2023 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[hollus]

As the only credible post in several pages of ----talking and spam-posts - quote-post,quote-post,quote-post,two line comment IS spamming the thread in my book! - consider this a reset of the AMG Mercedes Petronas 2023 TEAM thread.

Many posts will disappear from the last few pages, continuing to post in the same manner will result in warnings being issued. Play nicely, play the ball rather than the player, don’t post ‘angry’ - it never resolved anything.

That point is still valid. The third time you post the same thing with different wording, it is spam. It doesn’t matter if your interlocutor has also repeated his part 3 times, then you BOTH are spamming the thread and the forum.
You BOTH get to be the better man and the first to walk away, you BOTH are not winning anyway, but we get a better forum.
Of course “both” refers to many more than two here, you guys know who you are.
Seriously, if you like the forum so much as to do heavy posting, don’t make it a worse place.

[dans79]

What has been the revelation is McLaren, and it should be noted that Mercedes have marked their updates with more than just passing intrigue.
But it also does not change the fact McLaren have had a very poor first half of the season. So maybe the budget cap has a sliver of hope if there are ideas available that can be easily adopted within a budget cap.
Yet to be seen though.

The other thing is that between Austria and Silverstone Mcl changed most of the bloody car (the floor being the big one).




Imo, Merc can't make big gains this season, because unlike the press and so many others I don't think the sidepod shape is the silver bullet.

Imo, the floor is where all the performance lies, and merc is fundamentally limited in this area, because of how they designed the car around very narrow sidepods. They cannot produce a new chassis/monocoque in season and stay under the budget cap, they are to expensive.

[chrisc90]

Is the floor the key area though? Or a combination of areas?

Red bull brought a upgrade supposedly worth 2 tenths from a sidepod change and floor edge tweak - that was declared.

There is probably a reason they are focusing on that area. If the performance was in the floor - they would simply leave the sidepod alone.

The fact it’s a development area in RB, and other teams, speaks volumes

[dans79]

Is the floor the key area though? Or a combination of areas?

Red bull brought a upgrade supposedly worth 2 tenths from a sidepod change and floor edge tweak - that was declared.

There is probably a reason they are focusing on that area. If the performance was in the floor - they would simply leave the sidepod alone.

The fact it’s a development area in RB, and other teams, speaks volumes

It's not that simple anymore, because you are always limited by the budget cap. Body panels are far cheaper to make than a floor or a monocoque. Not to mention floors are the most computationally expensive (RB is the worst off here of any team) part of the car to develop under the current regulations.

[CHT]

There's no equally dominant car previously, rb19 is by far and away the most dominant car of all time. To suggest there's nothing stopping mercedes when there's a whole budget cap preventing them from fixing their car is laughable. The teams are exhausting their resources trying to catch up to redbull and they still can't get close, redbull bring their first big update of the season to hungary and they leave everyone in the dust with their biggest win of the season, this cycle will contiue until 2026.

The qualifying apart from redbull is close, there's no way Lewis should have got pole on saturday against the mighty rb19, that was down to poor performance from Max he should have qualified at least 3 tenths ahead according to the pundits.

2014-2016 was easily as dominant. Hell, they would've won every race in 2016 by a mile if not for first lap tangles.

And don't pin your hopes on 2026, that's going to be ground effect too.

I've seen so many people talk about Mercedes domination and that "it's Red Bull's time now" and it's all ok...

I'm not gonna talk in detail again about Mercedes always having or producing some kind of competition themselves (Ferrari 2017-2019, Red Bull 2020-2021 and Rosberg 2014-2016)

So on our topic, first of all you can't compare pre-budget cap era domination to now simply because teams were able to spend way too much and just get ahead of everyone with some clever engineers onboard! Ferrari did it (2000-2004), Red Bull did it (2010-2013) and then Mercedes did it (2014-2020)!

The budget cap was put in place mostly to stop these dominations from happening all the time one after the other! There's no other reason to use a budget cap and a sliding scale development if you are not going to stop dominations! That's why a lot of people are complaining now...because back in the day a team could just pour in the money and get competitive (like Ferrari in 2017-2019)!

Right now there's none of that! Not even engine development to at least gain something there! So we've ended up with a team miles ahead (through overspending in 2021 and cleverly gaining ground effect knowledge through the RB17 road car and thus avoiding problems like porpoising) and 9 teams unable to catch simply because they can't overspend their rival

To add to that, because people will say it's Newey doing the magic, because "Newey designed ground effect Indycars back in the 1908s" is wide off the mark! These ground effect floors of today have absolutely nothing to do with the way Indycars' spec ground effect floors worked back then...! Newey is of course the greatest designer around but still don't forget that he too wasn't that great during 2000-2009 and 2014-2021! It's a team effort...not a one-man effort!

Per budget cap, one can also talk about Ferrari's domination where they won WCC 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2007, 2008.

Merc F1 in its current form was founded in 2010, and they have won WCC 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021

Under the new regulation, RBR has only won the WCC in 2022 and most definitely in 2023. Isn't it too premature to be complaining about RBR domination at the moment?

In the case of Merc F1, I believe the team started 20222 with the wrong footing with zero pod design (which they wasted over 1 year trying to fix) and a less superior engine (which they cannot fix due to engine freeze). And this is perhaps the first major slip-up for Merc F1 in its current form,. As we know from the experience of past major design errors, it will be difficult (not impossible) for the team to recover.

RBR domination this season should be seen as an inspiration for F1 engineers and drivers because they have done a fantastic job and they deserve to win.

[AR3-GP]

What has been the revelation is McLaren, and it should be noted that Mercedes have marked their updates with more than just passing intrigue.
But it also does not change the fact McLaren have had a very poor first half of the season. So maybe the budget cap has a sliver of hope if there are ideas available that can be easily adopted within a budget cap.
Yet to be seen though.

The other thing is that between Austria and Silverstone Mcl changed most of the bloody car (the floor being the big one).

Imo, Merc can't make big gains this season, because unlike the press and so many others I don't think the sidepod shape is the silver bullet.

Imo, the floor is where all the performance lies, and merc is fundamentally limited in this area, because of how they designed the car around very narrow sidepods. They cannot produce a new chassis/monocoque in season and stay under the budget cap, they are to expensive.

The other problem that I see is that Merc are not fully committing to writing off a season that they cannot win. Had they written the season off early, they would have the benefit of much more windtunnel time right now.

[ValeVida46]

The other thing is that between Austria and Silverstone Mcl changed most of the bloody car (the floor being the big

Imo, Merc can't make big gains this season, because unlike the press and so many others I don't think the sidepod shape is the silver bullet.

Imo, the floor is where all the performance lies, and merc is fundamentally limited in this area, because of how they designed the car around very narrow sidepods. They cannot produce a new chassis/monocoque in season and stay under the budget cap, they are to expensive.

Agreed 100%. While it's easy to say the sidepod was the problem, the change hasn't led to a clear gain.
McLaren brought a few updates between Azerbaijan to Silverstone but it was the floor that stood out a demarcating element.
But nothing works in a vacuum, and this applies to Mercedes.

They could go for replica sidepods, but they would need a floor to match, and front wing concept that works with the floor and the sidepods to create the desired effect.
Merc have said through various outlets they will be bringing updates that would have a bearing on 2024's car which from a budget cap perspective is prudent if resources are being allocated to run these ideas in real time.

Also from the list of upgrades of all the top 5 teams, only Red bull have brought less than Mercedes. So depending on if we see a new floor or not, this could give a massive clue as to how they allocated resources and whether the updates we see are detailed or comprehensive.

[F1Krof]

If cost cap achieved something, it achieved stopping the Merc's dominance.

[Farnborough]

The other thing is that between Austria and Silverstone Mcl changed most of the bloody car (the floor being the big

Imo, Merc can't make big gains this season, because unlike the press and so many others I don't think the sidepod shape is the silver bullet.

Imo, the floor is where all the performance lies, and merc is fundamentally limited in this area, because of how they designed the car around very narrow sidepods. They cannot produce a new chassis/monocoque in season and stay under the budget cap, they are to expensive.

Agreed 100%. While it's easy to say the sidepod was the problem, the change hasn't led to a clear gain.
McLaren brought a few updates between Azerbaijan to Silverstone but it was the floor that stood out a demarcating element.
But nothing works in a vacuum, and this applies to Mercedes.

They could go for replica sidepods, but they would need a floor to match, and front wing concept that works with the floor and the sidepods to create the desired effect.
Merc have said through various outlets they will be bringing updates that would have a bearing on 2024's car which from a budget cap perspective is prudent if resources are being allocated to run these ideas in real time.

Also from the list of upgrades of all the top 5 teams, only Red bull have brought less than Mercedes. So depending on if we see a new floor or not, this could give a massive clue as to how they allocated resources and whether the updates we see are detailed or comprehensive.

The sidepod changed is effectively invalid as it in no way replicates most of the other competitors, little more than a crude amalgamation of mid wing and vestiges of existing side cover. It literally tells them nothing in the way of assessment of competing designs and the subsequent integration into the existing floor architecture. Just reinforcement that the front end flow of pod doesn't work.

Going for "replica" sidepods.....everyone sitting in judgement of something that hasn't happened. It being so easy to dismiss a path that hasn't been taken. Even the team is now being quoted as saying they didn't adequately understand the aero now in place in regard to ground effect cars, or words to that effect.
How can they trust their own projections given the above-mentioned statement ? More so, all the MB acolyte around commenting with such conviction tme same when clearly it's very shaky analytically a ground to be standing on.

[InsaneX_Badger]

Tbh the biggest reason for the amount of complaints is just because we had a season for the ages in 2021 and a really good start to the 2022 season between RB and Ferrari. We have seen the greener grass and we want to go back.

[SiLo]

Bar Lewis' poor start and then unfortunate positioning allowing the Mclarens to jump him, I think he would have finished P2 ahead of the Mclarens. It wasn't the perfect weekend for them whereas Mclaren really didn't put a foot wrong.

Mclaren have also brought more updates, and have more wind tunnel time, so them making a jump finally should have been expected. The size of it might be unexpected, but it also ties in with Ferrari and Aston suddenly appearing to struggle in terms of pace.

It's really not as bad as people appear to be making out.

[AR3-GP]

It's really not as bad as people appear to be making out.

The main problem is finishing 40 seconds behind. 2nd or 4th is moot. Merc would be happy with a 4th place and only 5 seconds behind the race winner.

[Willy]

Bar Lewis' poor start and then unfortunate positioning allowing the Mclarens to jump him, I think he would have finished P2 ahead of the Mclarens. It wasn't the perfect weekend for them whereas Mclaren really didn't put a foot wrong.

Mclaren have also brought more updates, and have more wind tunnel time, so them making a jump finally should have been expected. The size of it might be unexpected, but it also ties in with Ferrari and Aston suddenly appearing to struggle in terms of pace.

It's really not as bad as people appear to be making out.

Does that apply relatively to all teams? For instance, both Mercedes and Ferrari had more wind tunnel time than Red Bull. Wasn't it to be expected that both should have jumped Red Bull similar to McLaren jumping ahead of Mercedes? The spending restricted and sliding scale atmosphere rewards efficiency in work and not a larger labor. On one hand, we have Red Bull, who despite having reduced wind tunnel and CFD time, has enhanced the gap in 2023 and then we have McLaren who have jumped ahead of Mercedes. Similarly, Aston got a jump at the start of the year and had the most wind tunnel and CFD time of these teams, yet they have been sliding downwards. It just shows that having right ideas is the key for moving forward, not the wind tunnel time alone. If the concepts and ideas are either bad or restrictive, then a team would either gets stagnated or starts falling behind.

[Just_a_fan]

What has been the revelation is McLaren, and it should be noted that Mercedes have marked their updates with more than just passing intrigue.
But it also does not change the fact McLaren have had a very poor first half of the season. So maybe the budget cap has a sliver of hope if there are ideas available that can be easily adopted within a budget cap.
Yet to be seen though.

The other thing is that between Austria and Silverstone Mcl changed most of the bloody car (the floor being the big one).

Imo, Merc can't make big gains this season, because unlike the press and so many others I don't think the sidepod shape is the silver bullet.

Imo, the floor is where all the performance lies, and merc is fundamentally limited in this area, because of how they designed the car around very narrow sidepods. They cannot produce a new chassis/monocoque in season and stay under the budget cap, they are to expensive.

The other problem that I see is that Merc are not fully committing to writing off a season that they cannot win. Had they written the season off early, they would have the benefit of much more windtunnel time right now.

They're bringing things to the car as a way of testing them in the real world. They've said that they're bringing things to the W14 that will be useful for the 2024 car. That seems like a sensible thing to do when there is limited WT/CFD and no testing.

[AR3-GP]

The other thing is that between Austria and Silverstone Mcl changed most of the bloody car (the floor being the big one).

Imo, Merc can't make big gains this season, because unlike the press and so many others I don't think the sidepod shape is the silver bullet.

Imo, the floor is where all the performance lies, and merc is fundamentally limited in this area, because of how they designed the car around very narrow sidepods. They cannot produce a new chassis/monocoque in season and stay under the budget cap, they are to expensive.

The other problem that I see is that Merc are not fully committing to writing off a season that they cannot win. Had they written the season off early, they would have the benefit of much more windtunnel time right now.

They're bringing things to the car as a way of testing them in the real world. They've said that they're bringing things to the W14 that will be useful for the 2024 car. That seems like a sensible thing to do when there is limited WT/CFD and no testing.

Last year we were told many times that they were often experimenting. I have not heard much if any talk in this regard this season.