Is Mercedes sandbagging 2014?

[mrluke]

If they never use their top engine mode then the wouldn't be able to develop or improve it for the following seasons. I suspect Rosberg had everything turned up to 11 for the start of the Sochi race, the way he flew past hamilton despite having a poor start.

Mercedes were always targeting this regulation change for their attempt at the title. They really struggled with tyres the last couple of seasons, how much effort do you think they would put into ensuring they understand the issue and avoiding it from their shot at the title? It was clearly something pretty fundamental to their design concept which is why they couldn't fix it last season, but with fresh regulations...It really doesn't need a conspiracy theory.

[astracrazy]

they have 12 settings i think? and as far as we know 12 was banned by the team for reliability, but I certainly haven't heard anything about it since monaco when it all came out each driver had used it.

I think your right. Its a problem they had for a few years so it was most likely one of the things at the top of there list to fix

[kooleracer]

Is Mercedes sandbagging this year no they have not. They only turn down the engine when the opportunity arises. When Nico and Lewis are on track they are pushing flat out, you can see that because of the delta in laptimes compared to the other teams. Mercedes have shown their real pace a lot often then people think. Last year Vettel and Red Bull were sandbagging we saw that a lot more often because of the lack of competition between Webber en Vettel. When he needed a gap like in Singapore he created on, just like Lewis did this year after the safety car in Singapore.

Why would Hamilton go flat out and risk a crash or stress the engine if he can win the race going 90% percent? Bottas tried to push Hamilton in the first stint his fuel consumption was on par with Hamilton and during the season we have seen that Williams is the most fuel efficient. So that explains why Bottas was able to follow Hamilton but when Bottas started to fuel save Hamilton just stuck to the same pace and eventually had a big gap. The gap could have been bigger but, with 3 races to go and having used 5 engines already going flat out isn't the smartest thing to do. Can the W05 go quicker during the race the answer is yes, if you look at Rosberg's pace in Sochi you can clearly see that Hamilton wasn't going flat out. Also the fact that Bottas did the fastest lap of the race clearly shows that Hamilton wasn't pushing, that W05 has a lot of spare race pace. But if Rosberg and Hamilton are close in COTA you again will see its true pace like we saw in Bahrain and Spain.

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/formula1/26946444
http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/formula1/29590184

[Richard]

had everything turned up to 11 .

they have 12 settings i think?

Turned up to 11 is a colloquialism for "as much as possible", a bit like athletes saying they are committing 110%.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOO5S4vxi0o[/youtube]

[CBeck113]

Any Spinal Tap reference gets a +1 from me

If a team has the luxury to coast / save their equipment / not have to turn it up to 11, then they are sandbagging, even if their primary intent is to protect their equipment, they have more performance which they could activate but don't have to do so. And let's be honest: they'd be stupid not to. Either they would run into quality problems (maybe good for the future, but that would be unfair to the drivers, since both have a chance at the WDC...although allowing them to race each other no-holds-barred would be sweet - fingers crossed for Abu Dhabi), or the FiA would do what it can to eliminate their advantage. Also, the other teams would have real goals to exceed in next year's car development, but for now they can only estimate their actual performance, like we have in this thread. Protecting their investment, nothing else...they will repeat next year, but after that the other teams will have had enough time & fresh resources (aka cash - Mercedes will not spend nearly as much over the next three years...their other programs suffered because of their focus on F1) to catch up.