2023 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[Cs98]

Does this team have infinite budget? How many major changes have they now done on this car?

Infinite accountants No but they're definitely the team with the most upgrades this season. Third iteration of the sidepod. Basically a floor shy of a completely revised car, and I wouldn't bet against that coming at some point too.

[ringo]

Does this team have infinite budget? How many major changes have they now done on this car?

I would ask that of teams like Mclaren, redbull, alpine, and ferrari.
Mercedes doesnt have upgrades as often as we think. The other teams seem to have more stuf thowing at their cars.
Mercedes has the most fanfare when an upgrade is coming for sure. But the others quietly make their changes.

As for the hungarian race. It's a false sense of confort if anyone looking at the last stint thinks the mercedes have closed the gap to mclaren.
The car needs to be capable of a net lower time start to finish with all things considered and the W14 did not over the MCL60.
Fastest over 1 stint with a tyre offset is not applicable across the whole race as evidence of having a faster car. For whatever reason the car could not be faster over the other stints even in clean air. The Mclaren managed a net faster race time simply because of better pace distributed at different phases of the race. The team choose how to use the car's pace and tyres' grip at opportune times to allow it to not need to be faster than the mercedes in the end and still finish ahead. So they still have more capacity for pace than Mercedes.
The W14 needs a lot of improvement in it's tyre warm up. This issue has plagued even other W cars in the past.
The topspeed fix would also be nice.

Spa will have rain. If i rememeber correctly Norris is good in the wet and so is the mclaren. So it will be another challenging weekend for mercedes to get on the podium. Oscar looks like he is right there with Lando and would also be fighting hard to get his first podium.
Mercedes need some really effective upgrades this weekend.

[Alex_Z]

Does this team have infinite budget? How many major changes have they now done on this car?

They haven't brought a new floor like the others apart from RB. Ferrari, Mclaren and Aston have brought more upgrades

[dans79]

Does this team have infinite budget? How many major changes have they now done on this car?

They haven't brought a new floor like the others apart from RB. Ferrari, Mclaren and Aston have brought more upgrades

yep because the floor is likely the second most expensive aero component on the car, behind the monocoque.

[Big Tea]

Does this team have infinite budget? How many major changes have they now done on this car?

Infinite accountants No but they're definitely the team with the most upgrades this season. Third iteration of the sidepod. Basically a floor shy of a completely revised car, and I wouldn't bet against that coming at some point too.

All the staff are bringing sandwiches.

[AR3-GP]

I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I reckon this update is bigger, laptime wise, than they are letting on.

This is anecdotal, but it's the quiet upgrades that seem to do the most good for Mercedes.

[chrisc90]

I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I reckon this update is bigger, laptime wise, than they are letting on.

This is anecdotal, but it's the quiet upgrades that seem to do the most good for Mercedes.

How much laptime was this update meant to bring?

[ringo]

A sprint weekend wont be the best time to evaluate it either.

[Luscion]

I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I reckon this update is bigger, laptime wise, than they are letting on.

This is anecdotal, but it's the quiet upgrades that seem to do the most good for Mercedes.

How much laptime was this update meant to bring?

I don't think anyone knows, they never mentioned it, just said there were upgrades for spa. It's more upgrades than a lot of people were expecting too

[PlatinumZealot]

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.

One of the mclarens suffered floor damage which ruined its race.

If that wasn't the case then Mercedes would have likely been behind both McLarens, not the other way round.

There is a glaring pace deficit between McLaren and Mercedes, and a lot of people may be forgetting that it is Hamilton driving this car and exactly what that means in terms of pace... We are talking about the fastest formula driver to exist so far, he is making the mercedes look better than it is, lets not forget this and temper expectations

The Merc was definitely faster than the McLaren towards the end of the race. Kinder on its tyres and better on low fuel. Lewis finished like 5 seconds behind Norris despite the bad start and losing a lot of time doing excessive tyre management in the middle of the race. They also had cooling issues necessitating lift and coast, which was exaggerated when behind other cars early in the race. All in all, had Lewis stayed in first or second on the first lap he likely would've finished second.

Remember this is a Lewis Hamilton track. The record for most poles at single track andsome of them done with cars that had no business getting pole - MP4-24, W04, W14 - is a testament to that. So it's clear that when the car lightens up his single lap pace at this track will start to show and shade the inadequacies of the car.

[AR3-GP]

A sprint weekend wont be the best time to evaluate it either.

They'll be able to read the aero numbers on the floor if Sunday is dry.

They can technically still measure the pushrod loads, wet or dry.

[Farnborough]

I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I reckon this update is bigger, laptime wise, than they are letting on.

This is anecdotal, but it's the quiet upgrades that seem to do the most good for Mercedes.

I agree with this. Rather than shooting in the dark, seems to be a more subtle and targeted evolution of the platform they have.

There's clear disagreement on here about the effects of "anti dive" front suspension changes that came in Monaco, which appear to have calmed the analysis feed by giving better consistency to the aero platform. No it's not a fix all, but taking out one inconsistent element (greater variance of floor approach height) allows a clearer view for understanding development.

These mods seem focused on the rear end performance they've experienced weakness with still, which may increase driver confidence and facilitate a more more beneficial rear wing balance than previously.

Tentatively, it looks like a good squeeze in the right direction. Running it here, with limited setup time, like Monaco, I think is important. It just feeds more data faster to the team, they'll not find out by holding it back. Ultimately it supports next year better.

[mstar]

i agree i think Merc are secretly playing down this upgrade. If they dont find a big performance update i think they be dejected and can forget it for 2024.

Has anyone noticed just like 2022, when the car gets better lewis "goes with the car" and gets faster and ahead of George. Where george kind of stays static.

[omegacel71]

George started his lap pretty late. He also got jumped by Perez atleast accorsing to the driver tracker I believe before starting last lap? That must have compromised him. George also beat ham in British quali and would have been up there in hungary without the traffic mishap from Mercedes.I don't see much to worry.

[Willy]

i agree i think Merc are secretly playing down this upgrade.

I think so too.

Is there a reason to do so? They appears to be trying different setups on both cars with Lewis going with a little lower downforce to George. Yet Lewis is around a second down on Max. Ferraris seems to have done similar to Lewis. McLarens have gone with higher downforce setup, probably betting for wet Sunday. It's hard to measure their relative absolute positioning among that secondary group. But it doesn't look a whole lot has significantly changed with this upgrade. Might have to wait for a few more races to clearly conclude though.