Mercedes W12

[djones]

It's quite interesting how Lewis was able to go so fast with all the damage, yet Bottas barely made it to 3rd place.

At one stage near the end, Lewis was setting the fastest laps almost every time round. I was actually sat saying to myself he really needs to stop pushing before the wing flies off or something.

[FWandE]

Although pictures show damage to the endplate of the front wing the wing elements themselves are largely undamaged. Yes there will have been a drop in performance but not much as evidenced by the times Lewis posted before and after the damage occurred. Others can better explain what the front wing endplate does and how performance and driveability would be affected but I think most F1 drivers would have managed to get pretty close to their best possible times with this much damage so while Lewis should be praised for his performance in a damaged car let's not get out of proportion with the praise. Many drivers have won GP's with various amounts of damage to front wings, barge boards and floor in the past.

For the record, I think Lewis is a great driver. His record compares very favorably to all the F1 greats...Fangio, Clark (my personal favorite), Stewart, Lauda, Senna, Prost, Schumacher & others. The greatest? Impossible to say but certainly one of the very best & maybe No 1.

[El Scorchio]

Although pictures show damage to the endplate of the front wing the wing elements themselves are largely undamaged. Yes there will have been a drop in performance but not much as evidenced by the times Lewis posted before and after the damage occurred. Others can better explain what the front wing endplate does and how performance and driveability would be affected but I think most F1 drivers would have managed to get pretty close to their best possible times with this much damage so while Lewis should be praised for his performance in a damaged car let's not get out of proportion with the praise. Many drivers have won GP's with various amounts of damage to front wings, barge boards and floor in the past.

For the record, I think Lewis is a great driver. His record compares very favorably to all the F1 greats...Fangio, Clark (my personal favorite), Stewart, Lauda, Senna, Prost, Schumacher & others. The greatest? Impossible to say but certainly one of the very best & maybe No 1.

It was estimated (by the team I think) that it cost 0.4s per lap.

[SuperCNJ]

Toto mentioned that RB may have set up their car for a single lap pace in Saudia Arabia, i.e. focusing on quali than race pace. I'm just curious to understand what that actually means in terms of car setup. What makes the car better at qualifying but compromises race pace and vice versa - presumably for the W12?

[De Jokke]

Hi, anyone has a clue if the track changes for Abu Dhabi will be in our favour or not?
I would assume so as the w12 doesn't like the slow corners and at least two sections were changed into high speed corners or am I mistaken?
If so, the rocket engine could provide gold here!

[El Scorchio]

Hi, anyone has a clue if the track changes for Abu Dhabi will be in our favour or not?
I would assume so as the w12 doesn't like the slow corners and at least two sections were changed into high speed corners or am I mistaken?
If so, the rocket engine could provide gold here!

In theory I think the changes should help Mercedes but who knows in this topsy turvy season! If they have strong straight line speed then the area before and after the new turn 5 should be very strong.

[Spoutnik]

Toto mentioned that RB may have set up their car for a single lap pace in Saudia Arabia, i.e. focusing on quali than race pace. I'm just curious to understand what that actually means in terms of car setup. What makes the car better at qualifying but compromises race pace and vice versa - presumably for the W12?

I tend to think the other way around, Red Bull setup their car to be on pole and relatively fast in race but without focusing on this as it is a "street circuit". Merc set up a car with less downforce (i.e I heard Valterri had no gurney flap on his rear wing for instance) and focused more on S2 and 3 which stress the tyres a bit less, and allowed them to be fast on any compound, and ofc virtually impossible to overtake

In Brazil I feel it was the opposite, Merc went for a very high downforce package to compensate their weakness(es) in the middle sector which allowed them to be faster still in S1 and 3 when tyres deg occurs.

In a sense they setup the car in a way to not be stuck in traffic if there's any problem, and they can jump Verstappen as he's more likely to be on pole according to the stats rather than to be the fastest on one lap or on one compound.

Concerning how you setup a car for one lap rather than race pace I guess (I'm not an engineer) it's about making the tyres working harder and faster, which is the reason why Verstappen wasn't struggling to heat up his tyres. It can be done by having much much more DF, adjusting camber more agressively, opening a bit less the car for the cooling to ensure less aero loss (as you can drive slowly if you start in front on a theorically street circuit)...

[djones]

Toto mentioned that RB may have set up their car for a single lap pace in Saudia Arabia, i.e. focusing on quali than race pace. I'm just curious to understand what that actually means in terms of car setup. What makes the car better at qualifying but compromises race pace and vice versa - presumably for the W12?

My understanding is it's mainly about a setup that gets the tyres up to temperature quicker.

This is great for qualifying (within reason), but then negative in the race.

Mercedes did multiple runs I think in Q2 and actually got faster. Didn't Lewis do the fastest time of all the weekend in Q2 on a multi-lap qualifying stint?

Going for a race setup seems the sensible choice to me. Was it not for Max trying to DNF Hamilton every time they got close, Hamilton would have EASILY won the race even if Max had started on pole.

[djones]

FWandE - I would actually go one step further from your points and add that I think they put Max on mediums just to get that better launch and put them all into a dangerous situation where smashing into Hamilton would be a DNF and blamed on 'let them race'. Again, a short term move that otherwise compromised the race for Redbull big time.

[InsaneX_Badger]

When was the last race we used the C5? That's the only thing that's worrying me about next week's event. Hopefully Mercedes will be able to use that there fully.

[Big Tea]

When was the last race we used the C5? That's the only thing that's worrying me about next week's event. Hopefully Mercedes will be able to use that there fully.

Has it been used without DAS?

[dans79]

When was the last race we used the C5? That's the only thing that's worrying me about next week's event. Hopefully Mercedes will be able to use that there fully.

Has it been used without DAS?

https://press.pirelli.com/2021-tyre-compound-choices/
Monaco
Azerbaijan
Russia

edit this should all really be in the team thread I think!

[rifrafs2kees]

When was the last race we used the C5? That's the only thing that's worrying me about next week's event. Hopefully Mercedes will be able to use that there fully.

That c5...I have the same concern. However, I'd rather they be very strong on the c3 rubber for the race.

[zibby43]

We've been spoiled by these rare hi-res photos of a damaged FW:

[El Scorchio]

We've been spoiled by these rare hi-res photos of a damaged FW:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FF8NRy3VQAI ... ame=medium

Ah man. Look at the score marks all over that….