2025 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[JPower]

He has been good but I don't think anyone warrants 30m a year before winning their title. I think even Max was only on 20m a year pre-2021.

Different time. Contract amounts in major professional sports have increased fairly significantly since the late teens.

30 million sounds about right to me. Lando and Leclerc are likely making a few million less and would command 30m+ today.

[Lasssept]

[AR3-GP]

Kimi had DRS failure on his first run. It cost him 2.5 tenths on the front straight, but then he also spends more electrical energy without the DRS so there's more laptime lost. Could have been anywhere from P2 to P5.

[OverheatedTurbo]

Hows the race pace? Seemed okay yesterday with those used medium tyres.

[Matt2725]

George Russell has taken Toto Wolff to the cleaners.

Absolutely. But it could also be because it's a one-year contract. Russell's not letting out anything regarding the length of the contract. I suspect that it is 1 confirmed + 1 undecided.

He has been good but I don't think anyone warrants 30m a year before winning their title. I think even Max was only on 20m a year pre-2021.

Russell has publicly said it's a multi-year contract this weekend.

Regarding race pace, it looks strong. The lock up cost George when he divebombed Max. He just backed off but never looked under threat from behind however and his pace was consistent and sometimes quicker than Max prior to the second SC.

A podium is certainly possible this afternoon.

[SB15]

BEFORE YOU GUYS PUT DOWN MERCEDES AND BE SAD ABOUT IT!

The Pirelli rubber just shown once again why it ruins racing for these cars.

Hard to heat up and hard to keep the temps in the working window if it overheats. Thank god wheel covers are getting dumped and no more very stiff suspension (Where it stresses the Tyre)

I can very much understand why The W16 can't operate well if the tyres are THIS inconsistent no matter the setup choice.

[Matt2725]

Never mind, turns out the car was overheating and destroying the rear tyres in sector 3.

[f1isgood]

Yeah Mercedes car as expected doesn't have good performance when the car has to tradeoff for high speed.

Vegas will be very good for this car. Russell might produce a grand slam there.

[SB15]

Never mind, turns out the car was overheating and destroying the rear tyres in sector 3.

The rear right gets overheated because there is so much stress on the tyre. Cota is a good track but the amount of load on these specific tyres with this many corner types, was never going to be a good thing.

I don't think that's Mercedes fault either. The sensitive tyres is just one of the major reasons why the W15 - W16 couldn't perform consistent enough, not due to the car, but due to something out of there control.

[venkyhere]

what about other teams who are able to 'cope' with the Pirellis ? take this race, the H was not practically used at all (except a few who dumped it very soon), showing that stupid tricks like having a step gap between compounds will eventually be easily circumvented by the teams.

So I don't think it's fair to blame Pirelli for the inability of Mercedes to manage tyres in the ground effect era - the tyres are the same for everyone ; other engineering teams are able to cope.

[Lasssept]

[f1isgood]

George Russell has taken Toto Wolff to the cleaners.

Absolutely. But it could also be because it's a one-year contract. Russell's not letting out anything regarding the length of the contract. I suspect that it is 1 confirmed + 1 undecided.

He has been good but I don't think anyone warrants 30m a year before winning their title. I think even Max was only on 20m a year pre-2021.

Russell has publicly said it's a multi-year contract this weekend.

Regarding race pace, it looks strong. The lock up cost George when he divebombed Max. He just backed off but never looked under threat from behind however and his pace was consistent and sometimes quicker than Max prior to the second SC.

A podium is certainly possible this afternoon.

Yeah multi year sure. Except no one wants to say how long. As I said, it could be an option afterall and still count as multi year.

[erikejw]

It's easy to not dress the tires when you have the best car. You don't need to punish them all the time to keep up, stay ahead.

Just look at today when Lando was told to back off Leclerc fur a few laps to cool them down. Then he overtook him easily.

He wouldn't been able to do that without the extra car performance.

There's also a trade-off between heating them quickly for quali and keeping them cool in the race. Quali place is so important especially this year that its easy to err on the "heat them quickly" side.

what about other teams who are able to 'cope' with the Pirellis ? take this race, the H was not practically used at all (except a few who dumped it very soon), showing that stupid tricks like having a step gap between compounds will eventually be easily circumvented by the teams.

So I don't think it's fair to blame Pirelli for the inability of Mercedes to manage tyres in the ground effect era - the tyres are the same for everyone ; other engineering teams are able to cope.