2024 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[Emag]

I don't see a clear better candidate to take over the TP role at Mercedes.

Ferrari was chasing after Horner in 22. Or is he not good enough for Brackley?

I would consider it unlikely but I have witnessed weirder things happening in F1.

From my point of view, if Horner steps down or is kicked out of RedBull, he won't be involved with F1 anymore.

[CHT]

He wants to make the team as attractive as possible for new drivers and sponsors before Hamilton leaves.

He should still start by resigning and allowing a fresh face with new energy and better attitude to take over. That's just how these things go in sports, an era passed and it's time to move on. Arguably, Toto is simply too proud and stubborn to accept he's part of the problem for a while now.

Mercedes has suffered some bleeding when it comes to human resources lately and its tough to pin it all on Toto. This team has been in somewhat of a crisis since 2021.

Assuming Toto does step down, I don't think he would be doing the team any favours. I don't see a clear better candidate to take over the TP role at Mercedes.

If he resigns today, the team will probably fall into turmoil. At least short term, it wouldn't have a positive effect.

The W15 is a completely new car and the team was very late in the game to copy the RB18/9 aero concept. So it should be expected the team will need time to extract the W15 potential.

The only difficult part for Merc is managing expectations because Merc has had a very long run of success, and anything other than winning and championship will be deemed as a failure.

Toto is a shareholder, he can't possibly step down without having a succession plan.

[AR3-GP]

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

Like Hungarian GP '23, they sacrificed cooling for performance and got caught out.

Some care needs to be taken with regards to the comments about the performance loss due to the issue since it's really not a 1:1 correlation.

Increasing the cooling openings on the car makes it draggier and compromises some downforce due to flow being "consumed" by the internal flows, rather than being sent down the side of the car. So you can't just add back the engine performance and say that's where you "would have been".

That's true, but insufficient cooling would have detrimental effects on a whole bunch of things impacting performance. Lower engine performance, more lift and coast, therefore a lower fuel burn and more weight on the car, detrimental to drivers' confidence and ability to extract performance, etc. I don't find it hard to believe that it cost them a significant amount of time, perhaps even 5-6 tenths like Toto said. Which is why it is INSANE that they would make such a mistake, especially at a track that they just did 3 days of testing on. Teams generally have a good handling on how much cooling they will need. The only exception is Mexico, but that's because the air is so much thinner that everyone is riding on the edge.

If the car is draggier, they would have to consume more fuel to cover the same distance. I can't give exact numbers, it's too complicated, and probably off topic. Also, lift and coast is expected in the race. I doubt the drivers suffered any "confidence loss". If anything they had a boost because the car had more downforce due to the limited cooling that it was running.

[j_ste]

Russell was quite happy after the race, maybe 0.5 tenths is true and he knows it and knows that they can improve, it seems to me that there is no benefit to lying in this sense, on the contrary

Its less lying and more towards delusion. Our simulations show this...our cooling stopped us from doing that.

Its just PR spin. More than likely, every team is compromised in some way

[stonehenge]

Like Hungarian GP '23, they sacrificed cooling for performance and got caught out.

Some care needs to be taken with regards to the comments about the performance loss due to the issue since it's really not a 1:1 correlation.

Increasing the cooling openings on the car makes it draggier and compromises some downforce due to flow being "consumed" by the internal flows, rather than being sent down the side of the car. So you can't just add back the engine performance and say that's where you "would have been".

That's true, but insufficient cooling would have detrimental effects on a whole bunch of things impacting performance. Lower engine performance, more lift and coast, therefore a lower fuel burn and more weight on the car, detrimental to drivers' confidence and ability to extract performance, etc. I don't find it hard to believe that it cost them a significant amount of time, perhaps even 5-6 tenths like Toto said. Which is why it is INSANE that they would make such a mistake, especially at a track that they just did 3 days of testing on. Teams generally have a good handling on how much cooling they will need. The only exception is Mexico, but that's because the air is so much thinner that everyone is riding on the edge.

If the car is draggier, they would have to consume more fuel to cover the same distance. I can't give exact numbers, it's too complicated, and probably off topic. Also, lift and coast is expected in the race. I doubt the drivers suffered any "confidence loss". If anything they had a boost because the car had more downforce due to the limited cooling that it was running.

If you’re talking about low to medium levels of management then sure, but this seemed more significant. Anyhow, no one except Mercedes knows what really is the case, my main point was that even if they’re right, it doesn’t make them look good at all!

[Sevach]

Russell was quite happy after the race, maybe 0.5 tenths is true and he knows it and knows that they can improve, it seems to me that there is no benefit to lying in this sense, on the contrary

Its less lying and more towards delusion. Our simulations show this...our cooling stopped us from doing that.

Its just PR spin. More than likely, every team is compromised in some way

Right now Mercedes is the complete opposite of what they were when they were winning, now they talk up their chances every opportunity, the pressure has affected them.

I can understand Russell, he never drove for the all conquering Mercedes(well... he did for one race), but the rest of the team...

[zibby43]

I don't see a clear better candidate to take over the TP role at Mercedes.

Ferrari was chasing after Horner in 22. Or is he not good enough for Brackley?

You really think that would be a good look with what Horner is up to these days?

If anything, maybe Toto just needs to be more like Horner (not the inappropriate side) and lobby the sport to change the rules instead of taking the high road. I notice Horner and co. have been conspicuously quiet on asking for engine mode bans, regs changes, etc. Wonder why?

Or Toto could just cheat like Mattia B. and cook up some illegal PUs. With how the FIA operates, he’d really only have to worry about paying a fine and a secret backroom scolding.

Others’ mileage may vary.

[Watto]

Russell was quite happy after the race, maybe 0.5 tenths is true and he knows it and knows that they can improve, it seems to me that there is no benefit to lying in this sense, on the contrary

Its less lying and more towards delusion. Our simulations show this...our cooling stopped us from doing that.

Its just PR spin. More than likely, every team is compromised in some way

Right now Mercedes is the complete opposite of what they were when they were winning, now they talk up their chances every opportunity, the pressure has affected them. The wrong cooling solution when you’ve had a bunch of tests at the same track. I don’t think that’s the kinda mistake they’d have made in 2014-2021. But I am sure they will learn from it before too long


I can understand Russell, he never drove for the all conquering Mercedes(well... he did for one race), but the rest of the team...

I think Mercedes will get on top if things now that they seem to have the right platform - both Lewis and George have said the car feels better now, but I wonder a little about their claims this early

[Henri]

Mercedes miss aldo costa.. the head of aero for redbull was porched from merc in 2018

[chrisc90]

Toto could still keep his stake, he could just move upwards and employ a new team principle.

[214270]

It was a disappointing race but far too early for major negativity; they were predicted to be behind Aston & McL end last season. The concept clearly needs to mature, prob should wait for a round of updates before going nuclear

[Venturiation]

[214270]

That’s the same louvres they ran in the race. I don’t believe they tested anything more aggressive in any of the practices

[Matt2725]

Just so I'm up to date on this thread. Anything negative is true, and anything potentially positive is PR spin and only being said to attract drivers and sponsors?

I think that's about right. Shame the level of discourse here is now on par with Reddit.

As it is, we'll see where they are next week I would suggest.

[j_ste]

Just so I'm up to date on this thread. Anything negative is true, and anything potentially positive is PR spin and only being said to attract drivers and sponsors?

I think that's about right. Shame the level of discourse here is now on par with Reddit.

As it is, we'll see where they are next week I would suggest.

I wonder if Lewis has a reddit account. I reckon some of them do