Is Mercedes sandbagging 2014?

[i70q7m7ghw]

I'm glad that members of this great forum finally seem to get it, Rosberg's display yesterday made a mockery of racing.

Hats off to MHPE for a fantastic PU, if only Ferrari and Renault were given the chance to catch up.

Tyres played a big part of yesterday's race. Rosberg was able to do nearly the entire race on a single set of tyres, the chassis must be pretty decent for that to be possible, it's not all about engine power.

[WaikeCU]

I'm glad that members of this great forum finally seem to get it, Rosberg's display yesterday made a mockery of racing.

Hats off to MHPE for a fantastic PU, if only Ferrari and Renault were given the chance to catch up.

Tyres played a big part of yesterday's race. Rosberg was able to do nearly the entire race on a single set of tyres, the chassis must be pretty decent for that to be possible, it's not all about engine power.

I think it's pretty obvious yesterday. There's simply no tire degradation, so that means it's all down to how great the chassis, the aero package is of the car. The Merc dominance showed us how much more grip they had mechanically and aerodynamically + the advantage of having such a dominant PU. Tyres didn't really matter unless your car had more of a Quali setup just like Toro Rosso did.

[GitanesBlondes]

I'm glad that members of this great forum finally seem to get it, Rosberg's display yesterday made a mockery of racing.

Hats off to MHPE for a fantastic PU, if only Ferrari and Renault were given the chance to catch up.

Tyres played a big part of yesterday's race. Rosberg was able to do nearly the entire race on a single set of tyres, the chassis must be pretty decent for that to be possible, it's not all about engine power.

It may not be all about engine power, but it's a huge big part of it, as that was, and remains the biggest differentiator of performance currently. You underestimate how important having 160HP on tap at all times really is.

More to the point, Mercedes is sandbagging big time as they know with the redesign, they don't want teams to have any benchmark of where to aim for performance-wise.

Hamilton's drives from the back as well as Nico's yesterday prove how far ahead this engine actually is.

[Richard]

It also shows that there are negligible performance differentiators in F1 these days. The running order is so consistent from race to race.

[kooleracer]

I'm glad that members of this great forum finally seem to get it, Rosberg's display yesterday made a mockery of racing.

Hats off to MHPE for a fantastic PU, if only Ferrari and Renault were given the chance to catch up.

Tyres played a big part of yesterday's race. Rosberg was able to do nearly the entire race on a single set of tyres, the chassis must be pretty decent for that to be possible, it's not all about engine power.

It may not be all about engine power, but it's a huge big part of it, as that was, and remains the biggest differentiator of performance currently. You underestimate how important having 160HP on tap at all times really is.

More to the point, Mercedes is sandbagging big time as they know with the redesign, they don't want teams to have any benchmark of where to aim for performance-wise.

Hamilton's drives from the back as well as Nico's yesterday prove how far ahead this engine actually is.

How about giving credits to the chasis builders and drivers. Last 2 years Red Bull had a Renault and Vettel was also easy the quickest. Did Renault had the best engine? The Mercedes PU is the best engine no doubt but people tend to forget about the great drivers and chasis the team has. Vettel commented that the Red Bull was even struggeling in Japan something they didn't even expected. People tend to blame Renault for the Red Bull slump, but Vettel has already expressed that the RB10 isn't on par with RB9 or 8. Also the gap between McLaren, Force India and Mercedes is quite large. They all have a Mercedes powerunit but they still sometime finish a minute behind the Mercedes. If you put a Mercedes powerunit inside a Ferrari or RB10 it still won't beat the W05. This isn't the first time that Newey struggled after a new formula.

[bonjon1979]

Tyres played a big part of yesterday's race. Rosberg was able to do nearly the entire race on a single set of tyres, the chassis must be pretty decent for that to be possible, it's not all about engine power.

It may not be all about engine power, but it's a huge big part of it, as that was, and remains the biggest differentiator of performance currently. You underestimate how important having 160HP on tap at all times really is.

More to the point, Mercedes is sandbagging big time as they know with the redesign, they don't want teams to have any benchmark of where to aim for performance-wise.

Hamilton's drives from the back as well as Nico's yesterday prove how far ahead this engine actually is.[/quote]

How about giving credits to the chasis builders and drivers. Last 2 years Red Bull had a Renault and Vettel was also easy the quickest. Did Renault had the best engine? The Mercedes PU is the best engine no doubt but people tend to forget about the great drivers and chasis the team has. Vettel commented that the Red Bull was even struggeling in Japan something they didn't even expected. People tend to blame Renault for the Red Bull slump, but Vettel has already expressed that the RB10 isn't on par with RB9 or 8. Also the gap between McLaren, Force India and Mercedes is quite large. They all have a Mercedes powerunit but they still sometime finish a minute behind the Mercedes. If you put a Mercedes powerunit inside a Ferrari or RB10 it still won't beat the W05. This isn't the first time that Newey struggled after a new formula.[/quote]


One must've forget though that red bull have had to take downforce off the car to make up for the inadequacy of their engine. Conversely merc can pile more on as they know they have the grunt to deal with the drag penalty.

[Moose]

One must've forget though that red bull have had to take downforce off the car to make up for the inadequacy of their engine. Conversely merc can pile more on as they know they have the grunt to deal with the drag penalty.

As was mentioned above, RedBull had an engine that was down a substantial amount of power last year. And the other (normally top end) teams with Merc's PU are not up there with Merc either.

For me, it's clear that while the Merc engine is a fairly significant advantage, the real advantage of the Merc car is in its chassis. You don't get a 2-3 second a lap advantage over the other Merc runners without having brilliantly designed aero.

[SectorOne]

As was mentioned above, RedBull had an engine that was down a substantial amount of power last year

Really? Where´s the data on this?

I thought it was commonly known that the Renault engine was at most 15 horses down on the Merc unit.
Which is made up for with certain engine map abilities and the best fuel economy of the three engines.

[xpensive]

As opener of this great thread, assisted by our sterling moderators, I'm glad most members seem to agree they are sandbagging.

[SiLo]

Clearly sandbagging, although it's always close in qualifying, which is not something they can predict so surely they have to run at almost full tilt the entire time for that. Not much of an advantage when compared to Williams at a lot of tracks.

Ultimate pace wise, they aren't too far ahead, but during the race, with fuel on board, they aren't just in another league, they are playing a different sport.

[henra]

As opener of this great thread, assisted by our sterling moderators, I'm glad most members seem to agree they are sandbagging.

Oh, they are sandbagging for sure.
I'm just not sure it is mainly in order to keep the competition (and FIA for that matter) in the dark about their real potential. I think a lot of this has to do with restrictive regulations regarding PU usage. By sandbagging they can save their engines/PUs and thereby have an even bigger advantage on the 3rd or 4th race weekend of an engine compared to those who have to run closer to their Limits. That is one thing which may have hurt RB in general and Vettel in particular in Sotchi.

Edit: And Yes, I'm quite sure the W05 Chassis is superior to RB10. I'm not sure using A/A intercoolers in the RB was a good idea. Merc still has by far the slimmest sidepods when you compare their volume to the rather bulky RB10 sidepods. In the past RBR was the class of the field when it came to sidepod size. They handed that 'trophy' to Merc this year. And like in previous years the WCC follows the virtual 'Sidepod/packaging' trophy. Massively exacerbated by the formidable Merc PU.

Edit2: If I were forced to quantify the contribution of Chassis and PU, I would roughly say: half/half. 1s Chassis, 1s PU.
2s seems to be their advantage when they are pushing hard. So far they haven't been really able to sustain those 2s over a full race distance. That's burst performance. Sustained I would say roughly 0,7-1s.

[GitanesBlondes]

It's hard to say how much of a benefit it has been, but I suspect the Pirelli tire construction this year has benefited the W05 chassis more than people suspect.

The previous couple of iterations were not good on tires at all, lots of rear tire wear problems, this is the first time they've not been experiencing a wear rate that is worse than anyone else on the grid.

Kind of makes me wonder even more about that secret Barcelona test last year.

[xpensive]

If you got power and a decent driver, you're good no matter the chassis.

[xpensive]

...
Kind of makes me wonder even more about that secret Barcelona test last year.

Indeed, perhaps that was a "what do you need from us to stay" xercise, was it?

[astracrazy]

Clearly sandbagging, although it's always close in qualifying, which is not something they can predict so surely they have to run at almost full tilt the entire time for that. Not much of an advantage when compared to Williams at a lot of tracks.

Ultimate pace wise, they aren't too far ahead, but during the race, with fuel on board, they aren't just in another league, they are playing a different sport.

If they are sandbagging, which i think they are, then i can imagine they run on a much lower engine mode than others in quali. They won't want to be 1sec ahead of the field every race. I'm pretty sure when its a bit tighter the engine mode goes up a bit to keep them at the front. Just not all the way.