Mercedes W12

[nzjrs]

Wolf stating that they stopped development is a bit suspicious though.

If you really stopped developing and sacrifice this year to be on top next year, then you want your opponent to waste all their resources on this year (and compromise next year).

But probably the planning, and when the resources are shifted, is already fixed and not affected by what happens day to day.

Or you want everyone to know that the reason you're being beaten is that you're basically running last year's car. "We aren't developing this car which is why we're getting beaten" is better than "we're getting beaten but hoping that something on the horizon might help". I doubt Red Bull would fall for the old "we've got a huge upgrade coming in X races time" gambit.

I agree with both of you because the different messaging obvious has a different audience.

The TPs might fool David Croft and the average race thread argue-er with comments, but I'm sure the teams ignore statements to the press and have a better sense of when an update is brought or not, they have the photographers and data after all.

So who is the audience for the "we aren't developing this car" and why?

[cplchanb]

Wolf stating that they stopped development is a bit suspicious though.

If you really stopped developing and sacrifice this year to be on top next year, then you want your opponent to waste all their resources on this year (and compromise next year).

But probably the planning, and when the resources are shifted, is already fixed and not affected by what happens day to day.

Or you want everyone to know that the reason you're being beaten is that you're basically running last year's car. "We aren't developing this car which is why we're getting beaten" is better than "we're getting beaten but hoping that something on the horizon might help". I doubt Red Bull would fall for the old "we've got a huge upgrade coming in X races time" gambit.

I agree with both of you because the different messaging obvious has a different audience.

The TPs might fool David Croft and the average race thread argue-er with comments, but I'm sure the teams ignore statements to the press and have a better sense of when an update is brought or not, they have the photographers and data after all.

So who is the audience for the "we aren't developing this car" and why?

In terms of development they could very well have wrapped up the design work and are only producing the parts now. It takes time for them to roll parts out from the factory so if there is some sort of update in the summer it would be from work done in April when they were still working on it. I think TW was referring to the fact that there wont be any new developments from the marked point, but anything that was approved for production would be made. I have a feeling that there are still unseen parts that they are making/made but havnt bolted onto the car. Im sort of hoping that they are secretly sandbagging in 2nd just to get the extra windtunnel time for the 2nd half of the year.

[zibby43]

Didn't they test these tyres ini 2020 and the tyre sidewalls are more stable so it should actually be more forgiving on the aero.. So must be something else if thats the case.

I know I have been saying it's for the floor but's if the theory is right that they screwed up a few developments.

But, as Merc engineers confessed to AMuS earlier this year, they were one of the only teams (if not *the* only team) to not bring a mock-up of the '21 floor and diffuser to test during the tire tests last year.

Retrospectively, they said that this was a huge mistake.

On a side note, Merc and RBR rear wing comparison (@EngineMode11):

[SuperCNJ]

I do actually think that Merc originally thought they had a good enough basic car to be in with a chance to win the titles at the start of the season and had always planned to sacrifice some performance this year for a 2022 headstart. Afterall, winning in the long run, is more important than winning a single season, particularly when the rules are clearly designed to pull the grid closer together and to a large extent, hurt Merc. There is no point spending too much effort dwelling on a season you're always going to struggle to dominate when there are so many restrictions.

RB on the other hand desperately wants to be the team that breaks Mercs run of dominance, and seemingly at any cost. Their development pace is still unrelenting and seems to want to give Max a title even if it sacrifices their 2022 development - so that he doesn't look elsewhere I guess.

[DarthPlagueisTheVise]

"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."

https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/57651115
Upgrades coming according to Allison. Let's hope they make a difference

[PlatinumZealot]

Should see the tokens show themselves if you are one of us who believes that they were never spent.

[mkay]

Should see the tokens show themselves if you are one of us who believes that they were never spent.

I thought you couldn't "spend" the tokens during the season?

[dans79]

Should see the tokens show themselves if you are one of us who believes that they were never spent.

I thought you couldn't "spend" the tokens during the season?

I think he is implying that whatever change is coming might make it more obvious what the tokens where spent on.

[PlatinumZealot]

Should see the tokens show themselves if you are one of us who believes that they were never spent.

I thought you couldn't "spend" the tokens during the season?

My hunch is that they can be spent during the season. We had this discussion in the forum and I think it was a wording that had only applied to the freezing of chassis and some some other parts that had to be done sometime in 2020. For 2021, IIRC you can spend the token whenever you want in 2021. This makes sense because if you think about the objective of the rule it is to control spending/prevent teams from going bankrupt. A team like Haas or Williams for argument sake, may have serious cash flow problems, and likely have to wait some time to get enough cash to spend their token in 2021. So because of this reason and the fact they had serious issues in winter testing, I believe Mercedes have held back spending their token until they figured out the floor.

It's a hunch that I am willing to commit to until proven wrong, and I mean proven wrong by what we see on the car not the semantics.

[F1Krof]

Did we get the time of the deployment? Are they coming for this weekend or after the summer break?

Also what does this mean? Is he saying the tyre pressure rule or is he referring to the overall 2021 aero regs?

Allison said: "What has definitely been true is that ever since the rule changes that were introduced aerodynamically for looking after the tyres, we have found it hellishly hard to find the sort of performance gain rate that we did prior to those rules. So that has made our life trickier than we wished it to be."

[bosyber]

Did we get the time of the deployment? Are they coming for this weekend or after the summer break?

Also what does this mean? Is he saying the tyre pressure rule or is he referring to the overall 2021 aero regs?

Allison said: "What has definitely been true is that ever since the rule changes that were introduced aerodynamically for looking after the tyres, we have found it hellishly hard to find the sort of performance gain rate that we did prior to those rules. So that has made our life trickier than we wished it to be."

It really only makes sense when he's referring to the overall 2021 aero regs, as I read it.

[dans79]

Also what does this mean? Is he saying the tyre pressure rule or is he referring to the overall 2021 aero regs?

Allison said: "What has definitely been true is that ever since the rule changes that were introduced aerodynamically for looking after the tyres, we have found it hellishly hard to find the sort of performance gain rate that we did prior to those rules. So that has made our life trickier than we wished it to be."

He's talking about the floor changes etc that were introduced for this season so the Pirelli could survive till the 18" rims come in next year.

[NathanOlder]

Should see the tokens show themselves if you are one of us who believes that they were never spent.

I thought you couldn't "spend" the tokens during the season?

Is there any rules to say you can't revert back to the original part from 2020 that you spent your tokens on for 2021 ?

example, if for 2021 you spent 2 tokens on front suspension, can you then go back to your 2020 suspension ?

[dxpetrov]

"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."

https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/57651115
Upgrades coming according to Allison. Let's hope they make a difference

I wouldn't hold my breath.
As Ross Brawn points out, the RB actually had a faster car since the end of 2020 (Abu Dhabi anyone?), and recent improvement actually comes from nailing out that setup perfect, as they underperformed during those first races of this year. Don't think the W12 has much of a ceiling now to gain any considerable improvement to challenge the RB16B.

[Big Tea]

Possibly splitting hair, and defiantly rewording other questions,(sorry Nathan) if for instance a team (yes that one) ran something on the car during a previous session or even season which was not used in the the race, and took it of for the actual race, would they now be free to re-introduce it, or is once removed the 'item' is no longer homologated for use in this season?

I was wondering if the item or items were introduced, but one of the two did not work, or did not have the advantage on one alone so was removed for 'further research'. Not to make use of an available update does sound strange unless something unexpected occured