2024 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[Luscion]

Same thing last year. Old man Lewis simply cannot manage the harsh ride. He will suffer even worse at Baku.

For now I'm still not putting it past the team to have him struggle a bit. A few washers here and there in the rear suspension and a crank two clicks too far is enough to "show him he's washed up"

It feels like every year Lewis has a couple bad races people say this, and this race he wasnt even bad, just got shafted by Merc's strategy not double stacking. He scored the majority of Merc's points last year by quite some margin, their only pole and the most podiums. He did great defending from Piastri for 25 laps iirc

PZ was being sarcastic

oh my bad lol

[Sevach]

just got shafted by Merc's strategy not double stacking.

I won't get into the "Is Hamilton washed?" thing.
But Mercedes was between a rock and a hard place here, if they stack Hamilton comes out in front of Bearman (maybe/probably, there was more time for Ferrari to reset after Charles then Mercedes after Russell), but that would be it, he'd have to weed through slower cars and then be on the same strategy as Russell, condemned to the same anonymous race.

It didn't pay off but they tried something, a SC could've worked in their favor a bit.

[erudite450]

just got shafted by Merc's strategy not double stacking.

I won't get into the "Is Hamilton washed?" thing.
But Mercedes was between a rock and a hard place here, if they stack Hamilton comes out in front of Bearman (maybe/probably, there was more time for Ferrari to reset after Charles then Mercedes after Russell), but that would be it, he'd have to weed through slower cars and then be on the same strategy as Russell, condemned to the same anonymous race.

It didn't pay off but they tried something, a SC could've worked in their favor a bit.

I always question their strategy decisions but this was one of those cases were I believe they made the right call.

[j_ste]

Team looks solidly like 4th, maybe occasionally even 5th fastest. Need to burn it down and start again.

It just means they will spend all of next season preparing for 2026. Their 2025 will be akin to Ferraris 2021


Also, agree with those who are ok with the strategy. Lewis was mega at the back end of that first stint...it was a good idea but the softs at the end were just not good enough.
A little like the softs in Silverstone 2023...cant get good use of softs, if you cant go fast through turns

[erudite450]

Norris was slow on the softs. Hamilton probably would have caught up the outstanding Bearman if he managed to get past earlier on.

[j_ste]

Translate if you dare

[Shrieker]

Translate if you dare

indeed

[DGP123]

Simulation errors

Time to go, Toto.

[Luscion]

How do they have simulation issues 3 years into the regulations....

[zibby43]

This %#*! again????

[DGP123]

Hamilton, "In the high speed we are miles off, it's like we were in a different category. This team needs to make big changes".

[Sevach]

Hamilton, "In the high speed we are miles off, it's like we were in a different category. This team needs to make big changes".

Hamilton is in that "hey Alonso/Max you sure you wanna drive this POS?" mode already.
I noticed this when he downplayed the time loss from his battery problems last week, while Toto and Russell were painting a much brighter picture.

But he's not wrong.

[Cs98]

It's fixable. McLaren started last season at the back and ended it being the fastest car in high speed corners. As long as you have a platform that can be developed (which Merc now has) you can improve. A new floor can change a lot.

[Cs98]

Hamilton, "In the high speed we are miles off, it's like we were in a different category. This team needs to make big changes".

He's already checked out by the sounds of it.

[Hammerfist]

I mean I was watching the live timing as he was chasing Norris. The gap would sometimes close to 0.3-0.4 sec by turn 1 and at the end of s1 I would see 1.3-1.5 sec. Different category indeed. That’s exactly the thought I had when I saw those gaps. To be fair some of that was likely due to dirty air as well.