2021 AMG Mercedes F1 Team

[Morteza]

[pursue_one's]

interesting

What you will read below are parts of a long conversation I had with the Mercedes Dude last Thursday. A lot of this I told on LIVE that we did on Thursday itself, but not all because there was no time...

- Dude, let's start at the beginning. What was the plan for Sunday's race with Hamilton starting at P2?

The plan was for him to make the first turn at P1 and for that we configured the UP via software with a map, releasing maximum power already at low speed for the man to use until halfway through the first lap. The problem was that he had to go very smooth on the accelerator, otherwise the car would slip at the start and he was even capable of losing several positions, instead of winning Max's. And he would also have to be careful on the first straight, because with this map would not have the maximum possible there, only on the straight after the chicane.

- Great, that explains why Max nearly hit the brakes between the two straights. But what if he hadn't managed to pass Max at the start?

Then the strategy would be completely different and would depend a lot on the moment Max's soft tires fell. We had a multitude of possibilities.

https://www.autoracing.com.br/exclusivo ... do-de-nos/

Translation by DeepL

[Big Tea]

interesting

What you will read below are parts of a long conversation I had with the Mercedes Dude last Thursday. A lot of this I told on LIVE that we did on Thursday itself, but not all because there was no time...

- Dude, let's start at the beginning. What was the plan for Sunday's race with Hamilton starting at P2?

The plan was for him to make the first turn at P1 and for that we configured the UP via software with a map, releasing maximum power already at low speed for the man to use until halfway through the first lap. The problem was that he had to go very smooth on the accelerator, otherwise the car would slip at the start and he was even capable of losing several positions, instead of winning Max's. And he would also have to be careful on the first straight, because with this map would not have the maximum possible there, only on the straight after the chicane.

- Great, that explains why Max nearly hit the brakes between the two straights. But what if he hadn't managed to pass Max at the start?

Then the strategy would be completely different and would depend a lot on the moment Max's soft tires fell. We had a multitude of possibilities.

https://www.autoracing.com.br/exclusivo ... do-de-nos/

Translation by DeepL

Do you know who the quote is from? BTW did you notice in the pic, the cars are the wrong colour? Not sure if it is supposed to be this year though

[Just_a_fan]

interesting

What you will read below are parts of a long conversation I had with the Mercedes Dude last Thursday. A lot of this I told on LIVE that we did on Thursday itself, but not all because there was no time...

- Dude, let's start at the beginning. What was the plan for Sunday's race with Hamilton starting at P2?

The plan was for him to make the first turn at P1 and for that we configured the UP via software with a map, releasing maximum power already at low speed for the man to use until halfway through the first lap. The problem was that he had to go very smooth on the accelerator, otherwise the car would slip at the start and he was even capable of losing several positions, instead of winning Max's. And he would also have to be careful on the first straight, because with this map would not have the maximum possible there, only on the straight after the chicane.

- Great, that explains why Max nearly hit the brakes between the two straights. But what if he hadn't managed to pass Max at the start?

Then the strategy would be completely different and would depend a lot on the moment Max's soft tires fell. We had a multitude of possibilities.

https://www.autoracing.com.br/exclusivo ... do-de-nos/

Translation by DeepL

Do you know who the quote is from? BTW did you notice in the pic, the cars are the wrong colour? Not sure if it is supposed to be this year though

And they're all holding up an open hand suggesting a fifth title. So 2018?

[pursue_one's]

interesting

What you will read below are parts of a long conversation I had with the Mercedes Dude last Thursday. A lot of this I told on LIVE that we did on Thursday itself, but not all because there was no time...

- Dude, let's start at the beginning. What was the plan for Sunday's race with Hamilton starting at P2?

The plan was for him to make the first turn at P1 and for that we configured the UP via software with a map, releasing maximum power already at low speed for the man to use until halfway through the first lap. The problem was that he had to go very smooth on the accelerator, otherwise the car would slip at the start and he was even capable of losing several positions, instead of winning Max's. And he would also have to be careful on the first straight, because with this map would not have the maximum possible there, only on the straight after the chicane.

- Great, that explains why Max nearly hit the brakes between the two straights. But what if he hadn't managed to pass Max at the start?

Then the strategy would be completely different and would depend a lot on the moment Max's soft tires fell. We had a multitude of possibilities.

https://www.autoracing.com.br/exclusivo ... do-de-nos/

Translation by DeepL

Do you know who the quote is from? BTW did you notice in the pic, the cars are the wrong colour? Not sure if it is supposed to be this year though

Dude is a guy who works for Mercedes F1 Team. He started as a mechanic at McLaren in 2005 coming from British F3. He worked directly on Juan Pablo Montoya's car, then Fernando Alonso's, Heikki Kovalainen's and finally Lewis Hamilton's.

At the end of 2012, when Mercedes hired Hamilton, he left McLaren along with eight other people and went to work for the Mercedes team. For the first two years he worked with Hamilton, but then he was promoted to a more supervisory position, so to speak.

[Fairplay]

Here is an example : FIA can penalize Mercedes by not allowing them to score points for the first two races in 2022 as punishment for not attending the prize ceremony. What Wolff and Hamilton did was selfish, arrogant and unsportsmanlike. Mercedes , Wolff and Hamilton need to learn how to lose. They had it good for so many years and must realize that their dominance was going to end at some point. The new FIA president will make his entry and presence felt right away. Unforgiving is the key word. So what if Hamilton quits? Nyck de Vries is more than capable as a substitute.

I think people didnt realize you were saying this is an example and downvoted you. haha

However if this is the case then it is worth leaving as it would be pure politics and no longer sport.
Hamilton should just then drive to an 8th title and then leave, then go start his own racing series.
Or he can go win lemans then indy.

I think he was joking.

[Morteza]

[Starscreamer]

If Hamilton stops in 2022 please Mercedes give Nyck de Vries a change

[Ryar]

https://nl.motorsport.com/f1/news/onthu ... 1/6943715/

There was one point that was debated hard during the year was, the aero changes were "targeted" towards Mercedes and it was "known" that the changes would hit Mercedes.

Elliot then said that it was a general loss of downforce and not a specific balance problem, which Mercedes feared during the first test. "I think with a dominant car, like we had before, the balance for the drivers didn't really matter," said Elliot. "That's why I think it wasn't really a balance problem, but more of an overall aerodynamic loss. However, it's impossible to say if it hit us as hard as the other teams. We don't know what the impact was on other cars. After we finished our work in the winter and the car went onto the track during the tests, we discovered that the lead [of 2020] had disappeared."

Elliott essentially says, they didn't know who would be hit hard. That clears the first point that people debated, that "it was known" that it would hit the low rake cars. Mercedes technical director says, they didn't know who would be hit hard. As Mercedes proved thorugh the season, once they started developing the car in the right direction, the car was moving forward in performance, which shows, it wasn't as much the "low rake cars were hit hard".

It's probably safe to assume, Mercedes either started development work of W12 in different a direction while the full scale of changes for 2021 were not yet published and then had to abort it to move in a different direction. The other aspect probably was, they would have thought they had enough in hand from the W11 car and were confident of W12 carrying over a lot of that, which proved otherwise in testing. As the season showed, they could develop the W12 to overcome the deficit they had in the beginning, which shows, it wasn't so much "low rake" cars were affected. In the hindsight, if Mercedes would have got their decision making right in terms of developing directions for the car, W12 would probably have been every bit as dominant as W11 was.

[mcdenife]

https://nl.motorsport.com/f1/news/onthu ... 1/6943715/

There was one point that was debated hard during the year was, the aero changes were "targeted" towards Mercedes and it was "known" that the changes would hit Mercedes.

Elliot then said that it was a general loss of downforce and not a specific balance problem, which Mercedes feared during the first test. "I think with a dominant car, like we had before, the balance for the drivers didn't really matter," said Elliot. "That's why I think it wasn't really a balance problem, but more of an overall aerodynamic loss. However, it's impossible to say if it hit us as hard as the other teams. We don't know what the impact was on other cars. After we finished our work in the winter and the car went onto the track during the tests, we discovered that the lead [of 2020] had disappeared."

Elliott essentially says, they didn't know who would be hit hard. That clears the first point that people debated, that "it was known" that it would hit the low rake cars. Mercedes technical director says, they didn't know who would be hit hard. As Mercedes proved thorugh the season, once they started developing the car in the right direction, the car was moving forward in performance, which shows, it wasn't as much the "low rake cars were hit hard".

It's probably safe to assume, Mercedes either started development work of W12 in different a direction while the full scale of changes for 2021 were not yet published and then had to abort it to move in a different direction. The other aspect probably was, they would have thought they had enough in hand from the W11 car and were confident of W12 carrying over a lot of that, which proved otherwise in testing. As the season showed, they could develop the W12 to overcome the deficit they had in the beginning, which shows, it wasn't so much "low rake" cars were affected. In the hindsight, if Mercedes would have got their decision making right in terms of developing directions for the car, W12 would probably have been every bit as dominant as W11 was.

That is a gross mis-representation/mis-interpretation of what Elliot said. 'Not knowing who would be hit hard', is quite different from wondering "if it hit other people as hard as it hit them" in the aftermath. It is telling that you conveniently missed out the following in your narative:

"So, by the July 22 deadline, Mercedes had made the call to spend its tokens on an upgraded nose that it believed would improve the car’s aerodynamics.

However, in the wake of the British Grand Prix tyre failures in August, the FIA wrote to teams after the race to inform them that it wanted to make a further step in aero regulation changes for 2021 to cut back on downforce even more.

This included greater restrictions on the floor dimensions, plus changes to the lower bargeboard area – which would especially hurt Mercedes.

Aware of the implication of the changes, and how they would hurt the low rake cars more than the high rake models, the most obvious solution then would have been for Mercedes to alter its gearbox to help it raise the rear ride height to overcome the consequences.

However, this was not possible because the homologation restrictions had already forced teams to commit to any gearbox changes just five days after the end of the 2020 shutdown in June. So it was too late to go down that route.

Mercedes was instead locked in with its original plan to spend tokens on its nose, which it had opted for when it was not aware of the full implications of changes to the 2021 rules."

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-m ... s/6935169/

[ringo]

https://nl.motorsport.com/f1/news/onthu ... 1/6943715/

There was one point that was debated hard during the year was, the aero changes were "targeted" towards Mercedes and it was "known" that the changes would hit Mercedes.

Elliot then said that it was a general loss of downforce and not a specific balance problem, which Mercedes feared during the first test. "I think with a dominant car, like we had before, the balance for the drivers didn't really matter," said Elliot. "That's why I think it wasn't really a balance problem, but more of an overall aerodynamic loss. However, it's impossible to say if it hit us as hard as the other teams. We don't know what the impact was on other cars. After we finished our work in the winter and the car went onto the track during the tests, we discovered that the lead [of 2020] had disappeared."

Elliott essentially says, they didn't know who would be hit hard. That clears the first point that people debated, that "it was known" that it would hit the low rake cars. Mercedes technical director says, they didn't know who would be hit hard. As Mercedes proved thorugh the season, once they started developing the car in the right direction, the car was moving forward in performance, which shows, it wasn't as much the "low rake cars were hit hard".

It's probably safe to assume, Mercedes either started development work of W12 in different a direction while the full scale of changes for 2021 were not yet published and then had to abort it to move in a different direction. The other aspect probably was, they would have thought they had enough in hand from the W11 car and were confident of W12 carrying over a lot of that, which proved otherwise in testing. As the season showed, they could develop the W12 to overcome the deficit they had in the beginning, which shows, it wasn't so much "low rake" cars were affected. In the hindsight, if Mercedes would have got their decision making right in terms of developing directions for the car, W12 would probably have been every bit as dominant as W11 was.

I dont see how you made up all of what you said from what Elliot said. He literally says fhey lost a lot of downforce on their car from the rules. He is not focusing on what others are doing so he cannot know how they will be impacted. The FIA has their technical team that can simulate changes with the data from all teams. They are able to know who gets hit by the rules more and it was the low rake cars mercedes powered cars.

[Ryar]

I dont see how you made up all of what you said from what Elliot said. He literally says fhey lost a lot of downforce on their car from the rules. He is not focusing on what others are doing so he cannot know how they will be impacted. The FIA has their technical team that can simulate changes with the data from all teams. They are able to know who gets hit by the rules more and it was the low rake cars mercedes powered cars.

If "made up" is a opinion that an individual forms on the basis of available information, then that's what we all do here. Who are "they" you referriing to? Elliot says, they didn't who was hit hard. Atleast Elliott didn't seem to know if "low rake cars were hit by the rules more". If FIA can simulate, as you say, with their limited resources, I can't imagine a team like Mercedes, with their vast resources wouldn't have calculated it.

[Ryar]

This included greater restrictions on the floor dimensions, plus changes to the lower bargeboard area – which would especially hurt Mercedes.

This is the point. Who exactly knew this? Doesn't seem like Elliott. Every team knew they would be hurt, but there was no clarity on who was hit more, as Elliott says. then I wonder, how you say that "it would hurt Mercedes more"?

[mcdenife]

This included greater restrictions on the floor dimensions, plus changes to the lower bargeboard area – which would especially hurt Mercedes.

This is the point. Who exactly knew this? Doesn't seem like Elliott. Every team knew they would be hurt, but there was no clarity on who was hit more, as Elliott says. then I wonder, how you say that "it would hurt Mercedes more"?

Re-read the entire article, understand it in its entirety (rather than who might or might not have known what, when, or why, by inference) then I 'll be more than happy to discuss further with you.

[Ryar]

This included greater restrictions on the floor dimensions, plus changes to the lower bargeboard area – which would especially hurt Mercedes.

This is the point. Who exactly knew this? Doesn't seem like Elliott. Every team knew they would be hurt, but there was no clarity on who was hit more, as Elliott says. then I wonder, how you say that "it would hurt Mercedes more"?

Re-read the entire article, understand it in its entirety (rather than who might or might not have known what, when, or why, by inference) then I 'll be more than happy to discuss further with you.

I did. But my question still remains the same.