2023 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[pursue_one's]

Mercedes has plans to modify its bodywork with a major upgrade later in the season, but Wolff said it was unlikely to be enough to close the gap to the front and challenge for the title this year.

"I don't know what is going to happen this year, we may find a silver bullet next week and unlock five-tenths in the car, but I haven't seen any silver bullets before," he added.

"You never know, but definitely mid-term and long-term, we just need to have a car that is able to make us fight for an eighth championship."


GPS data shows the new Mercedes is a match for the fastest cars in low-speed corners but is losing performance in high-speed corners.

Wolff said the team had hit its internal performance targets over the winter but still fell short of its rivals, leading to his belief that the car concept needs to change.

https://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/3578 ... gn-concept

[ferkan]

I understand why they want their own concept. Copying redbull would still have left them in second place. Cannot blame them for the Zero-pods. To be the best, you just need an inherent advantage with a concept, be that engine or aero or suspension.
Merc need to go back to the drawing board and come up with something that no one else has.
AMR are pretty much all in on RBR and Ferrari concepts and seem good but not great. Maybe faster drivers than Alonso and Stroll would make them look better, but who knows.

Didn't everyone bar Ferrari adopt Merc split turbo and still got as good if not better results then them? AM copied RB and is already very close to them after being lower midfield team? That is still team with weaker talent pool, worse facilities and lower budget. Plus, they are not factory team. So yes, you definitely can 1 up team that started the concept (just look at Ferrari 2017 sidepods and everyone else copying that).

[AR3-GP]

Mercedes has plans to modify its bodywork with a major upgrade later in the season, but Wolff said it was unlikely to be enough to close the gap to the front and challenge for the title this year.

"I don't know what is going to happen this year, we may find a silver bullet next week and unlock five-tenths in the car, but I haven't seen any silver bullets before," he added.

"You never know, but definitely mid-term and long-term, we just need to have a car that is able to make us fight for an eighth championship."


GPS data shows the new Mercedes is a match for the fastest cars in low-speed corners but is losing performance in high-speed corners.

Wolff said the team had hit its internal performance targets over the winter but still fell short of its rivals, leading to his belief that the car concept needs to change.

https://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/3578 ... gn-concept

Isn't it getting really awkward for George, all of this concern for Hamilton's 8th?

Fair play to Mercedes, they have a right to do as they see fit, if that means focusing on Hamilton. I just wonder whether George will play along as he's in a very important stage of his career and has shown that he's close enough to deserve some backing for the championship.

[InsaneX_Badger]

if you look at this, both drivers seem confident they can catch RBR along the way:


So strange that Toto now tells they'll be ditching the concept

Only thing I can think of is maybe it's his way if pressuring the team to get on with the change and it's time to go into overdrive in order to recoup the loses that come with the change.

[Juzh]

That's wrong. F1 app showed HAM hitting 323kph and Russell hitting 322kph.

My values are relative to the best lap only (the most representative for performance)
The app shows the highest in the session

That's still 323 v 321 though I posted the telemetry from Q3 best laps.

Russell's top speed on his PB was 319 km/h, so graphic is correct. Yes, hamilton who was ~3-4s behind Rus on track did 321 kmh, but he wasn't fastest mercedes.
Same with RB, Perez was behind verstappen all quali and had higher top speed on most laps by ~2 kmh. 325 vs 323 kmh on their best laps.
Ferrari was at around 325-326 kmh, but it seems they get there sooner and stay at speed more consistently.

[dialtone]

It's only Toto who obsessively centralises Lewis, like a man deeply in love with his crush, but when you hear others in the team, they simply talk about car. It's time Toto goes home and someone else takes over and makes a fresh start. He is a bigger failure than the car.

Say what now? That's a great team, you can't keep winning forever, people want to move on to try and achieve their own results or find a promotion when there are no open spots in leadership roles at their team.

You people are lucky that everyone is around the corner and it's as easy to lose them as to regain them.

[dialtone]

My values are relative to the best lap only (the most representative for performance)
The app shows the highest in the session

That's still 323 v 321 though I posted the telemetry from Q3 best laps.

Russell's top speed on his PB was 319 km/h, so graphic is correct. Yes, hamilton who was ~3-4s behind Rus on track did 321 kmh, but he wasn't fastest mercedes.
Same with RB, Perez was behind verstappen all quali and had higher top speed on most laps by ~2 kmh. 325 vs 323 kmh on their best laps.
Ferrari was at around 325-326 kmh, but it seems they get there sooner and stay at speed more consistently.

Well, sure but if it's such a narrow definition it should be noted IMHO. Unless there's an indication that the setup between the 2 cars is different, which I'm not aware of but maybe it's different, you would simply pick up the fastest speed or report both, reporting just the speed of the car in front doesn't seem to be particularly logical to me. Anyway it's not important at the end of the day.

[Juzh]

That's still 323 v 321 though I posted the telemetry from Q3 best laps.

Russell's top speed on his PB was 319 km/h, so graphic is correct. Yes, hamilton who was ~3-4s behind Rus on track did 321 kmh, but he wasn't fastest mercedes.
Same with RB, Perez was behind verstappen all quali and had higher top speed on most laps by ~2 kmh. 325 vs 323 kmh on their best laps.
Ferrari was at around 325-326 kmh, but it seems they get there sooner and stay at speed more consistently.

Well, sure but if it's such a narrow definition it should be noted IMHO. Unless there's an indication that the setup between the 2 cars is different, which I'm not aware of but maybe it's different, you would simply pick up the fastest speed or report both, reporting just the speed of the car in front doesn't seem to be particularly logical to me. Anyway it's not important at the end of the day.

Well, tweet does say "Top speeds during each car's quickest lap!". I agree it's strange, but that's what it is.

I do think it's best taking speeds from fastest laps though, because it's easy to pick up some slipstream in Q1 that will then mislead the entire internet.

[mendis]

It's only Toto who obsessively centralises Lewis, like a man deeply in love with his crush, but when you hear others in the team, they simply talk about car. It's time Toto goes home and someone else takes over and makes a fresh start. He is a bigger failure than the car.

Say what now? That's a great team, you can't keep winning forever, people want to move on to try and achieve their own results or find a promotion when there are no open spots in leadership roles at their team.

Glorious past doesn't offer daily bread of glory. You have to earn it every day in a competitive sport. If you become a liability, then you must move on. Holding onto position just because you can, despite being accountable for miserable failure, is only going to bring down the standards and induce mediocrity.

You people are lucky that everyone is around the corner and it's as easy to lose them as to regain them.

I have no clue what you are trying to say here.

[organic]

Russell's top speed on his PB was 319 km/h, so graphic is correct. Yes, hamilton who was ~3-4s behind Rus on track did 321 kmh, but he wasn't fastest mercedes.
Same with RB, Perez was behind verstappen all quali and had higher top speed on most laps by ~2 kmh. 325 vs 323 kmh on their best laps.
Ferrari was at around 325-326 kmh, but it seems they get there sooner and stay at speed more consistently.

Well, sure but if it's such a narrow definition it should be noted IMHO. Unless there's an indication that the setup between the 2 cars is different, which I'm not aware of but maybe it's different, you would simply pick up the fastest speed or report both, reporting just the speed of the car in front doesn't seem to be particularly logical to me. Anyway it's not important at the end of the day.

Well, tweet does say "Top speeds during each car's quickest lap!". I agree it's strange, but that's what it is.

I do think it's best taking speeds from fastest laps though, because it's easy to pick up some slipstream in Q1 that will then mislead the entire internet.

Luckily the giga-slipstreams seem to not be as common this season with the different wake treatment

It was too easy before to gain significant laptimes for something that is so random

Of course sometimes it makes for some great action (Baku 2021) but the lack of these mega slipstreams makes it much easier to unpick the data for us here

[balalev]

So, I think now its obvious, it's just a W13B. They had not enough time to make a new car in the winter, because they just looking for anwers all the last season. Why do I think that? Because they started to develop new sidepods before the start of the season, and now Mike Elliott said: "it takes time to change the bits that go underneath the bodywork to fit"
So they started to build new components under the bodywork...
I think real W14 will come in Baku, or even more in Imola.

[AA_2019]

The gap between the W14 and RB19 is the same as the W13 and RB18

[mkay]

I don't think you took much notice last season. Russell was very much on Hamilton's pace in qualifying and in the races.

H2H was 13-9 Hamilton in Quali.

It was even in the races when you account for 2-car finishes I think, and that’s despite RUS benefitting from VSC shenanigans in several occasions.

How else can we twist this in Lewis' favour?

What twist?

Quali 13-9 is a fact.

I checked Race H2H and it was 11-10 RUS, excluding Lewis’ technical DNF (the only one for both all season) but including their race-ending incidents at Spa and Silverstone. Otherwise it’s 10-9 for RUS I suppose.

Hardly a beating, particularly when you consider races like Miami or Zandvoort where Lewis was comfortably ahead only to be undone by a late VSC.

[organic]

SCs/fortune favoured Russell early on not just Miami

[Spoutnik]

SCs/fortune favoured Russell early on not just Miami

You can add Australia which allowed Russell to finish 3rd rather than 5th..

Im not here to criticize Russell but this narrative is boring and it was exactly the same for the example I gave (Ocon, Sainz etc.).