2021 AMG Mercedes F1 Team

[dans79]

There's nothing to suggest they've gained 40hp since Brazil.

You are joking, right? Lewis was driving around the field like they were in reverse whereas the previous few races he would have to work hard to get around the Ferraris, Lando and Daniel and Cheko. At Brazil it was like he had the wind filling his sails at all times. Are you watching the same races as I am? BTW, I am a McLaren fan, not a Max fan just so you know.

Brazil 2021 was like Italy 2004 where JV gained a huge advantage by a fortuitous safety car and he was almost a full lap ahead of Ferrari. Then they flipped to a previously unraced super engine map and suddenly had an extra second per lap to rein him in and win the race. It certainly wasn't due to Lewis' driving. That was the same as it was the previous few races. It was the new engine plain and simple.

In 2017 there was not the near parity we see between Honda, Ferrari and Merc. Then they dominated constantly back then. At the races before and after. In 2021 Merc was equal or worse until the engine change. These are all readily observable facts.

You seem to be conveniently forgetting that Merc has done work with year to make the rear squat and stall the floor. Not to mention the fact That Red Bull has been complaining about Merc wing left and right claiming its illegal.

Stalling the floor, and having a wing that stalls it-self in some fashion would pay far greater dividends than even an extra 40HP would! I'd be shocked if the Brazill engine is worth more than an extra 10HP!

[holeindalip]

There's nothing to suggest they've gained 40hp since Brazil.

You are joking, right? Lewis was driving around the field like they were in reverse whereas the previous few races he would have to work hard to get around the Ferraris, Lando and Daniel and Cheko. At Brazil it was like he had the wind filling his sails at all times. Are you watching the same races as I am? BTW, I am a McLaren fan, not a Max fan just so you know.

Brazil 2021 was like Italy 2004 where JV gained a huge advantage by a fortuitous safety car and he was almost a full lap ahead of Ferrari. Then they flipped to a previously unraced super engine map and suddenly had an extra second per lap to rein him in and win the race. It certainly wasn't due to Lewis' driving. That was the same as it was the previous few races. It was the new engine plain and simple.

In 2017 there was not the near parity we see between Honda, Ferrari and Merc. Then they dominated constantly back then. At the races before and after. In 2021 Merc was equal or worse until the engine change. These are all readily observable facts.

See the speed trap data from the race it wasn’t out of this world as you say, it was all about getting the right drive out of the last corner and setting a proper pass up. He dummied verstappen into making a mistake out of turn one and put him in a bad spot going into the first drs zone…

[RZS10]

well form the highlight video I can see he made it to P5 by lap 28, not sure where he was onlap 24.

He was P5 on lap 21 with the first 5 laps being under SC conditions after which he was P14 already - so 9 positions in 16 laps.
https://en.mclarenf-1.com/2017/gp/s7731/lap_times/-482/

For the sake of comparison i think it would be fair to discount the 4 places he gained at the start of the sprint, which means 16th to 5th (11 positions) in 24 laps.

The average is then 1.78 laps per overtake in 2017 vs. 2.18 laps per overtake in the sprint.

[Marty_Y]

It wasnt a leak, it was a pickup issue. They simply ran with slightly more fuel in for the remainder of qualifying

And was fixed in PF as was in the Parc Ferme document

thanks, but I was talking about the problem in FP3, with his newest engine (according to reports, similar to the one Hamilton got in Interlagos). For qualifying they brought in an older one instead. So that's two unrelated issues, as far as I can see.

I've tried to find out about this myself, but can't find anything.

All I know is they said he had a possible fuel leak in FP3, and given the short amount of time to diagnose the problem they decided to replace the engine with another from his pool.

The replacement engine suffered from what Bottas said was a misfire in qualification, but they said in the debrief video that it was just the level of the fuel in the tank was lower than the pick up, so it wasn't a problem when they put more fuel in.

So I don't know if the two things are related, I would guess not, the qualification engine definitely isn't really a problem, once the fuel level was corrected he used it successfully through qualification and the race without issue.

[dans79]

The average is then 1.78 laps per overtake in 2017 vs. 2.18 laps per overtake in the sprint.

That sounds about right imo, the front half of the field was more competitive in 2017 than they are now!

[Big Tea]

There's nothing to suggest they've gained 40hp since Brazil.

You are joking, right? Lewis was driving around the field like they were in reverse whereas the previous few races he would have to work hard to get around the Ferraris, Lando and Daniel and Cheko. At Brazil it was like he had the wind filling his sails at all times. Are you watching the same races as I am? BTW, I am a McLaren fan, not a Max fan just so you know.

Brazil 2021 was like Italy 2004 where JV gained a huge advantage by a fortuitous safety car and he was almost a full lap ahead of Ferrari. Then they flipped to a previously unraced super engine map and suddenly had an extra second per lap to rein him in and win the race. It certainly wasn't due to Lewis' driving. That was the same as it was the previous few races. It was the new engine plain and simple.

In 2017 there was not the near parity we see between Honda, Ferrari and Merc. Then they dominated constantly back then. At the races before and after. In 2021 Merc was equal or worse until the engine change. These are all readily observable facts.

See the speed trap data from the race it wasn’t out of this world as you say, it was all about getting the right drive out of the last corner and setting a proper pass up. He dummied verstappen into making a mistake out of turn one and put him in a bad spot going into the first drs zone…

On Sky weekend warm up Ben Collings did a couple of min around 11min 30 point and he touched on the development and gain of Merc from early season, including something they (Sky or F1TV?) are preparing an article on to show post season about the 'missing' token spend, or where it was used.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1mIsDBZDUA

Edit, sorry SAM Collins

[RZS10]

It's actually remarkably similar ... same different line through the last actual corner etc


_____

The same engine that had the supposed fuel leak was the one that had the fuel pump issue in Qatar if i'm not mistaken, might have been a shoddy job of putting it all together after replacing the pump?

[gcdugas]

You seem to be conveniently forgetting that Merc has done work with year to make the rear squat and stall the floor. Not to mention the fact That Red Bull has been complaining about Merc wing left and right claiming its illegal.

Stalling the floor, and having a wing that stalls it-self in some fashion would pay far greater dividends than even an extra 40HP would! I'd be shocked if the Brazill engine is worth more than an extra 10HP!

So Merc has only been stalling the floor since Brazil? Because that is when they had their significant performance step forward. And that is when they put in the "rocket engine". Prior to Brazil, there was almost total parity with Red Bull but since then they have had a sizable edge.

[gcdugas]

It's actually remarkably similar ... same different line through the last actual corner etc


_____

The same engine that had the supposed fuel leak was the one that had the fuel pump issue in Qatar if i'm not mistaken, might have been a shoddy job of putting it all together after replacing the pump?

You are making my point, not refuting it. In 2017 Merc had at least a 40BHP advantage over Ferrari, perhaps as much as 60 over Renault and even 80 more over Honda which were still blowing up engines on a weekly basis. Alonzo called it a GP2 engine.

So why did Merc suddenly have a huge edge in Brazil when the half dozen races before they were on par with Red Bull?

[gcdugas]

See the speed trap data from the race it wasn’t out of this world as you say, it was all about getting the right drive out of the last corner and setting a proper pass up. He dummied verstappen into making a mistake out of turn one and put him in a bad spot going into the first drs zone…

So you are saying one move on Max by Lewis in one race is responsible for the dramatic change in form from Brazil onward and not the engine they changed at the exact time in question?

Moreover, more power equals the ability to run more wing so the trap speed can be adjusted so they gain more over the entire lap. Especially on a twisty circuit like Brazil. On a lower downforce track, you will see the higher terminal speed difference. Even Merc cannot mask the gain as much as they would like and have candidly referred to the new engine as a "rocket engine". So if they are not cheating, and I would prefer to believe they are not cheating, where do we look for the increase in engine performance that coincided with the engine change?

[LaplacesDemon]

It's actually remarkably similar ... same different line through the last actual corner etc


_____

The same engine that had the supposed fuel leak was the one that had the fuel pump issue in Qatar if i'm not mistaken, might have been a shoddy job of putting it all together after replacing the pump?

You are making my point, not refuting it. In 2017 Merc had at least a 40BHP advantage, perhaps as much as 60 over Renault and even 80 more over Honda which were still blowing up engines on a weekly basis. Alonzo called it a GP2 engine.

So why did Merc suddenly have a huge edge in Brazil when the half dozen races before they were on par with Red Bull?

Most likely because they can afford to push an engine that only has to do very few races as has been widely reported.

Durability and grid penalties can be traded for performance.

[NathanOlder]

It's actually remarkably similar ... same different line through the last actual corner etc


_____

The same engine that had the supposed fuel leak was the one that had the fuel pump issue in Qatar if i'm not mistaken, might have been a shoddy job of putting it all together after replacing the pump?

You are making my point, not refuting it. In 2017 Merc had at least a 40BHP advantage, perhaps as much as 60 over Renault and even 80 more over Honda which were still blowing up engines on a weekly basis. Alonzo called it a GP2 engine.

So why did Merc suddenly have a huge edge in Brazil when the half dozen races before they were on par with Red Bull?

Because they put a brand new ICE in the car that only needed to do 3 races.

An engine only needing to do 42% of the number of races it would have been planned to do, plus a problem they found had been fixed. And if they increase the output of the PU by 3% you will have an increase of bhp in the region you are claiming. Then also add that most of the cars around will have a bhp loss due to higher mileage. When you stop to actually think about it, its very easy to picture but instead your so hell bent of proving Lewis drove an average race in Brazil, you don't see whats right in front of you.

[adrianjordan]

See the speed trap data from the race it wasn’t out of this world as you say, it was all about getting the right drive out of the last corner and setting a proper pass up. He dummied verstappen into making a mistake out of turn one and put him in a bad spot going into the first drs zone…

So you are saying one move on Max by Lewis in one race is responsible for the dramatic change in form from Brazil onward and not the engine they changed at the exact time in question?

Moreover, more power equals the ability to run more wing so the trap speed can be adjusted so they gain more over the entire lap. Especially on a twisty circuit like Brazil. On a lower downforce track, you will see the higher terminal speed difference. Even Merc cannot mask the gain as much as they would like and have candidly referred to the new engine as a "rocket engine". So if they are not cheating, and I would prefer to believe they are not cheating, where do we look for the increase in engine performance that coincided with the engine change?

You claim to have not had any explanation, but several users have clearly explained how having an ICE that only has to last 3 races, rather than 7, mean you can sacrifice some reliability and run it more aggressively. Add to that Merc finding the sweet spot with the car setup, they had been improving for several races (Austin being an outlier because of the bumps meaning they had to compromise on ride height) and Lewis just being on his absolute A-game.

If Merc had a PU with an extra 40bph, surely they'd have stuck it in Valterri's car as well.

[rickybobbyf1]

Any merc rumor of adding something extra for this race to counteract the rumor that rb got a PU update shipped for the last race from jpn? lol

[e30ernest]

and Lewis just being on his absolute A-game.

Yeah I think Lewis did improve a lot over the last half of the season and it really makes me believe he has/had long Covid. He's less winded at the end of races now (you can see him breathing heavily at the end of several of this season's races) but last race seemed to have taken a lot out of him. In the press briefing for this race you can hear a lot of gravel on his voice too. I think he is a lot better now but he may not still be 100%.