2025 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[venkyhere]

and here we go again... discussing Lewis Hamilton and 2021 safety-car-gate, in this thread ; even when he is no longer part of the team.
TBH, sick of this topic, guys.
Discuss Russel and Antonelli instead, if there is nothing else other than drivers to talk about.

[CMSMJ1]

and here we go again... discussing Lewis Hamilton and 2021 safety-car-gate, in this thread ; even when he is no longer part of the team.
TBH, sick of this topic, guys.
Discuss Russel and Antonelli instead, if there is nothing else other than drivers to talk about.

Nail on the head. ^^^^

Guys.. drop the yin yang please. It's not for this thread and the bickering is excessive.

[Jurgen von Diaz]

and here we go again... discussing Lewis Hamilton and 2021 safety-car-gate, in this thread ; even when he is no longer part of the team.
TBH, sick of this topic, guys.
Discuss Russel and Antonelli instead, if there is nothing else other than drivers to talk about.

Nail on the head. ^^^^

Guys.. drop the yin yang please. It's not for this thread and the bickering is excessive.

Why do you think there is yin and yang? There are just different opinions. It cannot be such a sensitive subject in the Merc thread when its team boss has promised not to allure the best driver next to one of his driver.

[CMSMJ1]

and here we go again... discussing Lewis Hamilton and 2021 safety-car-gate, in this thread ; even when he is no longer part of the team.
TBH, sick of this topic, guys.
Discuss Russel and Antonelli instead, if there is nothing else other than drivers to talk about.

Nail on the head. ^^^^

Guys.. drop the yin yang please. It's not for this thread and the bickering is excessive.

Why do you think there is yin and yang? There are just different opinions. It cannot be such a sensitive subject in the Merc thread when its team boss has promised not to allure the best driver next to one of his driver.

The thread is Merc AMG 2025

The previous page(s) have lots of Max, Norris, Bottas, Lewis and relatively little of George and Kimi.

It's not that you can't see that, surely, but more that you want to continue to argue the toss and state your position?

You're a student of the sport and must know teams usual behaviour has been for them to have a primary driver. It's an exception where there is the desire, let alone the possibility, to have two A+ drivers in the same team. Usually it doesn't end with success ( in the team)

If you want to discuss that topic, do some research and share your feedback on that, please do it in another thread. I'm sure it'll be interesting.

It's not this thread though.

[Cs98]

I think Merc has come out of this driver musical chairs about as well as they could have hoped. Russell already slotted into the nr 1 seat last year through his impressive performance, so there's not gonna be any downtime in the hunt for a WDC if the car turns out well. And Kimi is the most exciting prospect to come along in years, definitely worth taking a punt on him. Toto is probably chuffed how it all turned out.

[zeroday]

I think Merc has come out of this driver musical chairs about as well as they could have hoped. Russell already slotted into the nr 1 seat last year through his impressive performance, so there's not gonna be any downtime in the hunt for a WDC if the car turns out well. And Kimi is the most exciting prospect to come along in years, definitely worth taking a punt on him. Toto is probably chuffed how it all turned out.

Russells race craft is still debatable.

[Lasssept]

Toto’s Australian GP Preview:

..As a team, we had an uphill challenge over the winter. Our competitors finished 2024 strongly and we know that Ferrari, Red Bull, and McLaren in particular, should have a performance advantage over us initially. We can be pleased with the work we have done in the off-season, and the test in Bahrain. Both drivers commented favourably on the W16 after the three days, and we seem to have made improvements.

Of course, the only thing that matters is how we measure up against the stopwatch relative to our competitors. We will certainly begin to get a clearer picture on that this weekend.

[maygun]

I think Merc has come out of this driver musical chairs about as well as they could have hoped. Russell already slotted into the nr 1 seat last year through his impressive performance, so there's not gonna be any downtime in the hunt for a WDC if the car turns out well. And Kimi is the most exciting prospect to come along in years, definitely worth taking a punt on him. Toto is probably chuffed how it all turned out.

Russells race craft is still debatable.

I am not sure what you mean by race craft? When he has the equipment, we saw that he can go toe-to-toe with Max, Lando, Charles, etc, if you mean his race pace like handling tires for long runs, that I might agree. But we only saw him against the best of the business, it might be that he is good at that topic as much as Max, Lando etc.

[Matt2725]

I think Merc has come out of this driver musical chairs about as well as they could have hoped. Russell already slotted into the nr 1 seat last year through his impressive performance, so there's not gonna be any downtime in the hunt for a WDC if the car turns out well. And Kimi is the most exciting prospect to come along in years, definitely worth taking a punt on him. Toto is probably chuffed how it all turned out.

Russells race craft is still debatable.

I don't think so. He held his own and his race pace was very close to and often better than his teammate's last year. Merc have nothing to worry about with Russell if they have a car to compete.

Not saying he'll be winning the WDC, but he'll be in the hunt for at least most of the season if not right to the end.

[ringo]

I think Merc has come out of this driver musical chairs about as well as they could have hoped. Russell already slotted into the nr 1 seat last year through his impressive performance, so there's not gonna be any downtime in the hunt for a WDC if the car turns out well. And Kimi is the most exciting prospect to come along in years, definitely worth taking a punt on him. Toto is probably chuffed how it all turned out.

Russells race craft is still debatable.

His race craft is extremely strong. He doesn't resort to dirty driving in a battle and he is quite sharp in his stin management.
Russell's main weakness is risk management.
Always going all or nothing when it's not needed.

[Jurgen von Diaz]

Russell's qualifying pace is extremely strong, his racecraft is not top-level. Hamilton is known for good racecraft and that is why they left for the race with a big gap but came to the finish line almost together.

[Mosin123]

I think Merc has come out of this driver musical chairs about as well as they could have hoped. Russell already slotted into the nr 1 seat last year through his impressive performance, so there's not gonna be any downtime in the hunt for a WDC if the car turns out well. And Kimi is the most exciting prospect to come along in years, definitely worth taking a punt on him. Toto is probably chuffed how it all turned out.

Russells race craft is still debatable.

His race craft is extremely strong. He doesn't resort to dirty driving in a battle and he is quite sharp in his stin management.
Russell's main weakness is risk management.
Always going all or nothing when it's not needed.

Only as good as your last race, and his last race was any thing but extremely strong......

[Mosin123]

Russell's qualifying pace is extremely strong, his racecraft is not top-level. Hamilton is known for good racecraft and that is why they left for the race with a big gap but came to the finish line almost together.

Not very often i agree with Jurgen ( might even be the first time? ), but this is spot on.

[Quantum]

Russell's qualifying pace is extremely strong, his racecraft is not top-level. Hamilton is known for good racecraft and that is why they left for the race with a big gap but came to the finish line almost together.

Not very often i agree with Jurgen ( might even be the first time? ), but this is spot on.

In 3 years the team were experimenting with both drivers doing "Tortoise and Hare" type strategies and set ups.
We have numerous quotes from both drivers and team staff. Experimenting.
There were occasions like Spa for Russell, or Monza for Hamilton were one flipped the other. I don't think we've seen the best of Russell or Hamilton's "racecraft" in those three years as a result of the team trying out new ideas.
With a hopefully more predictable and less peaky platform in the W16, we will get a better idea of Russell.

[lh13]

Russell's qualifying pace is extremely strong, his racecraft is not top-level. Hamilton is known for good racecraft and that is why they left for the race with a big gap but came to the finish line almost together.

So if Hamilton qualifies 10th, Russell qualifies 5th, and in the race, Hamilton goes from 10th to 5th, then Russell should go from 5th to 1st?

The car has only a set amount of pace, so it is not strange that they'll both finish close together. Russell isn't at fault in this case, Hamilton is (for qualifying poor).