2022 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[jumpingfish]

I read this on another site before, so I assume that due to the rewriting of articles, the meaning sometimes changes and what the author of the statement wanted to say is distorted. As far as I understood, Wolff meant that by March 1 they had an engine well adapted to the E10, but due to the high drag it is not visible.

[georgekyr]

Many articles lately point out that maybe one of the major problems of Mercedes is the flexibility of the floor.

• Ferrari has large sidepods which help with the floor being less flexible without adding too much weight.

• Red Bull got a new floor the last day of testing which is consider to be less flexible than the one used before and even though their side pod concept is much more compact than Ferrari they seem to manage as far as porpoising is concerned. Of course they got very heavy, but they plan a "diet" upgrade soon.

• Alpine have stated that they have designed the floor multiple times less flexible than the regulations allow.

Floor flexibility was sought in the past, but seems not to be the way forward with the ground effect cars. For Mercedes with the "no pods" concept is much more difficult to reduce flexibility without adding too much weight.
Of course, as Mercedes have stated, it is more important to them to solve the correlation problem between simulations, wind tunnel and real world than go down the "trial and error" route...

[siskue2005]

I don't get it how could they find some fuel improvements knowing that since March there is a freeze regarding this car item ... poor speculations, IMHO ...

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/108636/w ... ments.html

Engine mapping

[adrianjordan]

I read this on another site before, so I assume that due to the rewriting of articles, the meaning sometimes changes and what the author of the statement wanted to say is distorted. As far as I understood, Wolff meant that by March 1 they had an engine well adapted to the E10, but due to the high drag it is not visible.

This seems likely. I've seen a number of people on here and other places speculate that Merc are running the PU turned down as well because they know they're not fighting for wins even if they push them, so they're saving them for later.

It's a long season and there is still time for Merc to get back in contention.

I might even see what the odds are like on a Hamilton WDC this year!!

[silver]

I read this on another site before, so I assume that due to the rewriting of articles, the meaning sometimes changes and what the author of the statement wanted to say is distorted. As far as I understood, Wolff meant that by March 1 they had an engine well adapted to the E10, but due to the high drag it is not visible.

This seems likely. I've seen a number of people on here and other places speculate that Merc are running the PU turned down as well because they know they're not fighting for wins even if they push them, so they're saving them for later.

It's a long season and there is still time for Merc to get back in contention.

I might even see what the odds are like on a Hamilton WDC this year!!

Speaking of numbers, Hamilton has never managed to overcome a deficit of 40 points in any of his previous seasons to win a WDC. He never had a car with a qualifying deficit of 7 tenths and race pace deficit of 1 second before. If Mercedes joins the championship battle, it would be a three team battle, which Hamilton hasn't won before. So the historical odds are completely against such a possibility. For all those odds to be beaten, Mercedes have to first understand the car's problems and find a fix. First time since 2012, Mercedes are facing correlation issues.

[De Jokke]

Disagree on the slow car part: 2009 mp4-24

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Pri ... C3%AB_2009

[silver]

Disagree on the slow car part: 2009 mp4-24

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Pri ... C3%AB_2009

2009 was also the last year where qualifying fuel loads were carried into race. So, it's not a like for like comparison for the single lap pace deficit of today's cars. It was also the last year of refuelling.

[f1jcw]

Hamilton has never managed to overcome a deficit of 40 points in any of his previous seasons to win a WDC. If Mercedes joins the championship battle, it would be a three team battle, which Hamilton hasn't won before. So the historical odds are completely against such a possibility..

Oh guess what, all that also apples to Charles and Max

[ringo]

If Hamilton gets a winning car when he has a mathematical chance to win the championship he is likely to win it. We saw this last year when the team understood how to setup the car.
So yes they may 40+ points behind but I would not bet against LH if he will need to win 5 races in a row to be WDC.
The past cannot be used to gauge this year's championship. The cars are easier to follow, and no one car is streaking off into the distance where the following car has no chance to make a second attack. Also in the v8 era i guess we had less races to make up for random swings.

Aside from the question of if they can challenge, this thing about cars overheating will be the new limitation for close racing.
The cars can get closer and stay close for laps, but now we have a new problem that the FIA did not factor; PUs being heat soaked because they're constantly in the hot slipstream of the leading car. So we can basically go back to square 1 where a car has to drop back to 1.5 to 2 seconds behind to cool off.

I think F1 needs to introduce spec radiator fan motors and controls. And allow the teams freedom to make the blades as they choose to fit their radiator designs.

[saviour stivala]

Why should the FIA worry/do something ! about individual teams engine overheating problems.

[Big Tea]

I read this on another site before, so I assume that due to the rewriting of articles, the meaning sometimes changes and what the author of the statement wanted to say is distorted. As far as I understood, Wolff meant that by March 1 they had an engine well adapted to the E10, but due to the high drag it is not visible.

This seems likely. I've seen a number of people on here and other places speculate that Merc are running the PU turned down as well because they know they're not fighting for wins even if they push them, so they're saving them for later.

It's a long season and there is still time for Merc to get back in contention.

I might even see what the odds are like on a Hamilton WDC this year!!

Speaking of numbers, Hamilton has never managed to overcome a deficit of 40 points in any of his previous seasons to win a WDC. He never had a car with a qualifying deficit of 7 tenths and race pace deficit of 1 second before. If Mercedes joins the championship battle, it would be a three team battle, which Hamilton hasn't won before. So the historical odds are completely against such a possibility. For all those odds to be beaten, Mercedes have to first understand the car's problems and find a fix. First time since 2012, Mercedes are facing correlation issues.

There are 3 sprint races extra this year with 8 points in each up for grabs so more points and more races than any previous year and the numbers change ( is there an additional fastest lap point in sprint too?)

[silver]

This seems likely. I've seen a number of people on here and other places speculate that Merc are running the PU turned down as well because they know they're not fighting for wins even if they push them, so they're saving them for later.

It's a long season and there is still time for Merc to get back in contention.

I might even see what the odds are like on a Hamilton WDC this year!!

Speaking of numbers, Hamilton has never managed to overcome a deficit of 40 points in any of his previous seasons to win a WDC. He never had a car with a qualifying deficit of 7 tenths and race pace deficit of 1 second before. If Mercedes joins the championship battle, it would be a three team battle, which Hamilton hasn't won before. So the historical odds are completely against such a possibility. For all those odds to be beaten, Mercedes have to first understand the car's problems and find a fix. First time since 2012, Mercedes are facing correlation issues.

There are 3 sprint races extra this year with 8 points in each up for grabs so more points and more races than any previous year and the numbers change ( is there an additional fastest lap point in sprint too?)

Same things can work against if Mercedes struggles to fix all their problems sooner.

[AR3-GP]

If Hamilton gets a winning car when he has a mathematical chance to win the championship he is likely to win it. We saw this last year when the team understood how to setup the car.
So yes they may 40+ points behind but I would not bet against LH if he will need to win 5 races in a row to be WDC.

Much harder to go through both Verstappen and Leclerc imo. Too many moving targets.

[dans79]

If Hamilton gets a winning car when he has a mathematical chance to win the championship he is likely to win it. We saw this last year when the team understood how to setup the car.
So yes they may 40+ points behind but I would not bet against LH if he will need to win 5 races in a row to be WDC.

Much harder to go through both Verstappen and Leclerc imo. Too many moving targets.

Right now it's only charles, as Max is behind him in the WDC.

[silver]

If Mercedes does become competitive, wouldn't Russell also wants a shot at the title? After all, he is currently ahead of Hamilton. That's the first headache. The competitive landscape seems far tougher than in previous years. Perez seems more comfortable and faster than last year and then there is Sainz who could be a potential candidate too. So that's about 6 drivers including Hamilton if Mercedes magically makes the car a championship contender.