse setup/settings is the driver’s fault and that he can only blame himself.
So I’m wondering how the cooperation between the driver and the engineers actually works when deciding which setup or settings will be best to use, and whether any driver/engineer/team principal has explained this in more detail somewhere in the past.
Until now, I imagined it like this: drivers tell the team how they feel in the car, what doesn’t suit them, what they would like to improve, etc., and then the engineers come up with the best solution for setting up the car. The drivers then agree, because they are drivers and not engineers.
The fact that a driver can find a better setting during a race, or that a chosen setup turns out not to be the best option, seems to me like a case where something can look good on paper but not work in reality. And on the other hand, something that didn’t look that good might actually turn out to be the better choice on track.