2024 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[AMG.Tzan]

Wow Hamilton’s pace is phenomenal!!!

Second year in a row (maybe third) that he keeps doing the same thing! In FP2 he’s flying and come FP3 he totally changes the setup to go with a “race setup” yet he ends up destroying both his Qualifying and Race…

Also it must have been quite a high iQ move by Mercedes not to try the Hards during practice! It doesn’t surprise me they’re nowhere with Hards! They didn’t even bother at least putting a set of Softs for the end…

I think Lewis needs to stop chasing this 'setup' phenomenon so much. Second season in a row and its just not working the way he wants it to be. I was expecting him to make a lot more progress today from where he started.

True!

But the problem is Russell on the different setup started way ahead of Lewis in 3rd yet he ended up only 3,5 seconds ahead of him in the end!

So I don’t know if it would have made an difference even if Lewis started 3rd himself! Probably Mercedes’s race pace just isn’t that great…

[mkay]

Wow Hamilton’s pace is phenomenal!!!

Second year in a row (maybe third) that he keeps doing the same thing! In FP2 he’s flying and come FP3 he totally changes the setup to go with a “race setup” yet he ends up destroying both his Qualifying and Race…

Also it must have been quite a high iQ move by Mercedes not to try the Hards during practice! It doesn’t surprise me they’re nowhere with Hards! They didn’t even bother at least putting a set of Softs for the end…

I think Lewis needs to stop chasing this 'setup' phenomenon so much. Second season in a row and its just not working the way he wants it to be. I was expecting him to make a lot more progress today from where he started.

DRS trains are much more powerful now with the grid even closer together and DRS from L2.

Mercedes DRS is one of the worst which doesn't help. They desperately need a new rear wing.

[chrisc90]

Wow Hamilton’s pace is phenomenal!!!

Second year in a row (maybe third) that he keeps doing the same thing! In FP2 he’s flying and come FP3 he totally changes the setup to go with a “race setup” yet he ends up destroying both his Qualifying and Race…

Also it must have been quite a high iQ move by Mercedes not to try the Hards during practice! It doesn’t surprise me they’re nowhere with Hards! They didn’t even bother at least putting a set of Softs for the end…

I think Lewis needs to stop chasing this 'setup' phenomenon so much. Second season in a row and its just not working the way he wants it to be. I was expecting him to make a lot more progress today from where he started.

True!

But the problem is Russell on the different setup started way ahead of Lewis in 3rd yet he ended up only 3,5 seconds ahead of him in the end!

So I don’t know if it would have made an difference even if Lewis started 3rd himself! Probably Mercedes’s race pace just isn’t that great…

Be interesting to know the setup differences between the 2. (i havent looked into their cars much as missed most of FP3 and quali due to work).

Also be interesting to see how the deg played out vs Ferrari and McLaren. I think even Norris made inroads to Russell in the last 10-15laps of the race.

At present, I think the cars/teams are somewhere around where they were later on in the fall of last season. What will be important for Mercedes is if they have a good platform to develop on. Whether you can solve all of the deg issues (if any) with in season development is a crucial question though.

[chrisc90]

DRS trains are much more powerful now with the grid even closer together and DRS from L2.

Mercedes DRS is one of the worst which doesn't help. They desperately need a new rear wing.

Not sure the 1 lap sooner DRS activation made a lot of difference. Maybe if we had a safety car it might change my opinion. But that will play out over the season.

Agree re. Merc needing to work on their DRS. I think Lewis only got a couple of passes on the AMR's and Russell early on with a Leclerc issue locking up. (or was Rus on Lec on merit?)

[Venturiation]

What a stinker by George losing 2 places
And lewis needs to stop changing setup

[214270]

Yeah, I would’ve preferred the development focus to be more on the race pace but it seems we’ve lost out to Ferrari rather convincingly on that front; no scope to really advance if you qualify poorly. McL are prob equal so we’ll be scrapping around for single digit points if they mess up.

First race after abandoning the zeropod chassis so it’s an OK start all things considered. Need some major development moving forward though.

[j_ste]

What a stinker by George losing 2 places
And lewis needs to stop changing setup

Keep the set up and be too slow. Change the set up and be slow.

Common theme, the car is too slow

[dominaze]

Too much biased setup generally leads you nowhere. Applies for both cars. Still, Rus race pace has always been so poor, even during his williams days. Its 2 years now he's been with the team. I can't get how come he's not been told yet to learn to set up the car in a different way

[Ced]

The other teams have no clue about RedBull Pace. Merc is the deception

[organic]

They need a new rear wing

[DGP123]

Rus race pace has always been so poor, even during his williams days. Its 2 years now he's been with the team. I can't get how come he's not been told yet to learn to set up the car in a different way

His race pace is poor, and I can’t see it ever improving. I just don’t see what other people see. When he qualifies well, you know he’s going backwards the next day.

For all the comments about progression, I just can’t really get on board. The sport is about winning, and competing. Mercedes aren’t, and won’t be doing either, for the next two years.

Even if a new rear wing comes, it’s not changing the landscape. Just a depressing reality, but I guess every team is in the same boat, bar Red Bull

[Luscion]

Russell said him and Lewis were losing 4 tenths alone from having to turn down the PU to stop it from overheating

[organic]

Toto and George talking about the cooling costing multiple tenths per lap. They could've chosen a less aggressive bodywork and lost 2-3 hundredths in return for not as much lift & coast in race. They got into a vicious cycle of lifting and coasting to deal with the engine temps but then the tyres going out of the window as a result. Was worse on harder compounds

Toto interview:



Russell interview just got shown on broadcast

[vorticism]

Why is the PU overheating now that their cooling isn't compromised by zeropods?

Toto just said in an interview they chose the wrong cooling package

I wonder what was meant by that. Nothing looks out of the ordinary on W15 cooling arrangement. In 2022 wind tunnel techs were blamed for a problem that had nothing to do with the wind tunnel.

[CaribouBread]

Interesting that Astons with the tightest bodywork, no gills didn't seem to have any cooling issues with the same PU. Mercs had plenty of Haas style openings, didn't expect them to get into overheating issues. They better get it sorted quick because if you're overheating in these conditions they won't survive the summer leg.