This forum contains threads to discuss teams themselves. Anything not technical about the cars, including restructuring, performances etc belongs here.
Mercedes broke down with a gearbox issue on their installation lap. This is something you would expect from Williams. Could it be that Mercedes produced a car that is flawed? Mercedes has been flawless for 8 years .
Mercedes broke down with a gearbox issue on their installation lap. This is something you would expect from Williams. Could it be that Mercedes produced a car that is flawed? Mercedes has been flawless for 8 years .
More likely they simply ran into a flaw that they did not run into in their internal tests. It can happen to any team. I wouldn't read into it much yet.
Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team completes 48 laps on the first day of pre-season testing
A gearshift problem in the morning session hindered the early progress of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team on day one of pre-season testing in Bahrain but a solid afternoon of running helped to recover some of the testing and development targets for the day.
Valtteri was up first in the morning session but his initial run was disrupted by a gearshift problem on lap one. The Finn went on to complete a further 5 laps collecting aerodynamic data after his gearbox was replaced.
Lewis took to the track in the afternoon session, completing 42 laps exploring various set-up changes and signing-off several test items and procedures.
Mercedes-Benz Power Units completed a total of 1,721km today
Valtteri Bottas
The whole team was looking forward to getting on track but on the install lap we noticed an issue with the gearbox so we had to localise the problem and change the gearbox which takes quite a bit of time. Only at the end of the morning session could we get back out for a few more laps before the red flag. A total of six laps for me, all with aero rakes on the car so not much running today and not an ideal start.
In recent years things have been pretty much bulletproof so it’s not a familiar experience. The good thing is that this year if you miss some running you can hopefully catch up because of the mileage limitation linked to the cost cap efficiencies. I am confident we can recover and I’m looking forward to two good days over the weekend.
Lewis Hamilton
Today definitely wasn’t the cleanest of days that we’ve had but these things are sent to try us. Everyone has worked extremely hard to get us here. We had that mishap in the morning which was very unfortunate for Valtteri in terms of losing time on track and the team is working hard to try and understand what that was. I think they did a great job to turn the car around. The second session wasn’t without its challenges, but we exist to find solutions to the problems we’re faced with. We just had a good debrief and we’ll keep working away.
I’ve never seen a sandstorm come through here before in all the years that I’ve driven at this circuit. The sand was moving like rain would move. Having sand on the tyres isn’t good for their longevity and getting consistency on long runs is difficult. Over a single lap it isn’t the worst, but you need lots of laps at this time of year to get data.
We have no choice but to take the positives. I remember in 2007 during testing I had 10 days in the car and now it’s getting less and less. We only have a day and a half in the car before the first race, with different tyres and different aero modifications so it’s not easy but it’s the same for everyone. I’d like to think my nine years’ experience with this team will help me get the best out of it.
Andrew Shovlin
It’s been a poor start to the season from us today. We lost more or less the whole morning with Valtteri with a gearbox problem and our workload over lunch meant we were late joining the afternoon session with Lewis. Once we got running it was clear we didn’t have the car in the right balance window and while we made some progress during the day, we’re not happy with how the car is performing and it’s pretty clear we have some work to do. We’re quite a way behind on our test programme and need to find a bit of balance and speed but we have two days left and every opportunity to recover the situation.
"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."~William Shakespeare
From the looks of it Red Bull is ahead right now, of course it's only day one.
Yes it does seem that way. The lack of running seems to have put Mercedes at the back foot especially with regards to setup. The team looked pretty calm so far so maybe it's not as bad as it looks from the outside.
i find it a bit rich and sore to claim F1 should ban chassis dynos after Mercedes 'accidentally' benefitted from a Honda product that was left abandoned, which helped them get a benefit in the end, and now that they're facing the 'natural' end of their 'lead' and facing the natural end of their engine development potential - meaning other teams are catching up and have taken to this dyno too, to get it banned so they'll be the only ones ever to have 'benefitted' from such a thing.
either way, am i to understand that this dyno might be some sort of 'flight simulator like' device, and that test drivers / development drivers are taking turns in driving the car in a 'simulator' ? So, they essentially have this rig, where they are putting all known variables of existing tracks into the 'simulator' and just run like they have infinite testing at these tracks, including for example a screen?
"Explain the ending to F1 in football terms"
"Hamilton was beating Verstappen 7-0, then the ref decided F%$& rules, next goal wins
while also sending off 4 Hamilton players to make it more interesting"
On the bright side, The Race has Merc as the fastest team on the grid by 2 tenths (adjusted for fuel, compounds, etc.), despite the car not being completely sorted, and Bahrain being one of their worst tracks on the calendar historically.
Posted the details and theoretical fastest times for every team in the pre-season thread.
Valtteri Tops Day Two of Pre-Season Testing in Bahrain
The 2021 Mercedes-AMG F1 W12 E Performance managed 600km of running at the Bahrain International Circuit on day two of pre-season testing, with drivers Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas splitting driving duties.
• Lewis took to the track in the morning session, putting together a solid run of aerodynamic data collection and setup checks. Despite a brief pause after a spin at turn 13, Lewis clocked up 58 laps.
• Valtteri assumed driving responsibilities for the afternoon session, topping the classification charts with a lap of 1:30.289 while performing qualifying simulations on the C3, C4 and C5 tyre compounds.
• Mercedes-Benz Power Units completed a total of 2,343km today.
Valtteri Bottas
It was a lot better for me than yesterday, for sure. I finally managed to get some laps and some clean runs to really learn about the new car and try some things. It’s always good when you learn and that’s what testing is all about – the opportunity to run different things and see how the car reacts. As a driver you use that information in a race weekend so it’s hugely important. If the set-up changes work or don’t work, it’s all valuable information.
For sure it’s windier here than we’ve had at a race but one of the bigger issues with the car is the rear end, it’s quite snappy and unforgiving. With the new tyres, it’s quite sensitive so we need to calm the car down a bit.
[On topping the timing charts]… it’s so difficult to say what that means. I can’t be jumping around happy - it is only testing. As always, we are just focused on getting through our programme and maximising the learning. You never know what fuel loads people are running. Hopefully by the end of tomorrow, we will have a better idea of where we are.
Testing is limited and a lot more compromised this year for everyone, you have less time in the car before the first race so I would be happy if we could just get through the final day tomorrow nice and clean. Today felt good and the times were pretty fast, so I just want more laps and more feeling with car.
Lewis Hamilton
It was OK, better than yesterday - not so much sand. The track doesn’t have a huge amount of grip and long runs aren’t the easiest but at least the sun was out! The balance was slightly improved compared to yesterday but we’re still working through certain things.
For today the wind did a 180° shift so the track was very different, and you could push in certain places where you couldn’t yesterday. It was very gusty as I found out at turn 13 and the rear doesn’t feel particularly great with this new regulation change but we’re still trying to find the sweet spot.
I’ve done 60-odd laps today and Valtteri missed a lot of track time yesterday so it’s not a lot compared to other tests we’ve had but we’re trying to be as effective as we can. We have less mileage than some of the others like Red Bull but we’re just trying to stick to our programme and manage the laps to try to be efficient. We’re just focusing on understanding the car, there’s no point in getting worried.
Andrew Shovlin
It was a better day than yesterday and we were able to run to plan in both sessions. Lewis was in for the morning working on setup items and data collection and Valtteri continued with similar work in the early part of the afternoon. We then spent the latter part of the day doing qualifying simulations with Valtteri on the softer compounds. We’ve made progress on the setup today and the balance was more together by the end of the session, albeit in calmer and cooler conditions. But the car is still a bit of a handful in the warmer and windier conditions of the morning and that’s something we need to get to grips with tomorrow. It’s going to be a busy day; we’ve got more than enough to do so we’re hoping for a trouble-free day.
"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."~William Shakespeare
Starting to think they really should have done a filming day at Silverstone now.
Although now they still have that filming dayare they gonna play that trick again bringing just parts to test something and the final versions coming in for testing on filming day i wonder
Starting to think they really should have done a filming day at Silverstone now.
Although now they still have that filming dayare they gonna play that trick again bringing just parts to test something and the final versions coming in for testing on filming day i wonder
Agreed. I think they'll use the filming day to do some trials of some new parts without lots of cameras poking in at them.
If you are more fortunate than others, build a larger table not a taller fence.
When do the teams have to tell the FIA what parts are going to use tokens on?
Each day, Mercedes has spent an extra hour preparing for the afternoon session, and that seems really odd. I'm starting to wonder if they are switching parts out over the lunch break.
