2024 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[Cs98]

Pardon me for saying this, but how do we know that this is indeed true and not yet another gaslighting comment from Toto ? I even doubt whether the 'cooling' excuse from a less-hot-than-normal Bahrain GP was even true. I know it's cruel, but I wont believe anything that's coming from Mercedes to the media and the only thing I will believe are the laptimes.

They are doing experiments
What I don't understand is why is lewis doing them and not their team leader 63

Hamilton on Friday.

“It was the best session that we've had this year, and it's the best the car has felt this year so far. So, so far really positive.

“We just seem to have hit the ground a bit more in a sweeter spot. I haven't really made any changes since.”

“I think we have got a better platform or baseline to start from,” he said. “So as long as we don't make too many changes and mess it up, I think probably just stay where we are.”

Then post-race we are treated to tales of "experiments", the same tale we've been told for years now. Excuses excuses excuses, seems to be about all this team has to offer nowadays. Toto goes along with it because he's a manager of people, and by offering up an excuse for a driver it helps to take the public pressure and scrutiny off of a poor performance.

[bluechris]

Pardon me for saying this, but how do we know that this is indeed true and not yet another gaslighting comment from Toto ? I even doubt whether the 'cooling' excuse from a less-hot-than-normal Bahrain GP was even true. I know it's cruel, but I wont believe anything that's coming from Mercedes to the media and the only thing I will believe are the laptimes.

They are doing experiments
What I don't understand is why is lewis doing them and not their team leader 63

Because he is the only driver in the team with the experience to give correct info of what is happening to the car with the changes they test.

[CHT]

Pardon me for saying this, but how do we know that this is indeed true and not yet another gaslighting comment from Toto ? I even doubt whether the 'cooling' excuse from a less-hot-than-normal Bahrain GP was even true. I know it's cruel, but I wont believe anything that's coming from Mercedes to the media and the only thing I will believe are the laptimes.

They are doing experiments
What I don't understand is why is lewis doing them and not their team leader 63

Because he is the only driver in the team with the experience to give correct info of what is happening to the car with the changes they test.

There were so many occasions in the past 2 seasons where LH blames his choice of setup when finishing behind GR.
If there is anything to experiment teams should have done it during FP.

In a seperate interview, James Allison (who didnt attend the Suzuka race) blame it on lower than expected track temperature.

I think LH may be struggling to adapt to ground effect F1 cars which then lead him to wrong setup.

[AR3-GP]

It was the hottest day of the weekend on Sunday. I'm surprised if Allison points to lower-than-expected track temperature.

[PlatinumZealot]

It's a good investment to have the more experienced driver experimenting on setup changes. It really paid back for them too. I'm really keen to see if Mercedes can implement these changes in 2 weeks before the Chinese GP or if we have to wait for the European season.

[CHT]

It was the hottest day of the weekend on Sunday. I'm surprised if Allison points to lower-than-expected track temperature.

my bad, its the Australia interview. He was saying why the car is so sensitive to different track temperature and this may be the same case for Suzuka.

[Rootsap]

They are doing experiments
What I don't understand is why is lewis doing them and not their team leader 63

Because he is the only driver in the team with the experience to give correct info of what is happening to the car with the changes they test.

There were so many occasions in the past 2 seasons where LH blames his choice of setup when finishing behind GR.
If there is anything to experiment teams should have done it during FP.

In a seperate interview, James Allison (who didnt attend the Suzuka race) blame it on lower than expected track temperature.

I think LH may be struggling to adapt to ground effect F1 cars which then lead him to wrong setup.

So if it's too hot they get bad aero and if it's too cold they get bad tyre deg...
Still seems like a diva...

[Farnborough]

Because he is the only driver in the team with the experience to give correct info of what is happening to the car with the changes they test.

There were so many occasions in the past 2 seasons where LH blames his choice of setup when finishing behind GR.
If there is anything to experiment teams should have done it during FP.

In a seperate interview, James Allison (who didnt attend the Suzuka race) blame it on lower than expected track temperature.

I think LH may be struggling to adapt to ground effect F1 cars which then lead him to wrong setup.

So if it's too hot they get bad aero and if it's too cold they get bad tyre deg...
Still seems like a diva...

I feel some of their current problems had foundations in that era ..... description of "Diva" along with various containment measures, both costly and potentially masking a concept line that naturally produces very narrow spectrum of performance.
Nothing wrong with the results through that period, particularly given the budget too. But, a poor basis for this change in regulations, their understanding of underfloor dynamics (both before and after changes in rules) have significantly compromised their inherent view of just how to react now.

TW description of RB "like a car doing a handshtand" along with LH famous " my team don't make mistakes " comment does show a significantly complacency,, without full knowledge of their in depth design thinking.

As they've said recently, they aren't dumb, they do know how to build race cars, complacency has "fogged" their view of competitors ability to interpret these rules with this timescale, budget and technical demands. There's clearly stiffer technical opposition than their thinking allowed for in these three years of regulations.

I felt the low point was probably in the 2022 into 2023 chassis gestation wise, akin to a sinking hot air balloon, chucking out sandbags and ballast .... still going down ..... start selecting bodies to throw out in survival mode now just about keeping it from hitting the ground.

Contrary to what other opinions say, in that this is a poor chassis, W15. It looks more like a realistic proposition to advance from.
Updates can only really be made to the platform after realistic analysis, which is where it's at, I believe. It may not be occupying upper race finish positions, currently. But looks a more secure basis to bring longer lasting performance to, also understanding where their true heading is.

I can quite see LH commitment to "testing" in race conditions, it's just not going to get there otherwise. I'd not criticise him or the team for making that call, seeming like the way to all advance the current concept.

[venkyhere]

As they've said recently, they aren't dumb, they do know how to build race cars, complacency has "fogged" their view of competitors ability to interpret these rules with this timescale, budget and technical demands. There's clearly stiffer technical opposition than their thinking allowed for in these three years of regulations.

a.k.a (in layman terms) they dont have an in-depth knowledge about ground effect cars like RedBull/Ferrari/McLaren/AstonMartin(to an extent) do.
Their 'level' with this concept is that they are the best-of-the-rest in a pool of the other five teams.

They are a midfield team today. Unless the entire team accepts this reality and gets rid of their "thinking inertia" - "we are the absolute best" that was piled on over the past decade, they won't come out of it. It will cloud their thinking. This has happened to tech giants like Nokia, IBM etc, so it's not something new.

[Farnborough]

As they've said recently, they aren't dumb, they do know how to build race cars, complacency has "fogged" their view of competitors ability to interpret these rules with this timescale, budget and technical demands. There's clearly stiffer technical opposition than their thinking allowed for in these three years of regulations.

a.k.a (in layman terms) they dont have an in-depth knowledge about ground effect cars like RedBull/Ferrari/McLaren/AstonMartin(to an extent) do.
Their 'level' with this concept is that they are the best-of-the-rest in a pool of the other five teams.

They are a midfield team today. Unless the entire team accepts this reality and gets rid of their "thinking inertia" - "we are the absolute best" that was piled on over the past decade, they won't come out of it. It will cloud their thinking. This has happened to tech giants like Nokia, IBM etc, so it's not something new.

Agree with you on this assessment.

Something, if you go into a process that's not giving the results expected, when they all think they're doing the right thing, but results not where they expected to be, then the head scratching begins about the "failure" which may even build more confusion as they don't understand (they've actually stated this themselves, now on multiple occasion) just how they are failing ..... based on their own internal assessment.

One way to look differently is to define consistency, positive or negative, which then points toward systemic failure.
In this case, they've reliably produced .... more or less ..... the same faults, through three different iteration of these chassis attempts. That in itself points toward both a constraint in thinking (concept etc) and/or a methodical systematic flow that doesn't allow for free assessment and correction.

Almost a fixation and mainlined down a consistent pathway, no deviation or questioning of justvwhat direction that whole system is pointed at.

We've just seen a separation, I understand, in that they are trying to set front to rear balance recently without the confusion of just chasing ultimately low stance and maximum downforce through just always trying to "slam" it that looks to have brought a different view of it from Suzuka that may give better interpretation to direct updates on aero side.

[chrisc90]

[Waz]

Realistically, Mercedes had a car last year that flipped and flopped between 3rd and 4th best almost the whole season.

They finished 2nd mainly through the other teams in the top 5 either being late to the party (McLaren), failing to maximize results (Ferrari) or being caught out with grey area performance (Aston), and all that made those teams inconsistent.

A few small things going in a different direction and Mercedes could have finished 5th in the WCC.

I mention this because it's been a theme since 2022 with results flattering their real position, and very clearly affects the approach by upper management (Toto) towards the engineers and development paths.

[Cs98]

Realistically, Mercedes had a car last year that flipped and flopped between 3rd and 4th best almost the whole season.

They finished 2nd mainly through the other teams in the top 5 either being late to the party (McLaren), failing to maximize results (Ferrari) or being caught out with grey area performance (Aston), and all that made those teams inconsistent.

A few small things going in a different direction and Mercedes could have finished 5th in the WCC.

I mention this because it's been a theme since 2022 with results flattering their real position, and very clearly affects the approach by upper management (Toto) towards the engineers and development paths.

"Real position" is always your aggregate performance across the entire season. In 2023 that was 2nd or 3rd. Sure, there weren't that many actual race weekends where you could say they had top 2 pace, maybe Spain, Austin and Singapore come to mind off the top of my head. But because of the terrible start for McLaren, the terrible end for AMR, and Ferrari's unreliability and bad luck, on aggregate the Merc was arguably the second best car. Certainly no worse than third behind Ferrari.

[Farnborough]

Realistically, Mercedes had a car last year that flipped and flopped between 3rd and 4th best almost the whole season.

They finished 2nd mainly through the other teams in the top 5 either being late to the party (McLaren), failing to maximize results (Ferrari) or being caught out with grey area performance (Aston), and all that made those teams inconsistent.

A few small things going in a different direction and Mercedes could have finished 5th in the WCC.

I mention this because it's been a theme since 2022 with results flattering their real position, and very clearly affects the approach by upper management (Toto) towards the engineers and development paths.

"Real position" is always your aggregate performance across the entire season. In 2023 that was 2nd or 3rd. Sure, there weren't that many actual race weekends where you could say they had top 2 pace, maybe Spain, Austin and Singapore come to mind off the top of my head. But because of the terrible start for McLaren, the terrible end for AMR, and Ferrari's unreliability and bad luck, on aggregate the Merc was arguably the second best car. Certainly no worse than third behind Ferrari.

I don't see it that way from your description ..... particularly it had the second best "whole team" collective performance, which is different from "second best car" in technical terms.

They maximised their performance vs the other teams, design included, but never really occupied the position of second best design.

Thats their problem, mediocre design concept, not able to match the other teams when those did get their's right.

[Cs98]

Realistically, Mercedes had a car last year that flipped and flopped between 3rd and 4th best almost the whole season.

They finished 2nd mainly through the other teams in the top 5 either being late to the party (McLaren), failing to maximize results (Ferrari) or being caught out with grey area performance (Aston), and all that made those teams inconsistent.

A few small things going in a different direction and Mercedes could have finished 5th in the WCC.

I mention this because it's been a theme since 2022 with results flattering their real position, and very clearly affects the approach by upper management (Toto) towards the engineers and development paths.

"Real position" is always your aggregate performance across the entire season. In 2023 that was 2nd or 3rd. Sure, there weren't that many actual race weekends where you could say they had top 2 pace, maybe Spain, Austin and Singapore come to mind off the top of my head. But because of the terrible start for McLaren, the terrible end for AMR, and Ferrari's unreliability and bad luck, on aggregate the Merc was arguably the second best car. Certainly no worse than third behind Ferrari.

I don't see it that way from your description ..... particularly it had the second best "whole team" collective performance, which is different from "second best car" in technical terms.

They maximised their performance vs the other teams, design included, but never really occupied the position of second best design.

Thats their problem, mediocre design concept, not able to match the other teams when those did get their's right.

I'm not talking about "whole team" performance, I'm talking about strict car factors. Consistency in car performance across the season, Merc were much better on that front compared to McLaren and AMR, which yielded them better average pace across the season. McLaren were a back marker for the first half and AMR were 5th best starting from around the middle of the season, Merc were solidly 3-4th on most weekends and not too far behind 2nd. Reliability is also a car factor, Merc were better on that than Ferrari even if I'd give Ferrari a slight edge on pace across the season.