2022 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[dans79]

Mercedes used a lot of resources on last season's car, because of how close both championships were; they are paying a price now, but they can recover, relax.

And how exactly do you know that? I ask because this is not the type on information the teams share, and no one outside of senior management(not the type of people to spill the beans) would know how much was spent.

They kept improving car and working on engine reliability to try to win the championship, same as Red Bull, but you are right, I have no inside source. Way more credible that they called it a day midway in the championship and hoped for the best.

I was referring to the "used a lot of resources". It's obvious they used resources, but no one knows how many!

[zibby43]

Mercedes used a lot of resources on last season's car

I don't think that's the case, as they didn't even end up utilizing their development tokens on the W12.

[silver]

Mercedes used a lot of resources on last season's car

I don't think that's the case, as they didn't even end up utilizing their development tokens on the W12.

What has that got do with resource and budget utilization?

[matteosc]

And how exactly do you know that? I ask because this is not the type on information the teams share, and no one outside of senior management(not the type of people to spill the beans) would know how much was spent.

They kept improving car and working on engine reliability to try to win the championship, same as Red Bull, but you are right, I have no inside source. Way more credible that they called it a day midway in the championship and hoped for the best.

I was referring to the "used a lot of resources". It's obvious they used resources, but no one knows how many!

They said for the whole year that is was a challenge to balance the resources between 2021 and 2022 and only them and Red Bull were in the position of competing for both championships until the end.
Moreover, I think we should remember that until before the introduction of the cost cap, Mercedes was the team that spent the most and in general the one with the most resources. They were therefore the ones that had to adapt the most to the cost cap, and this may even have been one of the reasons why in 2021, for the first time in 8 years, they arrived at the last race without both championships already secured (this is aside what happened at the last race). Combine this with the fact that they have the lowest number of simulation and wind tunnels hours and even without exact number you can think that maybe all this contributed significantly to the issues they are having now.

[matteosc]

Mercedes used a lot of resources on last season's car

I don't think that's the case, as they didn't even end up utilizing their development tokens on the W12.

What has that got do with resource and budget utilization?

Nothing. Even with no updated at all, they could have spent a lot of hours in simulating the setups and in investigating the engine reliability issues they had. On top of building 2-3 more engines than everyone else, which I believe affects the overall costs.

[Hammerfist]

But if we are going to say that the reason behind Mercedes's struggle is because they spent too much time for the championship last year, then how come Redbull, whcih definitely spent even more resources on last year's effort was still able to build a great car this year? To me that line of thinking is quite rubbish. If I am going to criticize Merc, I will say that they should have been even more agressive last year with development and put the championship away sooner with no chance for Masi to do anything fishy and alter the result in the last race. Merc had another double championship in their grasp last year and they chose to ignore it for the unknown. That should be the lesson learned from this whole ordeal.

[silver]

But if we are going to say that the reason behind Mercedes's struggle is because they spent too much time for the championship last year, then how come Redbull, whcih definitely spent even more resources on last year's effort was still able to build a great car this year? To me that line of thinking is quite rubbish. If I am going to criticize Merc, I will say that they should have been even more agressive last year with development and put the championship away sooner with no chance for Masi to do anything fishy and alter the result in the last race. Merc had another double championship in their grasp last year and they chose to ignore it for the unknown. That should be the lesson learned from this whole ordeal.

On the evidence of last year's car and this year's, it's becoming more apparent that Mercedes isn't getting their concepts right to start the year with. While last year they caught up over the year and competed, this year they are quite far away to start with. Same can be said of their power units. Unlike the car, the power unit development is frozen (ICE). If that evidence is anything to go by, then your statement that, they should have been more aggressive last year with development, fails to resonate well.

Verstappen suffering a number of DNFs had more to do with Hamilton having had a chance until late season than Mercedes aggressively developing the car. They also took a lot of engine penalties to start using the aggressive power modes with shorter engine life. In short, there are a number of reasons why they stood a chance last season other than chassis development.

Consider the fact that they are still not clear where the porpoising problem is emanating from even after a month of half since witnessing it first, which adds up to a thought that somewhere over the past few years, they have been consistently losing the brilliance of the yore. That probably is the reason why Red Bull has come out of with a relatively better car this year (obviously they get the credit for the good job), despite having mounted a season long aggressive championship challenge. I don't know if that is complacency, lack of motivation or just the budget cap that is the reason why Mercedes has started to get into problems. It's important from F1's POV that they stay at the sharp end and compete.

[zibby43]

I don't think that's the case, as they didn't even end up utilizing their development tokens on the W12.

What has that got do with resource and budget utilization?

Nothing. Even with no updated at all, they could have spent a lot of hours in simulating the setups and in investigating the engine reliability issues they had. On top of building 2-3 more engines than everyone else, which I believe affects the overall costs.

PU development is excluded from the budget cap lol.

And not using the tokens, which would've affected the development path for the entire car, didn't save resources? Now I've heard it all.

[zibby43]

Consider the fact that they are still not clear where the porpoising problem is emanating from even after a month of half since witnessing it first, which adds up to a thought that somewhere over the past few years, they have been consistently losing the brilliance of the yore. That probably is the reason why Red Bull has come out of with a relatively better car this year (obviously they get the credit for the good job), despite having mounted a season long aggressive championship challenge. I don't know if that is complacency, lack of motivation or just the budget cap that is the reason why Mercedes has started to get into problems.

They know what's causing the porpoising. James Allison said as much as recently as last week.

What they're working through is how to best fix it without sacrificing performance.

Probably helped both RB and Ferrari that they had: 1) more money; 2) more wind tunnel time; and 3) more CFD relative to Mercedes.

[silver]

What has that got do with resource and budget utilization?

Nothing. Even with no updated at all, they could have spent a lot of hours in simulating the setups and in investigating the engine reliability issues they had. On top of building 2-3 more engines than everyone else, which I believe affects the overall costs.

PU development is excluded from the budget cap lol.

And not using the tokens, which would've affected the development path for the entire car, didn't save resources? Now I've heard it all.

If that was the only path to develop a car! Based on reports, they intended to use the tokens when they had developed a narrower nose, but ditched it as it didn't seem to add up to the performance. They did spend resources to build that as that was one of the development directions.

[silver]

Consider the fact that they are still not clear where the porpoising problem is emanating from even after a month of half since witnessing it first, which adds up to a thought that somewhere over the past few years, they have been consistently losing the brilliance of the yore. That probably is the reason why Red Bull has come out of with a relatively better car this year (obviously they get the credit for the good job), despite having mounted a season long aggressive championship challenge. I don't know if that is complacency, lack of motivation or just the budget cap that is the reason why Mercedes has started to get into problems.

They know what's causing the porpoising. James Allison said as much as recently as last week.

What they're working through is how to best fix it without sacrificing performance.

Probably helped both RB and Ferrari that they had: 1) more money; 2) more wind tunnel time; and 3) more CFD relative to Mercedes.

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/arti ... -advantage

Wolff: Ferrari's extra wind tunnel time gives it a 0.2sec advantage

https://thesportsrush.com/f1-news-we-we ... australia/

Porpoising remains a great threat for Mercedes. Speaking with the media, an engineer from Mercedes explained the team’s setup in Saudi Arabia.

“We expected to bounce less because the Jeddah circuit is much smoother. However, we were wrong,” he said.

“We still don’t understand how this phenomenon (porpoising) starts. We keep learning,” he concluded discussing Mercedes’ issues.

Now you can imagine the problem.

[Marty_Y]

James Allison said that after the Silverstone update package for the W12 that there would be no more major updates, and they would only be doing minor optimizations of what they already had if it was cost and time effective, and it didn't interfere with the development of the W13.

So from everything I've seen and read last year's championship battle had no detrimental effects on the development of the W13, I could be wrong because I don't have inside information but if you look at what changed on the W12 last season they weren't regularly updating it, after the Silverstone update they seemed to make gains from set up breakthroughs and a better understanding of the car which had more of larger sweet spot for set ups.

[matteosc]

What has that got do with resource and budget utilization?

Nothing. Even with no updated at all, they could have spent a lot of hours in simulating the setups and in investigating the engine reliability issues they had. On top of building 2-3 more engines than everyone else, which I believe affects the overall costs.

PU development is excluded from the budget cap lol.

And not using the tokens, which would've affected the development path for the entire car, didn't save resources? Now I've heard it all.

Is building new engines excluded too? Is using personnel to work on it excluded? Also if Mercedes engines is not the best anymore (difficult to say), doesn't the fact that they work a lot on last year's engine have anything to do with it?

Finally, no, not changing a part that required token does not save that many resources. You can still spend all your money on other parts, such as for example the aerodynamics, which does not require tokens.

[matteosc]

James Allison said that after the Silverstone update package for the W12 that there would be no more major updates, and they would only be doing minor optimizations of what they already had if it was cost and time effective, and it didn't interfere with the development of the W13.

So from everything I've seen and read last year's championship battle had no detrimental effects on the development of the W13, I could be wrong because I don't have inside information but if you look at what changed on the W12 last season they weren't regularly updating it, after the Silverstone update they seemed to make gains from set up breakthroughs and a better understanding of the car which had more of larger sweet spot for set ups.

It could be, I am just trying to provide an explanation as for why a team that has been 8 consecutive times champion is now fighting with teams that were at the end of the grid last year. They may have not spent more resources that intended, but they definitely spent more on 2021 car than Ferrari, Haas, Alfa Romeo, Williams and probably everyone outside Red Bull (maybe).
I am not sure why people keep claiming that:
1) They did not use too many resources on 2021 project
2) They did not lose anything on engine side
3) Their car has the most downforce
4) Their car has the least drag because of sidepods
When they are not winning at the moment.

[Juzh]

Consider the fact that they are still not clear where the porpoising problem is emanating from even after a month of half since witnessing it first, which adds up to a thought that somewhere over the past few years, they have been consistently losing the brilliance of the yore. That probably is the reason why Red Bull has come out of with a relatively better car this year (obviously they get the credit for the good job), despite having mounted a season long aggressive championship challenge. I don't know if that is complacency, lack of motivation or just the budget cap that is the reason why Mercedes has started to get into problems.

They know what's causing the porpoising. James Allison said as much as recently as last week.

What they're working through is how to best fix it without sacrificing performance.

Probably helped both RB and Ferrari that they had: 1) more money; 2) more wind tunnel time; and 3) more CFD relative to Mercedes.

1. if you mean more money used up for 2022 then you can say this for ferrari, not red bull. Even if they stopped development a bit earlier in 2021 than mercedes (no relevant evidence they did) this wouldn't have that big of an impact.

2. again, ferrari yes, red bull no. Red bull even had 2.5% less win tunnel time during most critical times for 2022 car development - july 2021 - dec 2021


Because mercedes won constructors they now have that 2.5% deficit for jan 2022 - jun 2022.

3. same as above