2021 AMG Mercedes F1 Team

[f1jcw]

The team is really exploring their set up options really nicely. I think I know what they are doing, but wont divulge till the end of the season. It's not illegal though. The PU may have weaknesses, but it has other strengths that Honda cannot exploit this year. Additionally they went in a certain direction with their downforce creation when they updated the floor, they seemed to have looked back at the start of the year before the floor was updated and utilized a bit of the workarounds they had to do to make the car raceable.
The result is they have more efficient downforce and the car is very stable, which means it can be be that bit more versatile like red-bull at most tracks. I think also that 3 tenths of the speed is from driver confidence. Hamilton is more confident and is able to attack and be more aggressive without worrying about the balance. We see this also in Bottas' improved driving.
Redbull is losing out because the leadership is focusing on Mercedes and not focusing on their own car. And it's also likely their drivers aren't given them the same quality feedback as Bottas and Hamilton do with Merc.

That's an interesting point of view about RBR leadership. How much time has Newey invested into eyeballing Mercedes?

How many tenths of a second is one man hour of Newey's time worth?

How many points are each tenth worth?

Newey doesn't really do the designing anymore, more just oversee

[El Scorchio]

Maybe they’ve reached the very end of what they can do with the Red Bull car under this year’s constraints and the only alternative to developing your car is trying to force your opponent to undevelop theirs. Perhaps that’s where they are putting effort for the time being because it’s the most effective thing to try right now.

[zibby43]

Maybe they’ve reached the very end of what they can do with the Red Bull car under this year’s constraints and the only alternative to developing your car is trying to force your opponent to undevelop theirs. Perhaps that’s where they are putting effort for the time being because it’s the most effective thing to try right now.

It’s funny you mention that. I was just thinking about the development battle the other day, and it really seems like Merc have been pushing their development with this car all the way to the end of the season. Similar to what RBR did last year.

[zibby43]

[adrianjordan]

Same wing.

Mark Hughes destroys the RBR theories here:

https://the-race.com/formula-1/mark-hug ... ll-claims/

Excerpt:

Nice, I was so sure when Horner said that Merc speed decreased because they put pressure on them was complete BS.

Dude was grinning like the Cheshire Cat despite turning in relatively worse qualifying performance compared to Brazil. I think RBR have become too focused on the off-track stuff.

I thought it was kind of funny when Horner spouted his usual "Merc haven't been under pressure in a championship battle before so it's interesting to see how they cope" line as well. Because think back to 2010-13....RBR were never really under that much pressure either and, when they were, they focused more on wining about their engine or other teams rather than their own weaknesses.

I think Merc are coping better with the pressure than RBR in my opinion.

And Lewis is definitely coping better than Max. Hell, Lewis seems to be thriving on the pressure - which is something we know he has said in the past.

[adrianjordan]

I am now 100% convinced that Red Bull are just playing PR with the engine stuff. Anyone with half a brain can see that the speed differences really weren't that much at all. A bigger question is, why are Red Bull so slow on the straights all of a sudden?

My guess would be because their tricky bendy aero has been banned and their PU is possibly getting a bit high mileage.

[hape]

I am now 100% convinced that Red Bull are just playing PR with the engine stuff. Anyone with half a brain can see that the speed differences really weren't that much at all. A bigger question is, why are Red Bull so slow on the straights all of a sudden?

My guess would be because their tricky bendy aero has been banned and their PU is possibly getting a bit high mileage.

It’s not like RB is suddenly slow, what Hamilton achieved in Brazil hasn’t been seen lately in F1. Starting from 10th and win the race with a impressive 10s advantage over the second car. He overtook all cars in front of him with incredible ease. Not long ago, even this season, he would get stuck somewhere, now he started 7 places behind a Ferrari (the best of the rest team) but still able to almost lap him….

[SiLo]

I am now 100% convinced that Red Bull are just playing PR with the engine stuff. Anyone with half a brain can see that the speed differences really weren't that much at all. A bigger question is, why are Red Bull so slow on the straights all of a sudden?

My guess would be because their tricky bendy aero has been banned and their PU is possibly getting a bit high mileage.

It’s not like RB is suddenly slow, what Hamilton achieved in Brazil hasn’t been seen lately in F1. Starting from 10th and win the race with a impressive 10s advantage over the second car. He overtook all cars in front of him with incredible ease. Not long ago, even this season, he would get stuck somewhere, now he started 7 places behind a Ferrari (the best of the rest team) but still able to almost lap him….

RB looked pretty slow to me in Brazil. As long as you get a good exit from T12 it's fairly easy to overtake there. You're effectively insinuting Mercedes are cheating.

What's more likely, Mercedes are cheating, or Red Bull just got the setup a bit wrong and are playing PR to cover it up?

[1m0bius1]

Bottas is such a clown. Christ. Zero racecraft.

[Tvetovnato]

Critical win. Now we go to Saudi with the Brazilian engine again…

[rickybobbyf1]

Bottas is such a clown. Christ. Zero racecraft.

100%, I just can’t believe it. He got embarrassedly swamped at the start and struggled af passing like always.

Ham needs to win everything to have a chance.

[dans79]

What are the chances we can just pay Williams to let Russell go a Race or 2 early.......

[Tvetovnato]

The W12 looked like the W11 this time. Going onboard with Ham during stint 1 looked like the smoothest sailing ever. But things can of course turn around again, and I have a feeling that Jeddah will be a chaotic race and possibly even title deciding.

[mvfad]

Is it possible to switch Bottas to Russell this season?
Russell would at least be a possibility to take points away from Max, or at least put some pressure on the Dutchman.
It has been clear for many races that Bottas is not capable of doing these things.

[1m0bius1]

Saudi arabia is basically all Long straights, high speed corners and minimal braking . This track is a merc paradise especially with the brazil engine. Bottas needs to Quali p2 and convert it.

Abu dhabi is also an extremely strong track for Merc. Barring any crashes and theatrics from the FIA and Max. On Paper merc has this.