2021 AMG Mercedes F1 Team

[mkay]

Yes and No, it makes sense as they are there, but usually you would do it in the week leading up to the test, on a wednesday or thursday. To find any small issues ect with just running the car. To do it after really does look like a tactical move for 1 reason or another.

Tactical move in that it allows Merc to probably save some money in a year where teams have to adhere to a budget cap.

We will see more and more cost-saving moves like this going forward. Days of unfettered extravagance are behind us now.

SO why do the 'filming' day after testing and not before ? The cost would be the same, so not money. It even makes more sense to do it before, to find any hidden gremlins that would usually cost you precious testing time. Just like what happened on Friday. So what are your thoughts as to why do it after testing and not before ?

I imagine all teams travel together when doing non-European races (paid for by FOM), so if they had done filming beforehand, every team would have seen their car ahead of testing which would have defeated the purpose of hiding bits at launch until testing.

[Jozsusz]

Yes and No, it makes sense as they are there, but usually you would do it in the week leading up to the test, on a wednesday or thursday. To find any small issues ect with just running the car. To do it after really does look like a tactical move for 1 reason or another.

Tactical move in that it allows Merc to probably save some money in a year where teams have to adhere to a budget cap.

We will see more and more cost-saving moves like this going forward. Days of unfettered extravagance are behind us now.

SO why do the 'filming' day after testing and not before ? The cost would be the same, so not money. It even makes more sense to do it before, to find any hidden gremlins that would usually cost you precious testing time. Just like what happened on Friday. So what are your thoughts as to why do it after testing and not before ?

Because they're doing it with 2 cars.

[NathanOlder]

Tactical move in that it allows Merc to probably save some money in a year where teams have to adhere to a budget cap.

We will see more and more cost-saving moves like this going forward. Days of unfettered extravagance are behind us now.

SO why do the 'filming' day after testing and not before ? The cost would be the same, so not money. It even makes more sense to do it before, to find any hidden gremlins that would usually cost you precious testing time. Just like what happened on Friday. So what are your thoughts as to why do it after testing and not before ?

I imagine all teams travel together when doing non-European races (paid for by FOM), so if they had done filming beforehand, every team would have seen their car ahead of testing which would have defeated the purpose of hiding bits at launch until testing.

Yeah so they are hiding something and appear to be putting in a lot of effort to do this. So thats why people are still not writing Mercedes off but you seem hell bent of doing just that.

[zibby43]

Was this posted after the test? The tokens thing is very intriguing. So many hints about it being obvious, but definitely nothing obvious on the car in the last few days.

Posted in the comment section of this video, which dropped today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFQeGKG8KoQ

Nice video, but clearly made for non tech savvy fans. There's literally no new information, apart from migration of survival cell. Especially underwhelming because usually there's always some juicy bits in Allison's videos, but this is one just bland PR exercise.

Actually, Allison confirmed the new plenum design. Which, had been rumored, and we saw pictures of it on the Aston, but the video was the first time the team confirmed it.

I never found those videos to be particularly juicy to begin with, but this is the team thread.

[mkay]

SO why do the 'filming' day after testing and not before ? The cost would be the same, so not money. It even makes more sense to do it before, to find any hidden gremlins that would usually cost you precious testing time. Just like what happened on Friday. So what are your thoughts as to why do it after testing and not before ?

I imagine all teams travel together when doing non-European races (paid for by FOM), so if they had done filming beforehand, every team would have seen their car ahead of testing which would have defeated the purpose of hiding bits at launch until testing.

Yeah so they are hiding something and appear to be putting in a lot of effort to do this. So thats why people are still not writing Mercedes off but you seem hell bent of doing just that.

They were hiding their floor/rear design as long as they could, just like any other team.

I am not writing Merc off, I'm just not subscribing to these ludicrous ideas that Merc had a massive upgrade package waiting for today's filming, etc. I understand people are hanging on James Allison's "it'll be apparent where we have spent our tokens" quote from launch day, but it's getting desperate in certain instances.

I've always been consistent in that Merc has 2 weeks to figure out what the hell is wrong with their car. If anyone can do it, it's them - but this year is different with budget cap, CFD/wind tunnel limitations and new regs in 2022.

[SiLo]

I wouldn't be surprised to see Merc not spend much time trying to figure out the issues and accept maybe getting beaten to the title by Red Bull this year for a better 2022.

[LM10]

I wouldn't be surprised to see Merc not spend much time trying to figure out the issues and accept maybe getting beaten to the title by Red Bull this year for a better 2022.

I would be very surprised. Do you think Hamilton signed for a transition year?

[Chuckjr]

I wouldn't be surprised to see Merc not spend much time trying to figure out the issues and accept maybe getting beaten to the title by Red Bull this year for a better 2022.

I would be very surprised. Do you think Hamilton signed for a transition year?

He didn’t really have a choice if he wanted to drive in F1 this year.

[Juzh]

Posted in the comment section of this video, which dropped today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFQeGKG8KoQ

Nice video, but clearly made for non tech savvy fans. There's literally no new information, apart from migration of survival cell. Especially underwhelming because usually there's always some juicy bits in Allison's videos, but this is one just bland PR exercise.

Actually, Allison confirmed the new plenum design. Which, had been rumored, and we saw pictures of it on the Aston, but the video was the first time the team confirmed it.

I never found those videos to be particularly juicy to begin with, but this is the team thread.

Plenum thing was known already, it's not really new info. Juicy was too strong a word perhaps.

[dans79]

I think it's far more likely the car is more divaesque than last years. Add to that the shortest amount of preseason testing in memory, uncooperative weather, and a reliability issue on the first day, and it's not hard to see why they might be on the back foot.

[LM10]

I wouldn't be surprised to see Merc not spend much time trying to figure out the issues and accept maybe getting beaten to the title by Red Bull this year for a better 2022.

I would be very surprised. Do you think Hamilton signed for a transition year?

He didn’t really have a choice if he wanted to drive in F1 this year.

He signed for only one year. He’s sure Mercedes can give him the 8. title and after that he’ll evaluate his situation and options. I don’t buy Toto’s version of having had no time to make a detailed contract talk as an explanation of the fact that Hamilton signed for a single year.

[mkay]

I would be very surprised. Do you think Hamilton signed for a transition year?

He didn’t really have a choice if he wanted to drive in F1 this year.

He signed for only one year. He’s sure Mercedes can give him the 8. title and after that he’ll evaluate his situation and options. I don’t buy Toto’s version of having had no time to make a detailed contract talk as an explanation of the fact that Hamilton signed for a single year.

This makes sense to me. This leads me to think something hasn't gone to plan, as I am sure they weren't expecting rear end instability. The quiet confidence at Merc, and the fact they've been developing the W12 since last summer, suggests to me that the W12 on paper is probably another world-beater like its predecessor was. Somehow, Merc is having trouble harnessing that potential...

[Just_a_fan]

He didn’t really have a choice if he wanted to drive in F1 this year.

He signed for only one year. He’s sure Mercedes can give him the 8. title and after that he’ll evaluate his situation and options. I don’t buy Toto’s version of having had no time to make a detailed contract talk as an explanation of the fact that Hamilton signed for a single year.

This makes sense to me. This leads me to think something hasn't gone to plan, as I am sure they weren't expecting rear end instability. The quiet confidence at Merc, and the fact they've been developing the W12 since last summer, suggests to me that the W12 on paper is probably another world-beater like its predecessor was. Somehow, Merc is having trouble harnessing that potential...

Wouldn't be surprised if they're having issues with getting the tyres in the window. They've spent a lot of time developing their cars so that they don't over heat the rear tyres, having had issues with that very thing for some time. Perhaps they've just done it too well. Hamilton's spin at the end of the outlap looked for all the world like rear tyres that weren't behaving as they expected them too. Although they have tyre temperature information in the car so I'd be surprised that Hamilton wasn't aware of it. From memory, he had the brake temperatures on screen so maybe he was just caught out by the tyres not heating up as expected, added power and the cold tyres cried "enough!".

If the car needs to be handled in a certain way to get the tyres where they need to be, and then kept there, it's possible to adapt their outlaps etc., for qualifying. It doesn't help at the start of a race and it won't be a nice car to drive after a safety car period.

[zibby43]

Nice video, but clearly made for non tech savvy fans. There's literally no new information, apart from migration of survival cell. Especially underwhelming because usually there's always some juicy bits in Allison's videos, but this is one just bland PR exercise.

Actually, Allison confirmed the new plenum design. Which, had been rumored, and we saw pictures of it on the Aston, but the video was the first time the team confirmed it.

I never found those videos to be particularly juicy to begin with, but this is the team thread.

Plenum thing was known already, it's not really new info. Juicy was too strong a word perhaps.

Sorry, I was trying to specify that the video was the first time the actual Mercedes team publicly confirmed the new plenum (at least to my knowledge). In the launch video Allison just called it the sexy looking bulge, even know Mudflap had told us what this was as far back as the end of last season.

[cheeRS]

I imagine all teams travel together when doing non-European races (paid for by FOM), so if they had done filming beforehand, every team would have seen their car ahead of testing which would have defeated the purpose of hiding bits at launch until testing.

Yeah so they are hiding something and appear to be putting in a lot of effort to do this. So thats why people are still not writing Mercedes off but you seem hell bent of doing just that.

They were hiding their floor/rear design as long as they could, just like any other team.

I am not writing Merc off, I'm just not subscribing to these ludicrous ideas that Merc had a massive upgrade package waiting for today's filming, etc. I understand people are hanging on James Allison's "it'll be apparent where we have spent our tokens" quote from launch day, but it's getting desperate in certain instances.

I've always been consistent in that Merc has 2 weeks to figure out what the hell is wrong with their car. If anyone can do it, it's them - but this year is different with budget cap, CFD/wind tunnel limitations and new regs in 2022.

Regarding the Allison "it'll become apparent" quote, maybe the massive update package for the filming day is the wrong train of thought.

Maybe it has more to do with engine/gearbox (do those use tokens? not sure). Perhaps the merc-powered teams are using a detuned version for testing and the real "evidence" will be apparent after the first race or two when the power is really on display? Just a guess really.