2023 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[Venturiation]

The fact is Merc dominated turbo hybrid era because they had an engine delta for almost 8 years but they dropped the ball massively and now are behind some manufacturers. They could stick the biggest front and rear wing and not worry of top speed deficit.
This era of ground effect with cost cap has exposed the team. Granted they lost many many engineers, but the core team seems to be clueless. I don't know if James Allison is still there but he is not featured anywhere.
Having said all of the above I still think the car is still fast on certain tracks and come quali and race when the bags come off they will be above the midfield just not close to Redbull.

Doesn't explain why all the other Merc powered teams were regularly so far behind if it was all the PU.
To suggest that being the case is doing a disservice to the team that designed the rest of the car at that time.

james has said during 2019 that they were happy that people keep saying it is just the engine and everyone is copying redbull aero

[McMika98]

The fact is Merc dominated turbo hybrid era because they had an engine delta for almost 8 years but they dropped the ball massively and now are behind some manufacturers. They could stick the biggest front and rear wing and not worry of top speed deficit.
This era of ground effect with cost cap has exposed the team. Granted they lost many many engineers, but the core team seems to be clueless. I don't know if James Allison is still there but he is not featured anywhere.
Having said all of the above I still think the car is still fast on certain tracks and come quali and race when the bags come off they will be above the midfield just not close to Redbull.

Doesn't explain why all the other Merc powered teams were regularly so far behind if it was all the PU.
To suggest that being the case is doing a disservice to the team that designed the rest of the car at that time.

Special engine modes was a thing until 2 years ago. When Ferrari were playing the fuel flow engine trick none of the customer team has that feature. Not saying the car was a dud they had one of the highest budget and large manpower.

[mkay]

The fact is Merc dominated turbo hybrid era because they had an engine delta for almost 8 years but they dropped the ball massively and now are behind some manufacturers. They could stick the biggest front and rear wing and not worry of top speed deficit.
This era of ground effect with cost cap has exposed the team. Granted they lost many many engineers, but the core team seems to be clueless. I don't know if James Allison is still there but he is not featured anywhere.
Having said all of the above I still think the car is still fast on certain tracks and come quali and race when the bags come off they will be above the midfield just not close to Redbull.

It's no brainer that the PU advantage carried them for a very long time. With the departure of Andy Cowell, that department is also appears to be weak now. With E10 coming into picture, Mercedes suddenly became 3rd best PU on the grid. With a PU that is, at best, on par with others or potentially second best and a weak aero philosophy, they are struggling to move beyond 3rd. The more time they spend in this spiral, regardless of the talented people in their ranks, the more they weaken. George should befriend Lawrence Stroll before Lando does.

Petronas got the E10 fuel wrong per rumours. I don’t think HPP is to blame or that Cowell’s departure has materially weakened the team.

[Venturiation]

The fact is Merc dominated turbo hybrid era because they had an engine delta for almost 8 years but they dropped the ball massively and now are behind some manufacturers. They could stick the biggest front and rear wing and not worry of top speed deficit.
This era of ground effect with cost cap has exposed the team. Granted they lost many many engineers, but the core team seems to be clueless. I don't know if James Allison is still there but he is not featured anywhere.
Having said all of the above I still think the car is still fast on certain tracks and come quali and race when the bags come off they will be above the midfield just not close to Redbull.

It's no brainer that the PU advantage carried them for a very long time. With the departure of Andy Cowell, that department is also appears to be weak now. With E10 coming into picture, Mercedes suddenly became 3rd best PU on the grid. With a PU that is, at best, on par with others or potentially second best and a weak aero philosophy, they are struggling to move beyond 3rd. The more time they spend in this spiral, regardless of the talented people in their ranks, the more they weaken. George should befriend Lawrence Stroll before Lando does.

Petronas got the E10 fuel wrong per rumours. I don’t think HPP is to blame or that Cowell’s departure has materially weakened the team.

aston martin has no problem so it isnt the engine

[Spoutnik]

He's trolling, but that's a mystery for me

[chrisc90]

He's trolling, but that's a mystery for me

I think the problem was they didnt want to fully abandon their concept by admitting it wasnt good enough last year. Or their wind tunnel/CFD analysis has some serious correlation issues, but id have expected them to be ironed out at over 2 years into a new set of regulations. Especially when this set of regs got backheeled a year aswell I believe.

Whilst not exactly the same concept, the changes from the likes of Williams who had a similar narrower-pod concept, and the AM who brought a B-spec car in 2022 and another big change for 2023 shows that teams shouldnt be scared of making a change.

[organic]

Williams and AMR had a lot of wind tunnel time to overcome any hurdles. It is almost a curse that Merc did so well with the w13 last year because it meant they didn't have enough wt time to abandon their concept and just pursued it

[organic]

As predicted Merc considering going back to barn door. Presumably to reduce their degradation which was not in line with Ferrari/AMR. Possible the new skinnier rear-wing did not match up to expectations

[DGP123]

They believed in the wrong concept, and badly got it wrong by persevering with it. Doesn’t need to be complicated, in how they’ve got there. They also aren’t the only big team that appears to have been leapfrogged. Pretty inevitable that Fallows/Blandin would just copy and paste all the ideas they’ve learnt from Newey/Merc, and it would be competitive. It’s why Alonso jumped ship. Again, not rocket science

Thankfully, it appears the concept is being canned now. They are already rowing back on the rear wing now for practice. Rebuild starts now, but it’s a long journey back. Two seasons written off already.

[Spoutnik]

Understand your explanations but we're acting like Merc are stupid/are behaving like politicians. There might be a reason to stick to the concept

[PlatinumZealot]

The fact is Merc dominated turbo hybrid era because they had an engine delta for almost 8 years but they dropped the ball massively and now are behind some manufacturers. They could stick the biggest front and rear wing and not worry of top speed deficit.
This era of ground effect with cost cap has exposed the team. Granted they lost many many engineers, but the core team seems to be clueless. I don't know if James Allison is still there but he is not featured anywhere.
Having said all of the above I still think the car is still fast on certain tracks and come quali and race when the bags come off they will be above the midfield just not close to Redbull.

It's no brainer that the PU advantage carried them for a very long time. With the departure of Andy Cowell, that department is also appears to be weak now. With E10 coming into picture, Mercedes suddenly became 3rd best PU on the grid. With a PU that is, at best, on par with others or potentially second best and a weak aero philosophy, they are struggling to move beyond 3rd. The more time they spend in this spiral, regardless of the talented people in their ranks, the more they weaken. George should befriend Lawrence Stroll before Lando does.

No. Just no.

The engine was the best on balance, power drievability reliability but horsepower wise Ferrari and Honda has challenged them. 2015 to 2019 the Ferrari engine was probably stronger. In 2020 to 2022 the Honda was very close.

Mercedes had an extremely good aerodynamic philosophy during the hybrid era. It all fell apart in 2021 when FIA cut the edges of the floors off. It was clear Mercedes relied much on running the rear low and keeping out tyre squirt.

Tyre squirt might even be their biggest issue as we speak.

[AR3-GP]

The fact is Merc dominated turbo hybrid era because they had an engine delta for almost 8 years but they dropped the ball massively and now are behind some manufacturers. They could stick the biggest front and rear wing and not worry of top speed deficit.
This era of ground effect with cost cap has exposed the team. Granted they lost many many engineers, but the core team seems to be clueless. I don't know if James Allison is still there but he is not featured anywhere.
Having said all of the above I still think the car is still fast on certain tracks and come quali and race when the bags come off they will be above the midfield just not close to Redbull.

It's no brainer that the PU advantage carried them for a very long time. With the departure of Andy Cowell, that department is also appears to be weak now. With E10 coming into picture, Mercedes suddenly became 3rd best PU on the grid. With a PU that is, at best, on par with others or potentially second best and a weak aero philosophy, they are struggling to move beyond 3rd. The more time they spend in this spiral, regardless of the talented people in their ranks, the more they weaken. George should befriend Lawrence Stroll before Lando does.

No. Just no.

The engine was the best on balance, power drievability reliability but horsepower wise Ferrari and Honda has challenged them. 2015 to 2019 the Ferrari engine was probably stronger.

No. Just no.

[bas550]

What exactly are Merc fans expecting in a cost cap era where the regulations were changed specifically to end Merc dominance? At the same time they were able to develop last year from the 6th or 7th best team at Imola to the best in Brazil, all on a bounce machine with a suspect engine. The car is much more stable platform with an engine capable of beating Red Bull, as Aston Martin seem to have shown. Merc will extract the potential from their car, and only 12% of the available points are handed out in the next two months. If Red Bull can be challenged early this season, then there could be more time for Merc to try to develop and catch up than last year

6th or 7th best team...at one track, in changing conditions? Come on...you're using an anomaly data point and compare it to another anomaly data point to try and make a point. That is guaranteed to skew your data.

Races before, and races immediately after Imola, Mercedes was easily the 3rd best team, and towards the end became close to 2nd best.

[PlatinumZealot]

Anyways. Not bad. Two tenths off. Season is salvageable.

[Spoutnik]

Very nice lap from Lewis, hope he can pull off a Singapore 2018 in qualy