2022 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[Big Tea]

Yes! and well done to the team RB for great work done leading into 2022 season! taking that honour of "dominant car" away from MercedesAMGF1 team!.
And also well done to MercedesAMGF1 team for grounding themselves again and grafting their way back.
They will end second in WCC.

You know both Newey and Marko have been quoted as saying they had the best car last year.
Also FIA data analytics have also agreed.

Toto said everything is easier for max this year now that he is in the fastest car. Saying/ implying merc was the fastest last year. Newey was just giving a compliment to his engineers, but he knew better

It does seem that the Red Bull is head and shoulders above any other over-all so far this year.
There have been times when the Ferrari looked the faster car, but the championship is over a season.
It is already Max is going to win unless something really unexpected happens.

I also think Max is driving much more within himself this year. Possibly it is without the pressure of chasing his first title, or the realisation he has one and and is living up to it.

I should probably edit this to say I mean Max' Red Bull, including car and driver as an entity.

[Spoutnik]

I think Hamilton will end up higher than Russell tomorrow (great start + usual very good race pace)

Its a great pole but its a false hope to me. There's no indication that Russell can keep up with the pace of McL/Ferrari or even Alpine. It will be like Alonso P2 in Canada

Told you !

[NicoS]

Shows the dominance of that car

Yes! and well done to the team RB for great work done leading into 2022 season! taking that honour of "dominant car" away from MercedesAMGF1 team!.
And also well done to MercedesAMGF1 team for grounding themselves again and grafting their way back.
They will end second in WCC.

You know both Newey and Marko have been quoted as saying they had the best car last year.
Also FIA data analytics have also agreed.

Then I congratulate them for taking the title of "dominant car" away from MercedesAMGF1 leading into 2021 also.

[dialtone]

Another L for the sofa experts and their theories of lower DF/worse tyre wear.

The thing is the car never had lower downforce to begin with. People were saying this, and it was not the case. Zero evidence from the team saying this.

The team were expecting rain. No sacrifice for "qualy setup with a low downforce car to heat tyres quickly and have poor deg" was made at all. The team just ran a normal weekend.

All that happened is they understood the car more; possibly the suspension settings. It's an L for the naysayers regarding the sidepods, and the "sidepods are draggy bregade".

Russell had high tire degradation through the race, Hamilton was also struggling in their first stint. Leclerc was sadly faster than the both of them until the Hards.

[Hammerfist]

I think Hamilton will end up higher than Russell tomorrow (great start + usual very good race pace)

Its a great pole but its a false hope to me. There's no indication that Russell can keep up with the pace of McL/Ferrari or even Alpine. It will be like Alonso P2 in Canada

Told you !

Yes, you were right on the first paragraph, but you were so wrong in the second paragraph.

[Spoutnik]

I think Hamilton will end up higher than Russell tomorrow (great start + usual very good race pace)

Its a great pole but its a false hope to me. There's no indication that Russell can keep up with the pace of McL/Ferrari or even Alpine. It will be like Alonso P2 in Canada

Told you !

Yes, you were right on the first paragraph, but you were so wrong in the second paragraph.

I think Ferrari bottled it very badly if not Sainz, at least, and/or Leclerc would've finish ahead of him.
McLaren were slow on race pace and Alpine we don't know because they went for the Hards.

[rifrafs2kees]

On another note, Phil Prew is leaving Mercedes for Red Bull. What's the deal with exodus of talent to Red Bull?

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/fres ... /10346466/

[Spoutnik]

I'm still trying to understand ? Better salary ? New challenges ? Its been like that for a few years now

[Big Tea]

I'm still trying to understand ? Better salary ? New challenges ? Its been like that for a few years now

I read he was going to Powertrains branch, so maybe he has had enough of the 'circus'. He is no youngster now

[PlatinumZealot]

On another note, Phil Prew is leaving Mercedes for Red Bull. What's the deal with exodus of talent to Red Bull?

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/fres ... /10346466/

Pretty sure Phill Prew is a McLaren Man. I didn't like him there either so if he is in Mercedes now... No love lost if he goes.

[Sidiamal]

I think Hamilton will end up higher than Russell tomorrow (great start + usual very good race pace)

Its a great pole but its a false hope to me. There's no indication that Russell can keep up with the pace of McL/Ferrari or even Alpine. It will be like Alonso P2 in Canada

Told you !

Told us he couldn't keep up with Alpine or McLaren and he finished ahead of two Ferraris and a Red Bull?

[rifrafs2kees]

Yes! and well done to the team RB for great work done leading into 2022 season! taking that honour of "dominant car" away from MercedesAMGF1 team!.
And also well done to MercedesAMGF1 team for grounding themselves again and grafting their way back.
They will end second in WCC.

You know both Newey and Marko have been quoted as saying they had the best car last year.
Also FIA data analytics have also agreed.

Toto said everything is easier for max this year now that he is in the fastest car. Saying/ implying merc was the fastest last year. Newey was just giving a compliment to his engineers, but he knew better

I'd be more accepting of explicit declaration from the engineer rather than some secondhand interpretation of the businessman's statement.
What are you getting at? Max is way better than Lewis? Thanks, we get it.

[atanatizante]

As they say, in motorsport the clock never lies, the cruel reality is the fact that they are way back to RB18, at least in VER`s hands and here are the facts:

For starters, remember that RUS and VER went in the race for the same S-M-M tyre 2 stops strategy, with the former starting on pole and the latter in 10th place ...

Lap 38, VER and then on lap 39 RUS pits for the second and final time switching for another set of medium tyres:



Then both drivers were pushing and after a couple of laps here is the delta time between them (I have to remember you that in the cold track temps for qualy they didn`t need a second warm-up lap as they used to do in the past, hence they didn`t have the 3-4 lap warm-up issues as they tend to do in France, Austria and UK) :



So in conclusion, in race pace, VER`s RB18 is some 8-9 tenths faster (or maybe 7-8 tenths after he admitted after the qualy that he changed the setup and this would affect tyre management in the race) than RUS` W13 and maybe some 5-6 tenths faster than HAM race pace on the same W13 car ...

But maybe HAM just summed it up the best when he said after the race that we just have to look up from where VER started and then finished the race, being on the same 2 stops and almost the same tyre strategy ...

So as the team/Toto said the car this year it`s a very peculiar diva, with a very narrow setup window and the proof of the above statement is the fact that they`ve gambled for a setup more qualy biased warming up the tyres faster (even in those relatively cold track temps) and end up both in qualy and the race with better grip overall and hence better results! This must be said with a caveat on RUS` case, for being forced to fight with the top runners and this, corroborated with the setup change, led to both poor tyre management and higher degradation in the race ...

[Just_a_fan]

I'm still trying to understand ? Better salary ? New challenges ? Its been like that for a few years now

Could just be a case of "a change is as good as a rest". Throw in a chunk of gardening leave between jobs and he'll hit the ground full steam once he arrives at his new job.

[erudite450]

The strategy team tends to be passive. They tend to play it safe most times even in a season like this where they don't have the pace of the front runners. They should have undercut Sainz with Hamilton but they didn't. They also allowed Verstappen undercut both cars at different points in the grand prix. Hamilton lost so much time struggling in the first stint but somehow they kept him out. Mercedes should be the ones driving the strategy considering where they are at the moment.