2021 AMG Mercedes F1 Team

[Dee]

"Mercedes say they do have performance upgrades for their car as they seek to keep up with Red Bull in the world championship fight.

Team principal Toto Wolff said after the Styrian Grand Prix that the team had switched focus to their 2022 car.

Technical boss James Allison said: "We have a number of things that will make our car faster in the coming races. Let's hope they prove sufficient."

Allison said the upgrades would be both on the chassis and engine side"

"So there's some more aerodynamic change in the offing, a little bit of PU we hope on the delivery side, and a few things that are not quite as tidy as we would wish that we still have the opportunity to put right while this season is still very much alive and hot.

"And there is also the power-unit factory and there is a little more to come from the PU"

https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/57651115

Explain to me why Mercedes are bringing performance upgrades on their engine when that has been specifically banned this year?

[Wouter]

https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/57651115

Technical boss James Allison said: "We have a number of things that will make our car faster in the coming races. Let's hope they prove sufficient."

Allison said the upgrades would be both on the chassis and engine side.

Allison, speaking to the official F1 Nation podcast, said: "I don't think the two things are at odds with each other and I don't think Toto has said precisely that [there will be no more upgrades].

"What Toto points out is that next year's rules are a big and hairy affair and they demand a huge amount of our attention.

"So most of the focus of our factory has switched over to next year, the performance discovery for next year, but that doesn't mean there aren't things still in the food chain from prior to that focus switch.

"And furthermore it isn't all of the factory, and furthermore we are only one of two factories - there is also the power-unit factory and there is a little more to come from the PU.

"So there's some more aerodynamic change in the offing, a little bit of PU we hope on the delivery side, and a few things that are not quite as tidy as we would wish that we still have the opportunity to put right while this season is still very much alive and hot."

[El Scorchio]

"Mercedes say they do have performance upgrades for their car as they seek to keep up with Red Bull in the world championship fight.

Team principal Toto Wolff said after the Styrian Grand Prix that the team had switched focus to their 2022 car.

Technical boss James Allison said: "We have a number of things that will make our car faster in the coming races. Let's hope they prove sufficient."

Allison said the upgrades would be both on the chassis and engine side"

"So there's some more aerodynamic change in the offing, a little bit of PU we hope on the delivery side, and a few things that are not quite as tidy as we would wish that we still have the opportunity to put right while this season is still very much alive and hot."

https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/57651115

Explain to me why Mercedes are bringing performance upgrades on their engine when that has been specifically banned this year?

It's probably software/deployment changes which I believe are fine. If they were making engine upgrades which were against the regs, they would hardly announce it to the BBC.

[Just_a_fan]

Explain to me why Mercedes are bringing performance upgrades on their engine when that has been specifically banned this year?

It's quoted in the story:

"So there's some more aerodynamic change in the offing, a little bit of PU we hope on the delivery side, and a few things that are not quite as tidy as we would wish that we still have the opportunity to put right while this season is still very much alive and hot."

It'll be how the electrical energy is deployed. So some fine tuning of that which is perfectly legal. Only the petrol burning bits are banned from performance upgrades.

[nzjrs]

It'll be how the electrical energy is deployed. So some fine tuning of that which is perfectly legal. Only the petrol burning bits are banned from performance upgrades.

Off-topic, but I think almost every pre-race press release from Honda says something like 'This circuit <something about deployment is hard> so we will be working with the team to optimize the PU deployment to extract the most from the engine'.

Or in other words, aren't MB already doing per-circuit optimisation of how electrical energy is deployed?

[Dee]

It'll be how the electrical energy is deployed. So some fine tuning of that which is perfectly legal. Only the petrol burning bits are banned from performance upgrades.

Off-topic, but I think almost every pre-race press release from Honda says something like 'This circuit <something about deployment is hard> so we will be working with the team to optimize the PU deployment to extract the most from the engine'.

Or in other words, aren't MB already doing per-circuit optimisation of how electrical energy is deployed?

Absolutely, so an increase in performance relative to what they have been doing is a performance increase, which is banned

[basti313]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/57651115

Well. Fancy that.

Well....there are a few people in F1...Horner to name one, the other one is obvious, that you better not listen at all as you never know if it is opposite day today.

Of course they do not plan a new front wing, they try to survive with building as little amount as possible.
But for example the floor needs to be new each race, so why not do little improvements? There are and will be of course track dependent changes.

[dans79]

It'll be how the electrical energy is deployed. So some fine tuning of that which is perfectly legal. Only the petrol burning bits are banned from performance upgrades.

Off-topic, but I think almost every pre-race press release from Honda says something like 'This circuit <something about deployment is hard> so we will be working with the team to optimize the PU deployment to extract the most from the engine'.

Or in other words, aren't MB already doing per-circuit optimisation of how electrical energy is deployed?

Absolutely, so an increase in performance relative to what they have been doing is a performance increase, which is banned

That's not anywhere close to how it works!

[Pyrone89]

"Mercedes say they do have performance upgrades for their car as they seek to keep up with Red Bull in the world championship fight.

Team principal Toto Wolff said after the Styrian Grand Prix that the team had switched focus to their 2022 car.

Technical boss James Allison said: "We have a number of things that will make our car faster in the coming races. Let's hope they prove sufficient."

Allison said the upgrades would be both on the chassis and engine side"

"So there's some more aerodynamic change in the offing, a little bit of PU we hope on the delivery side, and a few things that are not quite as tidy as we would wish that we still have the opportunity to put right while this season is still very much alive and hot.

"And there is also the power-unit factory and there is a little more to come from the PU"

https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/57651115

Explain to me why Mercedes are bringing performance upgrades on their engine when that has been specifically banned this year?

So can we now finally all agree to ignore whatever Toto says from now on?

As I have said to all the ‘season is over’ forummers over and over again: this season is long from over.

[Dee]

Can we get a run down of what Mercedes have been saying and doing and what is actually happening

1. Say in media interviews and press conferences that there will be no further upgrades - As we have learned today, there actually will be upgrades both on the car and the engine

https://the-race.com/formula-1/mercedes ... 21-season/
"Mercedes Formula 1 boss Toto Wolff has warned his team isn’t planning to develop its 2021 car further despite a string of defeats versus main rival Red Bull"

https://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/3172 ... s-hamilton
"Lewis Hamilton needs a quicker car to take the fight to Formula One leaders Red Bull but the seven times world champion's Mercedes team made clear on Sunday that no developments were planned"

Two days ago

Q: Lewis, can I bring you in on that please. Max thinks that Red Bull can focus on this year and next year. Toto Wolff said that your resources are now on next year. Would you like to see some resources coming back and focusing on 2021 as well?
LH: Look, I’ve got an incredibly intelligent, strong and amazing group of people working behind me who take all of those decisions. Obviously you have to try to balance out with this new cost-cap. Naturally, we would love to have upgrades and improvements but I don’t think that’s currently on the cards. Of course, when we do a debrief we’ll chat about it but yeah, that’s how it is at the moment.

2. Infer suspicion on RB that Honda are cheating with the new upgrade, that they need to look at the "facts" - Total lie as the engine was detuned after Bahrain and brought back to that orginal level. Toto and co know this but go ahead and say this

https://www.racefans.net/2021/06/28/mer ... ew-engine/
"Mercedes will look into any potential gains Red Bull may have made with their second power unit, said team principal Toto Wolff, after Lewis Hamilton repeated his claim they have introduced an upgrade.

Engine manufacturers are only allowed to make changes to their power units during this season to address reliability concerns.

However Hamilton has claimed on several occasions the new Honda engines Red Bull introduced at the French Grand Prix have improved their performance"

Binotto knows this...
''I don't agree with what I am hearing because if we look at the GPS data it is the same performance that Honda had in Bahrain. They had to scale back power then due to reliability issues, but having solved that, they could now go back to the standard they had at the beginning of the year.''

3. Infer as Hamilton did in the last press conference that when the wing tests are finished, that RB will be closer to them as they will lose performance - RB have passed the test already and not lost performance at all

Q: (Andrew Benson – BBC Sport) Lewis, have you accepted that Mercedes won’t be able to catch Red Bull on car development? And if so, how do you look at the championship?
LH: Well, I don’t accept anything. I think we’ve still got many races ahead of us and we’ve got to keep pushing. We’re World Champions and that’s what we can, definitely, improve if we have put our minds to it. If we’re not going to develop and improve our car for the rest of the year, this is the result you’re going to see, because, as I said, they’ve really eked out performance in these last few races, wherever it’s been, whether it’s been in France with the engine or the new wing, whichever it is. But there’s another TD (technical directive) coming out for the wings. I don’t know if they’re stopping the bendiness or not but maybe that will level the playing field. We will see.

4. Infer that RB were cheating with the tyre pressures, Hamilton saying in the press conference that he believed that PIrelli did nothing wrong and went on to ask the FIA in the drivers meeting if Red Bull would be penalised- new TD brought in and no drop in performance from RB

https://www.planetf1.com/news/lewis-ham ... e-penalty/

Projection all year long from Mercedes that RB are cheating when they are not

Why?

Why are Mercedes doing this?

[SiLo]

I think what Toto says is still true, and anything that does come onto the car from this year was already there and the work had been done. Other things around optimisations are likely going to help them in future years so it makes sense to continue some form of learning and development on that.

[mkay]

Explain to me why Mercedes are bringing performance upgrades on their engine when that has been specifically banned this year?

It's quoted in the story:

"So there's some more aerodynamic change in the offing, a little bit of PU we hope on the delivery side, and a few things that are not quite as tidy as we would wish that we still have the opportunity to put right while this season is still very much alive and hot."

It'll be how the electrical energy is deployed. So some fine tuning of that which is perfectly legal. Only the petrol burning bits are banned from performance upgrades.

Yep. Though RB did state that ExxonMobil has brought new lubricants which have enhanced performance of the ICE - perhaps Petronas is due to do the same as well?

[WaikeCU]

Are teams actually allowed to do a decent amount of running in testing with an older car during the season like fe. the W11?

I believe from memory, it has to be a two year old car, so they can use the W10.

Darn! would be cool tho if it worked. Like if the W12 now is basically a W11 regulated for this season, it meant they could do alot of testdays with the old W11 but slap some new bits on it just to get data out of it

[dans79]

Why are Mercedes doing this?

One, it's mide games with its competitors It's easy to see its working to, as Horner is becoming increasingly hostile/belligerent in the press. Two, it means Merc can make the same "reliability" improvements Honda did, and then no one can complain about it.

[Dee]

Why are Mercedes doing this?

One, it's mide games with its competitors It's easy to see its working to, as Horner is becoming increasingly hostile/belligerent in the press. Two, it means Merc can make the same "reliability" improvements Honda did, and then no one can complain about it.

So, it's malicious because they want to hide what they are doing. The difference being that Honda made a reliablilty upgrade whereas Mercedes are putting in a performance update