2021 AMG Mercedes F1 Team

[LM10]

It's always good to be able to heat the tires up faster, as long as you don't overheat them or cause degradation issues.

Do you think Hamilton's 'these tires are gone' in the first stint was a case of 'XXX has the best fans' or do you think they did have a weird warmup profile?

No one pays attention to such radio calls from Hamilton anymore. I don't know why he even does them. Yet again, for the umpteenth time, he set fastest laps even some 10-15 laps after that call.

[e30ernest]

It's always good to be able to heat the tires up faster, as long as you don't overheat them or cause degradation issues.

Do you think Hamilton's 'these tires are gone' in the first stint was a case of 'XXX has the best fans' or do you think they did have a weird warmup profile?

No one pays attention to such radio calls from Hamilton anymore. I don't know why he even does them. Yet again, for the umpteenth time, he set fastest laps even some 10-15 laps after that call.

Depends.. There could very well be a part in the tire stint where performance drops to the point they feel like they are going off, but then come back as the tread thins out.

Or it could be his way to throw off the competition (more likely).

[dans79]

It's always good to be able to heat the tires up faster, as long as you don't overheat them or cause degradation issues.

Do you think Hamilton's 'these tires are gone' in the first stint was a case of 'XXX has the best fans' or do you think they did have a weird warmup profile?

I think he abused them trying to get past Bottas, and that it then took several laps to get them back into the appropriate operating window.

He might have also had a little bit of graining, but I didn't see enough good footage of the tires to make a definitive decision.

The lap times kind of bear this out as well. After he got past Bottas he quickly built a gap, but then it's stagnated for a while before it started growing again.

[Unf]

Bad tyres wear from Hamilton's radio are like aliens - everyone heard about them but no one seen them

[PlatinumZealot]

I think its to throw off "radio spies" from other teams. Like the boy who cried wolff, after a few false messages, other engineers pay him no mind anymore.

[Phil]

About the Hamilton radios;

I have two points;
1.) are they taken out of context - i.e. his engineer asking him about the state, but the director only broadcasting Hamiltons answer?
2.) Hamilton is just more sensitive to the state of his tires. Within the proper context, he is giving valuable information to his team. It doesn't mean he needs to come in for new tires.

Apart from that - a good race at Portugal. Hamilton showed once again why he is worth the money. Bottas, unfortunately, had all the cards to prove he deserves his place within the team beyond this year, but he made one big mistake: When Verstappen was challenging his position and he was out on cold tires, why on earth did he not defend his position at the point Verstappen overtook him? He just stayed on the racing line and made absolutely no intentions of wanting to defend it? He should have defended the inside and perhaps he could have held on to the position for a little longer indeed...

Also, Mercedes did a big mistake for challenging RedBull on the point for fastest lap when they pitted Bottas too early and giving Max, their main title rival, a free pass at the precious point. That wasn't very smart.

[e30ernest]

My thoughts on Bottas' lukewarm defense, maybe there's a budgetary issue? Maybe he's under pressure to keep his car undamaged due to the cost of his huge crash last race?

[214270]

Well, the actual timeline went something like this: PER pitted for softs and got the fastest lap. Then sandwiched in between this and BOT pitting was a quite peculiar radio message to PER from his engineer. Something along the lines of ‘Battery is fully topped-up, clear track, everything looks good, let’s go for another fastest.’ Which to me was a suspiciously convenient message to send at the time; forcing Mercs hand and they ultimately took the bait. So teams are definitely listening to competing teams radio messages and altering strategy based on the info discussed.

I mean wasn’t it not too long ago VET and his Ferrari engineer were discussing something HAM had said about tyres over the radio?

A useful disinformation tooI if anything.

[El Scorchio]

My thoughts on Bottas' lukewarm defense, maybe there's a budgetary issue? Maybe he's under pressure to keep his car undamaged due to the cost of his huge crash last race?

Against Verstappen or Hamilton?

He was on absolute marbles against Verstappen and had no chance.
I'd say against Hamilton he didn't give it up easy and it was a wonderful move round the outside, but he wasn't going to make the cardinal sin of colliding with his team mate and taking them both out of the race by over aggressively defending, so perhaps might have been a little more stout against a non-Mercedes car.

[dans79]

My thoughts on Bottas' lukewarm defense, maybe there's a budgetary issue? Maybe he's under pressure to keep his car undamaged due to the cost of his huge crash last race?

Against Verstappen or Hamilton?

He was on absolute marbles against Verstappen and had no chance.
I'd say against Hamilton he didn't give it up easy and it was a wonderful move round the outside, but he wasn't going to make the cardinal sin of colliding with his team mate and taking them both out of the race by over aggressively defending, so perhaps might have been a little more stout against a non-Mercedes car.

Against lewis, he had no chance as soon as he went so far to the right. Against Max he just had no tire temp, if Max had caught him three or four corners later he probably wouldn't have gotten by.

[Phil]

He was on absolute marbles against Verstappen and had no chance.

Against Verstappen. Check the replays. Verstappen did the pass later and had a lot of room on the inside. Bottas could have simply blocked that.

[El Scorchio]

He was on absolute marbles against Verstappen and had no chance.

Against Verstappen. Check the replays. Verstappen did the pass later and had a lot of room on the inside. Bottas could have simply blocked that.

I see what you mean. He could have been a little more aggressive there. I was thinking the pass was a corner or so before it actually happened.

It probably would help him to get his elbows out a bit more sometimes. Both Hamilton and Verstappen would probably have made that move. Bottas is a bit too ‘nice guy’ sometimes.

[e30ernest]

He was on absolute marbles against Verstappen and had no chance.

Against Verstappen. Check the replays. Verstappen did the pass later and had a lot of room on the inside. Bottas could have simply blocked that.

This is my thought too. Or perhaps even compromised Verstappen's exit from the last corner a bit more by getting off the throttle a bit.

It's tough and would likely not have been successful, but he could have given Max a bit of a harder time than he did.

Bottas has always been on the cautious side though. It's one of his strengths (he gets the car home in one piece) and weaknesses (he doesn't fare well in a dogfight).

[NathanOlder]

Should have simply defended the inside line, and then run Max off the track on the exit of 5. Then he has the remainder of the lap to get some temp in the tyres and Max would be close but in the turbulent air. The sensor issue would have lost him the place anyway, so as a whole, its not actually cost Bottas any places. He just missed the chance to make Max aware he is there to fight and to show the world he has some kind of backbone. Opportunity missed Valt.

[zibby43]

Did anyone see the wild claim made by the Daily Mail?

They claimed a source inside Mercedes told them that the team is losing faith in Bottas and they’re considering swapping in George before the season is over. They actually included direct quotes from this source, too.

I didn’t want to post initially, considering the source, but another outlet picked up on it today and asked Christian Horner about it.