2024 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[Hammerfist]

Toto: We thought that the Soft tyre would give Lewis an advantage at the start but that turned out to be the wrong decision. With our challenges managing the rear surfaces, we went backwards.

How? What possible metric could have given them any indication Softs are gonna do them any good?

This level of team bs-ing themselves makes Binotto look like a no-bs, hard core realist

I think it was discussed earlier but they must have thought the race leader would drive off the pace a la Monaco for example. Problem is Lando decided he wanted to embarrass Max and Redbull and he pullled away at an alarming rate. So starting on softs became an idiotic decision. They could have survived if lando drove at snail pace though.

[SKYnRacing24]

With things being as they are at the moment, the upgrade at Austin will be very telling for Mercedes' short-term future. If they're still lost after that, surely that's an omen for 2025 as well. That's a car which probably has been in development for a while now, but what if they were missled by their initial ill-based strides in the mid-season during the development of the 2025 car?

If Mercedes continues to be incognito on the fight at the top for the 4th year running into this regulation set, things have to change there.

Nicely said Emag, The fact they have gone down a blind alley and this car has become undrivable is quite worrying (and this being a Ham fan but want to see Russell do well). It will be interesting to see the characteristics of the W16. Ultimately this car doesn't have good traits. The race pace is one highlight that i thought would be a strength of the W15 but hasn't transpired on most weekends and when it does its because of specific track conditions and tyres. If they do a 22/23 situation again then the nails are in the coffin.

Someone mentioned a months back if this was any other TP they would of been fired by now. Toto being a shareholder could be the catalyst but im just speculating of course. The Austin Upgrade will be the last bullet in the chamber for this year and potentially next. Theres alot riding on this so it will be a stressful period for everyone involved, I hope we can have a good end to the season but the strategic incompetence on display for Lewis today really left a bitter taste in my mouth.

How comes us armchair viewers can read the race or strategy better in more ways than one. Some of us have live timing and can see the race developing in real time yet these guys on the pitwall,engineers and people back at base are not making logical decisions, it really is weird, This is the pinnacle of motorsport but sometimes it looks so amateur.

[PlatinumZealot]

Dear lord what a complete garbage dump this thread has become. Gets worse race by race. Unbelievable.

Is it forum traffic that is prioritized no matter what or what is it?

Exactly. On the Ferrari & Rb threads they have good amateur data analysts & “experts” who contribute regularly & sort of up the contributing standards, in the Merc we’ve got some of the dumbest musings anywhere on this forum. It’s a problem

Are you one of those contibutors? Can you point us to your profound data analyses in this thread?

[mendis]

As an aside, comparing the pace of both Mercedes cars on the Hards is an interesting errand. I'm just guessing, but perhaps one of them had to overtake some cars? But it's interesting that 'George fans' apparently expect their driver to be slower in clean air than the washed up pensioner is in dirty. Otherwise, it wouldn't be worthy of comment.

Russell spent most of his first stint behind Ham, but also ran a good long stint by keeping those mediums alive when Ham pitted. Ham complained of tyres after a bunch of laps on hards, whereas Russell managed to keep a charging Leclerc behind, who had far better pace. That's the standout race pace difference between the two Merc drivers. Ham's pace on a few laps old hards was just about the same as Russell who was on mediums in his first stint.

People are discounting Russell's ability to manage his race pace. He has vastly improved on that front, while keeping his qualifying speed.

[organic]

The car still has an extremely narrow window and inconsistent aero. The front wing update brought the balance into a good place, but that remains true only when the conditions are right.

Vegas will almost certainly be cold which is good for Merc engines and the car's preference with the tyres. Could see that race being good and interlagos if rain comes

[CHT]

Mclaren winning the WCC this year will put a lot of pressure on Merc team for sure. Considering the Merc's drivers line up for 2025, vs Lando and Oscar for 2025, I am will not put too much hope on Merc to win any championship in 2025.
Even in 2026, it may be possible the Mclaren, if given the same Merc engine, may continue to outperform Merc AMG F1.

[organic]

Mclaren winning the WCC this year will put a lot of pressure on Merc team for sure. Considering the Merc's drivers line up for 2025, vs Lando and Oscar for 2025, I am will not put too much hope on Merc to win any championship in 2025.
Even in 2026, it may be possible the Mclaren, if given the same Merc engine, may continue to outperform Merc AMG F1.

Perhaps, but unlikely. Advantage for works team grows with both a new engine and chassis formula, even if McLaren did recently negotiate a 'seat at the table' in terms of engine design

[DRS]

As an aside, comparing the pace of both Mercedes cars on the Hards is an interesting errand. I'm just guessing, but perhaps one of them had to overtake some cars? But it's interesting that 'George fans' apparently expect their driver to be slower in clean air than the washed up pensioner is in dirty. Otherwise, it wouldn't be worthy of comment.

Russell spent most of his first stint behind Ham, but also ran a good long stint by keeping those mediums alive when Ham pitted. Ham complained of tyres after a bunch of laps on hards, whereas Russell managed to keep a charging Leclerc behind, who had far better pace. That's the standout race pace difference between the two Merc drivers. Ham's pace on a few laps old hards was just about the same as Russell who was on mediums in his first stint.

People are discounting Russell's ability to manage his race pace. He has vastly improved on that front, while keeping his qualifying speed.

And people are forgetting that Hamilton fell almost 25 secs behind Russell on ten lap older hards.

[xaero]

As an aside, comparing the pace of both Mercedes cars on the Hards is an interesting errand. I'm just guessing, but perhaps one of them had to overtake some cars? But it's interesting that 'George fans' apparently expect their driver to be slower in clean air than the washed up pensioner is in dirty. Otherwise, it wouldn't be worthy of comment.

Russell spent most of his first stint behind Ham, but also ran a good long stint by keeping those mediums alive when Ham pitted. Ham complained of tyres after a bunch of laps on hards, whereas Russell managed to keep a charging Leclerc behind, who had far better pace. That's the standout race pace difference between the two Merc drivers. Ham's pace on a few laps old hards was just about the same as Russell who was on mediums in his first stint.

People are discounting Russell's ability to manage his race pace. He has vastly improved on that front, while keeping his qualifying speed.

And people are forgetting that Hamilton fell almost 25 secs behind Russell on ten lap older hards.

keep trolling by conveniently ignoring that he had nothing to gain by pushing and finishing his tyres way earlier.

[GrizzleBoy]

As an aside, comparing the pace of both Mercedes cars on the Hards is an interesting errand. I'm just guessing, but perhaps one of them had to overtake some cars? But it's interesting that 'George fans' apparently expect their driver to be slower in clean air than the washed up pensioner is in dirty. Otherwise, it wouldn't be worthy of comment.

Russell spent most of his first stint behind Ham, but also ran a good long stint by keeping those mediums alive when Ham pitted. Ham complained of tyres after a bunch of laps on hards, whereas Russell managed to keep a charging Leclerc behind, who had far better pace. That's the standout race pace difference between the two Merc drivers. Ham's pace on a few laps old hards was just about the same as Russell who was on mediums in his first stint.

People are discounting Russell's ability to manage his race pace. He has vastly improved on that front, while keeping his qualifying speed.

Is there no reason you could see why a driver who knows hes pitted way too early onto a tyre expecred to go to the end of the race would maybe have an overall lower lap delta vs a driver who goes onto those tyres 11 laps later and therefore has 11 laps less wear to manage till the end of the race?

Isnt it obvious?

[mendis]

Russell spent most of his first stint behind Ham, but also ran a good long stint by keeping those mediums alive when Ham pitted. Ham complained of tyres after a bunch of laps on hards, whereas Russell managed to keep a charging Leclerc behind, who had far better pace. That's the standout race pace difference between the two Merc drivers. Ham's pace on a few laps old hards was just about the same as Russell who was on mediums in his first stint.

People are discounting Russell's ability to manage his race pace. He has vastly improved on that front, while keeping his qualifying speed.

And people are forgetting that Hamilton fell almost 25 secs behind Russell on ten lap older hards.

keep trolling by conveniently ignoring that he had nothing to gain by pushing and finishing his tyres way earlier.

I was wondering what the heck he was doing by not pushing. A one stop on Softs was a wild goose chase. If he would have gained position, he could have stretched a bit, hold off Max or both Max and Lando for a while. But he wouldn't have held them longer. Because he didn't achieve that objective and by trying to manage those Softs, he slowed his team mate and allowed Leclerc to execute a strategy that made him overtake Ham. He should have forced a two stop strategy or atleast his team should have gone further bold and give him Softs-Softs or mediums--Hard two stop and asked him to push in all his stints. Result could have been similar or better. That's where Ham and Mercedes both lag. When Russell pulls something of that sort, it's a mayhem.

One mistake Russell has committed many times that Ham did on Sunday was, when he is no man's land behind front runners, he won't push and just cruise around, allowing Ham to come and get him later in the race, when Ham starts farther back. Making it look like Ham had better race pace. It's the time you give up that costs sometimes very dearly.

[DRS]

It was a strategy destined to fail, if they wanted to try something different they should have started on the hards.

[Mosin123]

As an aside, comparing the pace of both Mercedes cars on the Hards is an interesting errand. I'm just guessing, but perhaps one of them had to overtake some cars? But it's interesting that 'George fans' apparently expect their driver to be slower in clean air than the washed up pensioner is in dirty. Otherwise, it wouldn't be worthy of comment.

Russell spent most of his first stint behind Ham, but also ran a good long stint by keeping those mediums alive when Ham pitted. Ham complained of tyres after a bunch of laps on hards, whereas Russell managed to keep a charging Leclerc behind, who had far better pace. That's the standout race pace difference between the two Merc drivers. Ham's pace on a few laps old hards was just about the same as Russell who was on mediums in his first stint.

People are discounting Russell's ability to manage his race pace. He has vastly improved on that front, while keeping his qualifying speed.

Is there no reason you could see why a driver who knows hes pitted way too early onto a tyre expecred to go to the end of the race would maybe have an overall lower lap delta vs a driver who goes onto those tyres 11 laps later and therefore has 11 laps less wear to manage till the end of the race?

Isnt it obvious?

Same people, saying the same stuff, just ignore them.

[Vanja #66]

I don't know mate, they have always been very poor at strategy. Thankfully for us Lewis fans, Ferrari appear to have improved in that department with Vasseur in charge.

It's a completely different team compared to even a year ago, let alone comparing to several previous management periods. Finally

I think it was discussed earlier but they must have thought the race leader would drive off the pace a la Monaco for example. Problem is Lando decided he wanted to embarrass Max and Redbull and he pullled away at an alarming rate. So starting on softs became an idiotic decision. They could have survived if lando drove at snail pace though.

I'm not sure how or why they would think an easy going pace was ever an option. In Singapore 23 Sainz drove slowly after the final SC period as they didn't want anyone else to think about changing tyres like Mercedes did. Leclerc started that race on Softs, jumped Russell and him and Sainz pushed hard in 1st stint to make a safety gap.

In Monaco 24, Leclerc also slowed down the whole race to back everyone up after everyone already switched to another tyre during red flag. You never back down the field in the 1st stint, it's too risky and absolutely not worth it. I'm having a hard time believing no one in Mercedes understood this and failed to mention the faux logic behind using Softs on Hamilton in 1st stint

[mendis]

As an aside, comparing the pace of both Mercedes cars on the Hards is an interesting errand. I'm just guessing, but perhaps one of them had to overtake some cars? But it's interesting that 'George fans' apparently expect their driver to be slower in clean air than the washed up pensioner is in dirty. Otherwise, it wouldn't be worthy of comment.

Russell spent most of his first stint behind Ham, but also ran a good long stint by keeping those mediums alive when Ham pitted. Ham complained of tyres after a bunch of laps on hards, whereas Russell managed to keep a charging Leclerc behind, who had far better pace. That's the standout race pace difference between the two Merc drivers. Ham's pace on a few laps old hards was just about the same as Russell who was on mediums in his first stint.

People are discounting Russell's ability to manage his race pace. He has vastly improved on that front, while keeping his qualifying speed.

Is there no reason you could see why a driver who knows hes pitted way too early onto a tyre expecred to go to the end of the race would maybe have an overall lower lap delta vs a driver who goes onto those tyres 11 laps later and therefore has 11 laps less wear to manage till the end of the race?

Isnt it obvious?

Data to ponder upon who was pushing and who wasn't.
Russell was managing his tyres in his second stint and that's why his times were very consistent till the end.
Ham started easy on his second stint, then started pushing. Then his tyres fell away.
Russell's fastest lap was on 30th lap (3rd lap of second stint).
Ham's came on 43rd lap (26th lap of second stint).
Going by that, if Russell would have pushed in his second stint, he would have lost the ability to hold up Leclerc to the end. But if he did push, then the delta to Ham would have been bigger in the beginning of his stint. It just shows how well Russell managed his stint. Remember, just like Ham had cars in front of him in second stint, Russell had Ham in front of him in the first stint and yet, managed a consistent stint throughout.