2026 Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team

[zibby43]

What an engineering masterclass W17 is. Huge credit to James Allison and Hywel Thomas. Everyone who doubted this team’s engineering talent looks pretty silly right now.

The constant complaining about “cheating” and “unfair advantage” has been a joy to watch. And the Italian press piling on just adds to it, hearing all that noise while Ferrari keep showing the same incompetence year after year is honestly music to my ears.

We’re so back. And we’ll still be here in June when this so-called compression-ratio saga leads to nothing, just more empty headlines and more complaining from the same people.

Amen. Put the word out there. We back up.

[zibby43]

What an engineering masterclass W17 is. Huge credit to James Allison and Hywel Thomas. Everyone who doubted this team’s engineering talent looks pretty silly right now.

The constant complaining about “cheating” and “unfair advantage” has been a joy to watch. And the Italian press piling on just adds to it, hearing all that noise while Ferrari keep showing the same incompetence year after year is honestly music to my ears.

We’re so back. And we’ll still be here in June when this so-called compression-ratio saga leads to nothing, just more empty headlines and more complaining from the same people.

You seem to be quite a distracted race watcher, otherwise youll know that in the four year of Venturi tubes cars Ferrari has shown better knowledgeability than Mercedes much more often than not. Mercedes indeed had to play the very off-key music of their petulant and annoying whines to have maFIA rescuing them from mediocrity with td039 (crybaby Russell "Ueeeeh!ueeeeh! Porpoising makes my a**e hurt!!"), even resorting to blatant unsportmanship (do you remember manholes of Las Vegas?) after badly and incompetently failing with the ugly turd of the "zero pod car" ( an abomination that still makes me laugh when I look at it).

Speaking of petulance, give it a rest.

[Frank73]

What an engineering masterclass W17 is. Huge credit to James Allison and Hywel Thomas. Everyone who doubted this team’s engineering talent looks pretty silly right now.

The constant complaining about “cheating” and “unfair advantage” has been a joy to watch. And the Italian press piling on just adds to it, hearing all that noise while Ferrari keep showing the same incompetence year after year is honestly music to my ears.

We’re so back. And we’ll still be here in June when this so-called compression-ratio saga leads to nothing, just more empty headlines and more complaining from the same people.

You seem to be quite a distracted race watcher, otherwise youll know that in the four year of Venturi tubes cars Ferrari has shown better knowledgeability than Mercedes much more often than not. Mercedes indeed had to play the very off-key music of their petulant and annoying whines to have maFIA rescuing them from mediocrity with td039 (crybaby Russell "Ueeeeh!ueeeeh! Porpoising makes my a**e hurt!!"), even resorting to blatant unsportmanship (do you remember manholes of Las Vegas?) after badly and incompetently failing with the ugly turd of the "zero pod car" ( an abomination that still makes me laugh when I look at it).

Speaking of petulance, give it a rest.

1) avoid being bitterly disrespectful and uselessly arrogant if you want the discussion to stay serene
2) is there something factually wrong in what I said?

[WardenOfTheNorth]

This whole accusation of cheating just smacks of sour grapes at this point. Just a poor attempt at trying to hand wave away other teams doing a worse job.

It's difficult for supporters of other drivers and teams to admit when their respective teams have been out-engineered. Its tough but I'm sure the June reg changes will neuter Mercedes. The FIA did it to them in 2021, they'll do it again.

Maybe Mercedes overspent and tried to claim it was their catering budget..... Oh, no wait, that was Red Bull!!

Fans of teams who have cheated can't accept that another team could win without cheating!!

Merc simply did a better job. Well done to the boys from Brackley and Brixworth. I shall doff my cap to you when I drive past on Tuesday lol

[Seanspeed]

1) avoid being bitterly disrespectful and uselessly arrogant if you want the discussion to stay serene

The irony, given your last post. :/

[zibby43]

You seem to be quite a distracted race watcher, otherwise youll know that in the four year of Venturi tubes cars Ferrari has shown better knowledgeability than Mercedes much more often than not. Mercedes indeed had to play the very off-key music of their petulant and annoying whines to have maFIA rescuing them from mediocrity with td039 (crybaby Russell "Ueeeeh!ueeeeh! Porpoising makes my a**e hurt!!"), even resorting to blatant unsportmanship (do you remember manholes of Las Vegas?) after badly and incompetently failing with the ugly turd of the "zero pod car" ( an abomination that still makes me laugh when I look at it).

Speaking of petulance, give it a rest.

1) avoid being bitterly disrespectful and uselessly arrogant if you want the discussion to stay serene
2) is there something factually wrong in what I said?

I think I was quite respectful despite your best efforts to take this topic completely off the rails with baseless accusations, conspiracy theories, name-calling, etc.

First of all, regarding the physical toll the ground effect cars took on driver, there was near unanimity that it was significant:

“It hasn't been comfortable at all, all these years - my whole back is falling apart and my feet always hurt," said Max Verstappen.

“Physically, it hasn't been the best. When you do scans, they don't look good . . . I'd rather go for what we had in 2015-2016.”

Source: https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/fia- ... /10779904/

Next, the manhole covers. What in the world are you even trying to assert there? That Mercedes sabotaged them? That's a new one.

It's no secret that Mercedes were never able to get a handle on ground effect. They took their medicine and did the best they could from '22 to '25. Now, the cars are back to flat floors, which they know very well. The chassis on the W17 seems to be excellent across all corner types and just like 2014, they've aced the PU regulations. Hats off to them. I expect there to be quite a bit of convergence once teams like Ferrari figure out the energy management piece. They seem to be an outlier team in terms of their small turbo solution. Not sure if that's going to be the most efficient choice across the range of circuits on the calendar. I suppose we'll see.

[F1subman25]

This whole accusation of cheating just smacks of sour grapes at this point. Just a poor attempt at trying to hand wave away other teams doing a worse job.

It's difficult for supporters of other drivers and teams to admit when their respective teams have been out-engineered. Its tough but I'm sure the June reg changes will neuter Mercedes. The FIA did it to them in 2021, they'll do it again.

Maybe Mercedes overspent and tried to claim it was their catering budget..... Oh, no wait, that was Red Bull!!

Fans of teams who have cheated can't accept that another team could win without cheating!!

Merc simply did a better job. Well done to the boys from Brackley and Brixworth. I shall doff my cap to you when I drive past on Tuesday lol

Let’s actually have the race first shall we?

[Frank73]

1) avoid being bitterly disrespectful and uselessly arrogant if you want the discussion to stay serene

The irony, given your last post. :/

You missed part of the discussion clearly.

[Frank73]

Speaking of petulance, give it a rest.

1) avoid being bitterly disrespectful and uselessly arrogant if you want the discussion to stay serene
2) is there something factually wrong in what I said?

I think I was quite respectful despite your best efforts to take this topic completely off the rails with baseless accusations, conspiracy theories, name-calling, etc.

First of all, regarding the physical toll the ground effect cars took on driver, there was near unanimity that it was significant:

“It hasn't been comfortable at all, all these years - my whole back is falling apart and my feet always hurt," said Max Verstappen.

“Physically, it hasn't been the best. When you do scans, they don't look good . . . I'd rather go for what we had in 2015-2016.”

Source: https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/fia- ... /10779904/

Next, the manhole covers. What in the world are you even trying to assert there? That Mercedes sabotaged them? That's a new one.

It's no secret that Mercedes were never able to get a handle on ground effect. They took their medicine and did the best they could from '22 to '25. Now, the cars are back to flat floors, which they know very well. The chassis on the W17 seems to be excellent across all corner types and just like 2014, they've aced the PU regulations. Hats off to them. I expect there to be quite a bit of convergence once teams like Ferrari figure out the energy management piece. They seem to be an outlier team in terms of their small turbo solution. Not sure if that's going to be the most efficient choice across the range of circuits on the calendar. I suppose we'll see.

It was not you, the disrespectful and arrogant one I was hinting at, but the first one I replied to in kind.

[Seanspeed]

1) avoid being bitterly disrespectful and uselessly arrogant if you want the discussion to stay serene

The irony, given your last post. :/

You missed part of the discussion clearly.

No, I just completely misattributed who said what here and I am very sorry!

[Lasssept]

[SB15]

That was the best racing I've seen since 2022

[f1Follower]

So it's official Mercedes cannot work with underfloor down force. They can have good aero only when aero and downforce is from the top

[SB15]

So it's official Mercedes cannot work with underfloor down force. They can have good aero only when aero and downforce is from the top

No Mercedes doesn't work well with "inconsistent" underfloor downforce. Mercedes are best with the flatter floors as well as every other team, and plus flatter floors are usually better.

[IntrinsicVoid]

So it's official Mercedes cannot work with underfloor down force. They can have good aero only when aero and downforce is from the top

No Mercedes doesn't work well with "inconsistent" underfloor downforce. Mercedes are best with the flatter floors as well as every other team, and plus flatter floors are usually better.

Inconsistent engineering, corrected that for ya.