I think of all the teams on the grid, Mercedes are probably the ones that know starting early is usually the best recipe for success.Hammerfist wrote: ↑26 Jun 2021, 21:10But the short term battle is right here in front of them and is very winnable imo. They could have won any of the races they've lost to Redbull so far. It's a close battle. It's quite perplexing to me if they truly are giving up on this year's challenge. And if that is the case, Redbull will pull away because they will not stop development. I'm not saying don't think about next year, but if you're throwing all your eggs at 2022, that is the wrong way to do it imo. There are no guarantees next year and they cannot be cocky enough to think that they are the ones that will get it right.El Scorchio wrote: ↑26 Jun 2021, 10:58Exactly. They are suffering because either they’ve made a decision not to upgrade the 2021 car- in favour of the strongest car for 2022- and hang their chances on whether what they’ve got enough with what they already have (looks like not) OR they are just down a development dead end, given what they can achieve in terms of gain with the 2021 regs and development constraints.
It’s probably better to focus on 2022 and the long game rather than throw time and energy into what might be an unwinnable short term battle.