2021 AMG Mercedes F1 Team

[ringo]

Anyhow,

It looks like the upgrades work and Mercedes are closer to redbull. I would say equal on average. redbull have q3 and soft tyre pace and cornering advantage. Merc have hard tyre pace and what seems to be topspeed again.

Bodes well for the championship fight.

[SiLo]

Anyhow,

It looks like the upgrades work and Mercedes are closer to redbull. I would say equal on average. redbull have q3 and soft tyre pace and cornering advantage. Merc have hard tyre pace and what seems to be topspeed again.

Bodes well for the championship fight.

I think it's too early to say this after the updates and how Silverstone is now a low downforce track. Hungary straight after will give us a very good picture though as it's back to medium speed full on downforce packages.

[mkay]

We're veering into off-topic, but I still think it's foolish to rank Russell and Norris ahead of proven commodity like Lewis. I still have a problem with the fact that both drivers lack a reliable yardstick

I mean, he blew Bottas away in the Merc without even getting used to the car...

Did he? Bottas outqualified him (on a track layout both hadn't driven before), and Bottas was reeling him in before the pitstop shenanigans occurred.

Anyway... off-topic at this stage.

Don't know that the upgrades worked for sure. I think track temps definitely played a part in Mercedes' strong form in qualifying vs. Red Bull. It's clear however they were lacking race pace on the C2 and I suspect that's where Max would have probably driven away had he stayed ahead of Lewis at Copse.

C1 pace was good, but we don't know how well RB/Max would have done.

Let's hope Merc can further optimise the package because I'm not convinced; I still think it's Max's to lose. WCC might be different because of how poorly Perez is driving at the moment. Also, TBD whether Max will have to either take a fresh PU early and a penalty down the line.

[Marty_Y]

I personally think the elephant in the room is still the tyres. Mercedes doesn't seem to like the ridiculously high pressures that are stipulated, this appears to be even more of a noticeable problem when the C4 and C5 compounds are used.

As was said above it will be clearer how much progress has been made after Hungary, according to this link they're going one step softer with the tyre choice C2 to C4.

I'm not sure how accurate this information still is though.
https://press.pirelli.com/2021-tyre-compound-choices/

[NathanOlder]

We're veering into off-topic, but I still think it's foolish to rank Russell and Norris ahead of proven commodity like Lewis. I still have a problem with the fact that both drivers lack a reliable yardstick

I mean, he blew Bottas away in the Merc without even getting used to the car...

Did he? Bottas outqualified him (on a track layout both hadn't driven before), and Bottas was reeling him in before the pitstop shenanigans occurred.

Anyway... off-topic at this stage.

Don't know that the upgrades worked for sure. I think track temps definitely played a part in Mercedes' strong form in qualifying vs. Red Bull. It's clear however they were lacking race pace on the C2 and I suspect that's where Max would have probably driven away had he stayed ahead of Lewis at Copse.

C1 pace was good, but we don't know how well RB/Max would have done.

Let's hope Merc can further optimise the package because I'm not convinced; I still think it's Max's to lose. WCC might be different because of how poorly Perez is driving at the moment. Also, TBD whether Max will have to either take a fresh PU early and a penalty down the line.

Did we not see Lewis on saturday sit right behind Max for 15ish laps on the C2, just like he did with Charles on Sunday?

[dans79]

Anyhow,

It looks like the upgrades work and Mercedes are closer to redbull. I would say equal on average. redbull have q3 and soft tyre pace and cornering advantage. Merc have hard tyre pace and what seems to be topspeed again.

Bodes well for the championship fight.

I think it's too early to say this after the updates and how Silverstone is now a low downforce track. Hungary straight after will give us a very good picture though as it's back to medium speed full on downforce packages.

Mercades does ok with full/high downforce circuits. Lewis took pole and won in Spain, and Bottas was nearly on pole in Monaco.

Imo, where Mercedes has lot out this season (not including france as that was a strategy screw up). are point and squirt circuits, by that I mean a lot of straits separated by slow speed corners. Until the Silverstone update Merc had been running a lot of rear wing (dirty DF) to make up for the DF they loss do to wheel squirt messing up their diffuser efficiency.

At Silverstone they ran a wing more inline with what they ran last year, that suggests they have somewhat fixed the tire squirt issues they were suffering from.

If they can make any additional optimizations via set up with what they learned from silverstone, they could be right back to level with Redbull.

[mkay]

I mean, he blew Bottas away in the Merc without even getting used to the car...

Did he? Bottas outqualified him (on a track layout both hadn't driven before), and Bottas was reeling him in before the pitstop shenanigans occurred.

Anyway... off-topic at this stage.

Don't know that the upgrades worked for sure. I think track temps definitely played a part in Mercedes' strong form in qualifying vs. Red Bull. It's clear however they were lacking race pace on the C2 and I suspect that's where Max would have probably driven away had he stayed ahead of Lewis at Copse.

C1 pace was good, but we don't know how well RB/Max would have done.

Let's hope Merc can further optimise the package because I'm not convinced; I still think it's Max's to lose. WCC might be different because of how poorly Perez is driving at the moment. Also, TBD whether Max will have to either take a fresh PU early and a penalty down the line.

Did we not see Lewis on saturday sit right behind Max for 15ish laps on the C2, just like he did with Charles on Sunday?

Yes, but it felt to me like Max had it under control and was managing the gap (which increased to about 3 seconds by lap 13 or so) until the blistering warning from his team. Hamilton wasn't really able to get close to DRS vs. Max.

On the other hand, HAM was able to run sub 1.5s gap to LEC for a while, and came close to activating DRS, until the tyres starting giving up towards the end of the stint. That indicates to me he probably had slightly stronger pace but not enough to pass.

To be fair though, since Max didn't run on Sunday, we have no proper yardstick. Also, temperatures were marginally warmer on Sunday, and it does look like either Merc regressed on full tanks + warmer temps, or Leclerc/Ferrari got stronger, compared to the Sprint Qualifying.

I guess we'll have a better idea in 2 weeks. I suspect Ferrari will be very strong around Budapest, especially considering the forecast temps.

[zibby43]

Did he? Bottas outqualified him (on a track layout both hadn't driven before), and Bottas was reeling him in before the pitstop shenanigans occurred.

Anyway... off-topic at this stage.

Don't know that the upgrades worked for sure. I think track temps definitely played a part in Mercedes' strong form in qualifying vs. Red Bull. It's clear however they were lacking race pace on the C2 and I suspect that's where Max would have probably driven away had he stayed ahead of Lewis at Copse.

C1 pace was good, but we don't know how well RB/Max would have done.

Let's hope Merc can further optimise the package because I'm not convinced; I still think it's Max's to lose. WCC might be different because of how poorly Perez is driving at the moment. Also, TBD whether Max will have to either take a fresh PU early and a penalty down the line.

Did we not see Lewis on saturday sit right behind Max for 15ish laps on the C2, just like he did with Charles on Sunday?

Yes, but it felt to me like Max had it under control and was managing the gap (which increased to about 3 seconds by lap 13 or so) until the blistering warning from his team. Hamilton wasn't really able to get close to DRS vs. Max.

On the other hand, HAM was able to run sub 1.5s gap to LEC for a while, and came close to activating DRS, until the tyres starting giving up towards the end of the stint. That indicates to me he probably had slightly stronger pace but not enough to pass.

To be fair though, since Max didn't run on Sunday, we have no proper yardstick. Also, temperatures were marginally warmer on Sunday, and it does look like either Merc regressed on full tanks + warmer temps, or Leclerc/Ferrari got stronger, compared to the Sprint Qualifying.

I guess we'll have a better idea in 2 weeks. I suspect Ferrari will be very strong around Budapest, especially considering the forecast temps.

In Marc Hughes’ race report, it was revealed that Merc had the pace to challenge the Ferrari on Mediums, but the game plan was to just sit back and build a big enough gap to the pack *behind* to pit without trouble and attack in the final stint on Hards.

Alex Albon, RBR’s current sim driver, accidentally revealed “they” felt like Merc’s upgrades closed up the gap to around Barcelona levels.

RBR’s engineers said that Merc now appear to have a pace advantage below 37 C, whereas RBR start to get into a better window above 40 C, especially.

Budapest may be a narrow circuit, but it has plenty of longer radius corners that the Merc enjoys. It’s not got a smooth surface like Baku or Monaco, either.

[El Scorchio]

Alex Albon, RBR’s current sim driver, accidentally revealed “they” felt like Merc’s upgrades closed up the gap to around Barcelona levels.

So to take that at face value, RBR themselves think they've had the faster car the whole time basically. From the horse's mouth.

[mkay]

Alex Albon, RBR’s current sim driver, accidentally revealed “they” felt like Merc’s upgrades closed up the gap to around Barcelona levels.

So to take that at face value, RBR themselves think they've had the faster car the whole time basically. From the horse's mouth.

At this point, you'd have to be blind to keep pretending otherwise. RB has been class of the field since - arguably - Monaco (or Baku, if you want to be generous to Ferrari/Leclerc), and it hasn't been particularly close (until Britain).

It does feel like track temperatures played a huge role though. Mercedes needs to get a better handle on the tyres otherwise they will get smoked in Hungary. Air temps are forecast in the low-30s, which could translate in >=50C track temps.

[zibby43]

Alex Albon, RBR’s current sim driver, accidentally revealed “they” felt like Merc’s upgrades closed up the gap to around Barcelona levels.

So to take that at face value, RBR themselves think they've had the faster car the whole time basically. From the horse's mouth.

At least for that stretch of weeks post-Barcelona, certainly.

Also, as an aside, in the post-race presser yesterday, Lewis said he thought his 10s penalty would just be added on at the end. Not served at a stop.

I remember us discussing that yesterday in the race thread. I just thought it was funny that even the drivers are sometimes confused by the nuance of the rules around penalties lol!

[Marty_Y]

[Tvetovnato]

Hungary will be mighty interesting. Since Merc now seem to be able to generate more downforce from the floor/diffuser, putting on the barn door rear wing again together with that should make them quicker than they were last time out on a high downforce track.

[El Scorchio]

Alex Albon, RBR’s current sim driver, accidentally revealed “they” felt like Merc’s upgrades closed up the gap to around Barcelona levels.

So to take that at face value, RBR themselves think they've had the faster car the whole time basically. From the horse's mouth.

At least for that stretch of weeks post-Barcelona, certainly.

Also, as an aside, in the post-race presser yesterday, Lewis said he thought his 10s penalty would just be added on at the end. Not served at a stop.

I remember us discussing that yesterday in the race thread. I just thought it was funny that even the drivers are sometimes confused by the nuance of the rules around penalties lol!

Yup! We absolutely did. It doesn’t surprise me they sometimes are, to be honest. The commentators sometimes are.

It’s very interesting how different a time penalty given toward the start of the race is, and how much it can affect things compared to one near the end of the race.

[zibby43]

Hungary will be mighty interesting. Since Merc now seem to be able to generate more downforce from the floor/diffuser, putting on the barn door rear wing again together with that should make them quicker than they were last time out on a high downforce track.

Last year, Merc out-qualified Verstappen by 1.4s in Hungary. That’s a larger gap (by 4 tenths) than Merc had in the longer lap of Silverstone last year.

Lewis and the upgraded car will be formidable in Hungary.

Per AMuS, Merc will have more upgrades at Zandvoort and they’re still working on getting more out of their ERS deployment. It’s not at its full potential still.

So to take that at face value, RBR themselves think they've had the faster car the whole time basically. From the horse's mouth.

At least for that stretch of weeks post-Barcelona, certainly.

Also, as an aside, in the post-race presser yesterday, Lewis said he thought his 10s penalty would just be added on at the end. Not served at a stop.

I remember us discussing that yesterday in the race thread. I just thought it was funny that even the drivers are sometimes confused by the nuance of the rules around penalties lol!

Yup! We absolutely did. It doesn’t surprise me they sometimes are, to be honest. The commentators sometimes are.

It’s very interesting how different a time penalty given toward the start of the race is, and how much it can affect things compared to one near the end of the race.

Absolutely. I think it’s fairly rare these days to see the time penalty handed out so early. Which made the serving it at the stop option seem unfamiliar. Lewis referred to it even as a stop-go.