2018 Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team

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George-Jung
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Re: 2018 Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team

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Nevermind.

Manoah2u
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Re: 2018 Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team

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As for all this conversation on which team 'has the biggest'......

I think Bottas showed some seriously good racing in Baku, i really felt heartbroken when his tire went. couldn't believe it.

it actually showed imho that the Merc does have great pace and race craft, might say, has a longer breath than the Ferrari.
The Ferrari in comparison is from the get-go (race start) i think actually faster, but it looks like that during the race, it starts to fade away slowly.
Even if the Merc potentially still is a diva, it seems the Ferrari isn't that unforgiving on the tires either.

Rather though, i think we're simply seeing things that weren't there last year(s) due to Mercedes' dominance over the rest. Ferrari has catched up,
and that changes the entire palette, and it's probably that simple, really.

And meanwhile there's the saying 'don't change a winning concept'. Ferrari didn't in their Schumacher-era winning streak. RedBull didn't in their Vettel-era winning streak.
Mercedes -logically- doesn't in their Hamilton-era winning streak. There's obviously a 'shelf date' on everything, and the Merc will meet it's end at some point.

But to call Ferrari more daring? I wouldn't look at it like that at all. Let's face the facts ; Ferrari has been very agressive in their design changes, even compared to last year,
the car is still quite different compared to Merc's car this year, especially if you compare the 2018 Merc to the 2014 Merc and the 2018 Ferrari to the 2014 Ferrari.
Yet this more or less not-changed-at-all Merc still beats the Ferrari, and Hamilton is in the championship lead.
"Explain the ending to F1 in football terms"
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LM10
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Re: 2018 Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team

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From AMuS:

Mercedes engineers: "We showed normal form during the test drives in winter. Ferrari has presented itself under value. Today we have to say that Ferrari has the better car. Even when we're in the tire window."

If that's right, I'm curious if and how aggressively Mercedes will come up with upgrades in Barcelona to try to close the gap.

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F1Krof
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Re: 2018 Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team

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LM10 wrote:
03 May 2018, 22:10
From AMuS:

Mercedes engineers: "We showed normal form during the test drives in winter. Ferrari has presented itself under value. Today we have to say that Ferrari has the better car. Even when we're in the tire window."

If that's right, I'm curious if and how aggressively Mercedes will come up with upgrades in Barcelona to try to close the gap.
I'd put it more on luck. The upgrades were long planned. Pretty much it's down to how significant they turn out to be, if the went aggressively probably 4-5 months ago anticipating strong opposition they might have a chance. Otherwise if they'd thought they were at the front and they were only looking to consolidate they're pretty much screwed,they might as well focus on 2019 since the aero changes seem very significant at this point.
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Just_a_fan
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Re: 2018 Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team

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Depends on whether Ferrari's battery system is deemed legal or not. If the FIA deem it naughty, it might knock Ferrari back into Mercedes's grasp.

I would expect Mercedes to bring a few things to Barcelona both to race and to test.
If you are more fortunate than others, build a larger table not a taller fence.

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adrianjordan
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Re: 2018 Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team

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Just_a_fan wrote:
03 May 2018, 23:32
Depends on whether Ferrari's battery system is deemed legal or not. If the FIA deem it naughty, it might knock Ferrari back into Mercedes's grasp.

I would expect Mercedes to bring a few things to Barcelona both to race and to test.
Ferrari's battery system?? When was the legality of this questioned??
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GPR-A duplicate2
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Re: 2018 Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team

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adrianjordan wrote:
08 May 2018, 04:20
Just_a_fan wrote:
03 May 2018, 23:32
Depends on whether Ferrari's battery system is deemed legal or not. If the FIA deem it naughty, it might knock Ferrari back into Mercedes's grasp.

I would expect Mercedes to bring a few things to Barcelona both to race and to test.
Ferrari's battery system?? When was the legality of this questioned??
May be he is talking about this? Especially, after having banned blowing the rear wing with exhaust gases, specifically altering the waste gate behavior!

FIA closes Formula 1 qualifying oil burn loophole

Just_a_fan
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Re: 2018 Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team

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If you are more fortunate than others, build a larger table not a taller fence.

Monster Hesh
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Re: 2018 Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team

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So why are we not seeing any big developments from Mercedes? We have hardly seen anything new all season. While Ferrari have been relentless. Are they just trying to undertsand what they got first?

Noticeable stuff from McLaren and Ferrari, also RedBull bringing significant developments. Yet we are not seeing much from Mercedes, are they just playing it all close to the chest, fake a late delivery to the paddock on Friday morning?

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Big Tea
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Re: 2018 Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team

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Monster Hesh wrote:
10 May 2018, 22:20
So why are we not seeing any big developments from Mercedes? We have hardly seen anything new all season. While Ferrari have been relentless. Are they just trying to undertsand what they got first?

Noticeable stuff from McLaren and Ferrari, also RedBull bringing significant developments. Yet we are not seeing much from Mercedes, are they just playing it all close to the chest, fake a late delivery to the paddock on Friday morning?
I think Merc have gone to lengths to 'demonstrate' they are not a (over) dominant car and have taken the underdog stance. It may suit them to bee seen as struggling, but I suspect there is a box of goodies waiting in case they are needed. They have done the lead from the front bit and I don't think they would be that peeved as long as they were within a couple of points, right up until the last few races.
When arguing with a fool, be sure the other person is not doing the same thing.

LM10
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Re: 2018 Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team

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Big Tea wrote:
10 May 2018, 23:18
Monster Hesh wrote:
10 May 2018, 22:20
So why are we not seeing any big developments from Mercedes? We have hardly seen anything new all season. While Ferrari have been relentless. Are they just trying to undertsand what they got first?

Noticeable stuff from McLaren and Ferrari, also RedBull bringing significant developments. Yet we are not seeing much from Mercedes, are they just playing it all close to the chest, fake a late delivery to the paddock on Friday morning?
I think Merc have gone to lengths to 'demonstrate' they are not a (over) dominant car and have taken the underdog stance. It may suit them to bee seen as struggling, but I suspect there is a box of goodies waiting in case they are needed. They have done the lead from the front bit and I don't think they would be that peeved as long as they were within a couple of points, right up until the last few races.
Do you seriously think they are purposely performing weaker than they could? Or did I misunderstand you?

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Big Tea
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Re: 2018 Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team

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LM10 wrote:
10 May 2018, 23:22
Big Tea wrote:
10 May 2018, 23:18
Monster Hesh wrote:
10 May 2018, 22:20
So why are we not seeing any big developments from Mercedes? We have hardly seen anything new all season. While Ferrari have been relentless. Are they just trying to undertsand what they got first?

Noticeable stuff from McLaren and Ferrari, also RedBull bringing significant developments. Yet we are not seeing much from Mercedes, are they just playing it all close to the chest, fake a late delivery to the paddock on Friday morning?
I think Merc have gone to lengths to 'demonstrate' they are not a (over) dominant car and have taken the underdog stance. It may suit them to bee seen as struggling, but I suspect there is a box of goodies waiting in case they are needed. They have done the lead from the front bit and I don't think they would be that peeved as long as they were within a couple of points, right up until the last few races.
Do you seriously think they are purposely performing weaker than they could? Or did I misunderstand you?
No, not deliberately under performing, but confident enough that they are not rushing through incomplete development.
As there are only 3 engines for upgrade, the more upgraded they are the better. While they claim the car is not a 'diva' Aero should be easier for them to understand in more developed form rather than bring on something piecemeal. Its the numbers at the end of the year that count and I think they are confident enough not to 'scrabble' when they do not need to.
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Phil
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Re: 2018 Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team

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It seems this year is once again very much evolving around tire performance. Both Ferrari and Mercedes seem to be very closely matched,but many of the car characteristics have evolved from last year. This year with arguably close to engine performance parity and tires becoming even softer for the benefit of the show, arguably, optimizing tire performance will be crucial.

We've already seen this year how this can affect the outcome of a race. Melbourne, Mercedes was the dominant team to beat. On pole by a big margin, strong throughout the race and only lost it due to a miscalculation and an untimely safety car. Then Bahrain, China and Baku showed Ferrari ahead in qualifying with Mercedes struggling on the softest compounds, but stronger relatively on the harder compounds they used during the race. Barcelona, again, Mercedes on top. How can this all be explained?

Some random thoughts: (feel free to correct or add to it)

I think the tire situation is very complex. Some of the confusion perhaps comes that people are taking some of the past characteristics (perhaps from 2014-2016) and applying it to this year too. That obviously doesn't work, for one, because the car changed significantly and also has different characteristics, but secondly, because the banning of FRIC and their suspension trickery meant that the car has a different effect on tires. I also firmly believe that with the significant engine advantage Mercedes had over a couple of seasons, that they could run higher downforce levels (relative to other teams) and that also had an influence on how much energy went into the tires. Back then, and I think this was quite evident during wet and rainy conditions, the Mercedes was always very strong in retaining heat in their tires and have a lot of downforce.

Anyway, that was back then, so lets move on.

I'm going to assume that the W09 is very similar to the W08 in regards to its sensitivity in extracting its maximum potential (aka, a narrow operating window). Get it wrong, the car is outside the working range, sometimes with all for wheels, sometimes only at the front or at the rear. This is where the name 'Diva' comes from. Ferrari (and RedBull) seem to have cars that have a wider operating window, meaning that they are less suspect to set-up changes or can get the tires operating in the correct temperature windows more easily. This doesn't necessarily mean that the Mercedes has bad tire degradation (quite to the contrary), but obviously being able to get the tires into the correct working range is crucial in order to get the best performance out of the car.

Grip is everything. Temperature is linked to tire pressure and tire pressure has a bearing on tire-contact-patch. An over-inflated tire will offer less contact-patch and therefore less grip. Tire surface temperature is important too - if it gets too hot, the rubber could become greasy, hence less grip. Track layout is obviously very much linked to the tires/cars performance too.

A long straight could have the effect that the tire cools down, long high g-force corners means lots of load and energy going through the tire, heating it up. Therefore, a track like Baku is very different to say Barcelona. Baku has lots of low-speed 90° bends and long straights, Barcelona lots of high-speed corners and a chicane in S3 that requires lots of mechanical grip. Then you also have track surface and track temperature to take into consideration. A race track will usually have a lots of grip (high abrasion), a street circuit doesn't. A rubbered in track will also have an influence too (track evolution throughout the weekend). Then we have some anomalies like Barcelona, France and Silverstone where the tarmac is new, very dark (less reflective to the sunlight). From what I understand, new tarmac is less grippy too, hence why this year, we had less tire wear that made 1-stops possible (compared to last where pretty much everyone was on a 2-stop).

There is also one more influence, one that I already mentioned above: The importance of getting all tires into the correct temperature/working range, from fronts to rears. I believe some of it is down to if the track is front or rear limited. Front limited means the front tires start sliding before the rear tires. The speed you can carry through the corner is then limited by the maximum grip the front tires can generate, regardless of how much rear grip you have. Obviously this also has an influence of tire temperatures too and how much energy can be put into the tire.

So how to put all this data together? Is there a trend in all of this?

Here are the different Pirelli tire compounds for this year:
Image

In Bahrain, China and Baku (to some extent), there was a clear trend that Mercedes favors the harder compounds. This was also largely the case last year too. According to the above chart, the harder the compound, the higher the operating temperature range of the tire. This would suggest that the Mercedes is indeed quite 'aggressive' on its tire - in other words, they can put a lot of energy into the tire that would mean that perhaps they are on the higher side of the temperature range. In Bahrain they clearly struggled on the softest compounds (the US), so I think the Mercedes was overheating the tire. While the SS tire has the same temperature working range, obviously being of harder compound means that you would require more energy to put the same heat/energy into the tire.

It will be interesting to see how things shape up once the team arrive at Monaco and the hyper-softs will be used. Going forward, it will be of upmost importance for Mercedes to maximize their potential on the 'quickest' tire. They might get around to using harder compounds during the race, but qualifying will be dictated by pace on the softest tire available. Get it wrong and they may be on the back foot going into most races.
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Bill_Kar
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Re: 2018 Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team

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I think you did a great analysis Phil. I believe things will become clearer after Monaco, because it is the low speed, street circuit you describe that Mercedes hate. Although, apart from LH struggle there last year, Bottas performed really well, especially in Q. It seems to me that Mercedes is an all around car, it's just that it needs to hit the sweet spot of the tyres.
I wonder if Ferrari has the same capability to be so fast in all tracks even if it extracts maximum performance and grip from tyres.

Just_a_fan
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Re: 2018 Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team

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F1Krof wrote:
28 Apr 2018, 12:23
ivanlesk wrote:
28 Apr 2018, 11:55
F1Krof wrote:
28 Apr 2018, 11:42
I honestly believe that they have no clue as to why they're slow. They're trying to blame the tires but honestly I don't think the issue solely lies on the tires. They've fallen back because they didn't bring anything significantly new besides trimmed sidepods. It's the same car from last year with a bit of tweaks here and there, while the opposition really inovated. Look at Red Bull and Ferrari's aggressive design. Merc's so dull in this area, they're missing quite a lot. If I was them, I'd scratch this season and fully commit to 2019 with different design.
why would any title contender do that after just few races?
Because the results are conclusive and it's only going to get harder and harder. While you're trying to fix the problems, the other (Ferrari & Red Bull) are developing a winning formula which is already faster and better in many areas. That's why.
It seems that one reason Mercedes were struggling against Ferrari is that Ferrari's car was illegal. Their energy store was giving more than the allowed energy per lap - the same effect as if they were using more than the allowed fuel rate.

Perhaps Mercedes should hold off dropping the current car just in case the Ferrari ends up being slower with a legal energy storage system...
If you are more fortunate than others, build a larger table not a taller fence.