2024 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[Rodak]

In fairness to Mercedes, it was a sprint weekend, so that may have prevented them from getting the car dialed in. I'm sure they'd do things differently with the setup now.

Maybe it was the effect that Toto had predicted for Las Vegas (that as the track rubbered in more, Mercedes would fall back).

Yeah, except everyone is in the same situation.

[GrizzleBoy]

I don't understand the attitude of Lewis just checking out. The car has been capable of racing near the front and fighting for podiums all season. That's all he's getting at Ferrari next year too, so this idea that he will be rejuvenated seems more like wishful thinking or deflection.

Mercedes are lucky that Russell is such a scrapper, like a little mongrel fighting off a bigger dog.

I think it's more like he's probably just tired of all the political bull that comes with leaving a team.

-Impossible to gain no.1 status.

-Even if you are able to get ahead in the standings, you'll never feel like that's where the team wants you to be, for their own obvious reasons.

-Unable to have as much of a say in areas he could be instrumental before.

-Team will never develop the car around driver who is not going to be driving it.

-The feel of effectively spending the entire year as a Ferrari driver while still being at Merc.

-Being understandably excused from important/sensitive discussions and meetings about the workings of the car for this year, next year, definitely 2026 and forevermore.

-BS like having multiple pit lane starts from mechanics accidentally not building his suspension parts correctly, the Singapore GP start where he inexplicably was put onto the tyre nobody wanted/used and which he asked not to be on, tyre temps not being right out of the blankets, kept in the dark about George's one stop at Spa (mentioning after that he's supposed to be able to trust his strategists).

-Not being able to really say much of what he actually thinks when asked week after week about what he feels is his problem


It's probably just a shitty situation all round, probably been like that for the entire year and he's just tired of it all now.

[Cs98]

Russell vs Hamilton H2H 2022-2024 (one race to go):
Points: 685 vs 685
Season H2H: 2 vs 1 (calling 2024 after today).
Wins: 3 vs 2
Poles: 5 vs 1
Podiums: 14 vs 20

Care to decode this a bit for us dummies? H2H etc?

Head to head.

[Quantum]

-BS like having multiple pit lane starts from mechanics accidentally not building his suspension parts correctly, the Singapore GP start where he inexplicably was put onto the tyre nobody wanted/used and which he asked not to be on, tyre temps not being right out of the blankets, kept in the dark about George's one stop at Spa (mentioning after that he's supposed to be able to trust his strategists).

This implies Hamilton started from pitlane systemically due to mechanics stitching him up.
Azerbaijan was for a PU, and those rules apply to everyone.
US GP was for a component failure in the sprint race, everyone is at risk of this in a season.
AFAIK that was 2 incidents.
Singapore was a gamble the team wanted to try. Of course if it worked we would be talking about how brilliant the Hamilton drive was.
Kept in the dark on Russell's Spa strategy implies it was set before the start of the race. It wasn't.
Telling Hamilton what Russell was doing would mean telling everyone else.

20 second penalty for driving too fast in the pitlane in Miami
Jump starting yesterday incurring a penalty.
5 second penalty for crossing the white line at pitlane entry in Austria.
3 place grid penalty for impeding Perez at Zandvoort.

Which indicates that Hamilton isn't perfect. He doesn't pertain to be either (to his credit).

Bemoaning team issues like PU changes and strategy gambles which every driver gets in a season, should also be tempered with elementary driver errors like jump starting or speeding in the pitlane. As neither party is perfect.
I say this because I believe many Hamilton fans think the move to Ferrari will somehow magically make these issues go away.
If those are the expectation levels, 2025 will make 2024 look like a serene walk in the park.

[Lasssept]

Simone Resta



https://x.com/robertofunoat/status/1863534876407820306

[GrizzleBoy]

-BS like having multiple pit lane starts from mechanics accidentally not building his suspension parts correctly, the Singapore GP start where he inexplicably was put onto the tyre nobody wanted/used and which he asked not to be on, tyre temps not being right out of the blankets, kept in the dark about George's one stop at Spa (mentioning after that he's supposed to be able to trust his strategists).

This implies Hamilton started from pitlane systemically due to mechanics stitching him up.
Azerbaijan was for a PU, and those rules apply to everyone.
US GP was for a component failure in the sprint race, everyone is at risk of this in a season.
AFAIK that was 2 incidents.
Singapore was a gamble the team wanted to try. Of course if it worked we would be talking about how brilliant the Hamilton drive was.
Kept in the dark on Russell's Spa strategy implies it was set before the start of the race. It wasn't.
Telling Hamilton what Russell was doing would mean telling everyone else.

20 second penalty for driving too fast in the pitlane in Miami
Jump starting yesterday incurring a penalty.
5 second penalty for crossing the white line at pitlane entry in Austria.
3 place grid penalty for impeding Perez at Zandvoort.

Which indicates that Hamilton isn't perfect. He doesn't pertain to be either (to his credit).

Bemoaning team issues like PU changes and strategy gambles which every driver gets in a season, should also be tempered with elementary driver errors like jump starting or speeding in the pitlane. As neither party is perfect.
I say this because I believe many Hamilton fans think the move to Ferrari will somehow magically make these issues go away.
If those are the expectation levels, 2025 will make 2024 look like a serene walk in the park.

No, it implies what I said. Being the official no.2 meant he had things like experimental parts used on his car alone. Particularly in Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan they changed the engine BECAUSE they had to do a pitlane start due to having effed his suspension build and needing to redo it (and still did it wrong).

The component failure in USA happened before the race even started, I.e. it was there when the car was in the garage.

Singapore, every single team and its dog knew not to start on softs, he'd asked not tostart on softs and there was absolutely zero reason to gamble so heavy starting a race from P3 in one of his best qualifying weekends of the year. George himself said in an interview he knew they'd effed Lewis with the tyre choice once the tyre blankets came off and Lewis was the only car on softs.

Everybody already knew what George was doing in D
Spa, because he'd already announced it on the radio very early and was literally doing the strategy in front of everyones eyes. Only Lewis despite asking about multiple times laptimes required to win etc with no response back from the team, didn't know.

Lewis has already acknowledged his own failings. My post was to address the things he has not been in control of and things that involve the politics of being an outsider in your own team.

Nowhere did I say he's been perfect.

[PlatinumZealot]

Again Russell burns his tyres out and pits too early. I mean beating a checked out Hamilton is one thing, but Russell has to improve his pace management if he wants to challenge Max next year.

[Cs98]

Bemoaning team issues like PU changes and strategy gambles which every driver gets in a season, should also be tempered with elementary driver errors like jump starting or speeding in the pitlane. As neither party is perfect.

That would the defeat the point of the bemoaning. All this is building up to the crescendo, which is "none of it mattered, it was sabotage, he didn't care, we don't need to count this". We all know what this is, it rhymes with hope.

[Quantum]

Azerbaijan they changed the engine BECAUSE they had to do a pitlane start due to having effed his suspension build and needing to redo it (and still did it wrong).

The component failure in USA happened before the race even started, I.e. it was there when the car was in the garage.

Singapore, every single team and its dog knew not to start on softs, he'd asked not tostart on softs and there was absolutely zero reason to gamble so heavy starting a race from P3 in one of his best qualifying weekends of the year. George himself said in an interview he knew they'd effed Lewis with the tyre choice once the tyre blankets came off and Lewis was the only car on softs.

Everybody already knew what George was doing, because he'd already announced it on the radio very early and was literally doing the strategy. Only Lewis despite asking about laptimes required etc with no response back from the team, didn't know.

Component failures happen at any time. To any driver. Isolating 2 instances and portraying it as a theme is ignoring 21 other races. The team owned those and people rightly got stuck in.
The same as if detractors of Hamilton say he always jump starts basing it on a sample size of 1 out of 23. But of course this wouldn't be reasonable or fair criticism right?

Everybody including Hamilton knew what George was doing in that case. But neither Mercedes or George knew exactly how long the tyres would last at a reasonable race pace. That was on the fly and evolving lap by lap. Mercedes didn't have the crystal ball they're being asked to have.
I see no reason why this is being levelled as a criticism to the team when Hamilton has adjusted his strategy in-race multiple times AND that George got DQ'd anyway which led to Hamilton winning!

The motive in replying to you, is this will happen at any team at various levels of instance and frequency.
Supporting Hamilton is cool, nobody reasonable has issue with that. But when he fluffs the start making an elementary error and gets a penalty that screws the team and himself out of easy points paying positions, why would you expect the team to hold to a PERFECT standard that the driver clearly can't?

[OverheatedTurbo]

Again Russell burns his tyres out and pits too early. I mean beating a checked out Hamilton is one thing, but Russell has to improve his pace management if he wants to challenge Max next year.

This won’t be an issue if the W16 doesn’t churn its tires. When he drove the W11, he was doing really well. It’s just that the current single seater is so whack on this regard. I think they can fix it since they can just focus on this issue and the slow speed corner weakness instead of building a bespoke chasis design from the get go.

[deadhead]

I’ve noticed HAM mention health in a few post race interviews saying that he is grateful for it, or something along those lines. Has he always been like that or this is something recent?

[Jurgen von Diaz]

So Merc messed up Spa's victory because of the car's weight. Yesterday, Merc messed up Russell's pit stop, after that they put the wrong tires on Russell's car on second pitstop. I don't see any conspiracy theories, only mistakes when they happen to the other Merc driver.

[Vappy]

Lewis is paid millions by Mercedes, and instead of whining endlessly on the radio about the car, he should show up and do his job. The car didn’t cause his false start or make him speed in the pit lane, those were his mistakes. His behavior is downright unprofessional and pathetic at this point.

this notion that complaining on the radio is unprofessional is silly, if thats the case all the drivers on the grid are unprofessional and pathetic

I would actually argue that basically every driver on the grid acts annoyingly immature whenever things dont go their way. Something about F1 really brings about the most petty, juvenile instincts of these drivers. And clearly it's not just an age thing as we see it from the juniors as well as the seniors.

I also find it jarring when the drivers are just so blatantly rude to their race engineers. I get they may be in a frustrating and high pressure situation, but I still dont think it's any good excuse to be mean to the people who are only there to try and help you.

Really well put.