2023 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[JordanMugen]

HAM v VER
https://i.imgur.com/8ztlyXW.jpeg

That's hard to compare! Some of that just seems to be a difference in driving style with Max being an early braker and earlier on the throttle.

It seems like Turn 3 apex is the only place where the Mercedes is significantly slower?

I don't think WE need to. It's clear that Russell has to do better and gain more experience. He wasn't quite championship material last year. If all things were equal and it was a championship fight, who would you put your money on winning a championship from starting behind their rival 4 times in a season. And that rival being arguably the best of all time in his prime, in his 9th season with the team, against a newcomer.

Common sense, statistics and facts are all against you.

Russell beat Hamilton in 2022.

You think you're smart by posting loaded one liners but unfortunately for you F1 doesn't work like that. By posting that you are saying you do not understand F1 in any depth. I can only surmise that you are a troll with an agenda.

There's nothing loaded about it. It's factual. Mercedes have two evenly matched drivers, they have a very strong driver lineup.

It's a shame that Russell didn't get to drive the more competitive 2020 & 2021 for the full season and compete for the World Driver's Championship. The Williams apprenticeship was, arguably, unnecessarily long, given how well Leclerc did with a promotion after one season in a slower team rather than three.

[dialtone]

HAM v VER
https://i.imgur.com/8ztlyXW.jpeg

That's hard to compare! Some of that just seems to be a difference in driving style with Max being an early braker and earlier on the throttle.

It seems like Turn 3 apex is the only place where the Mercedes is significantly slower?

That's Turn 6 not 3 (T3 is flat out so it doesn't show up here), but he's also slower in Turn 4 where he seems to be losing almost 0.1 just there, loses over 0.12 in T5-6-7, then loses a bit due to the exit from T11 that compromises T12 and all that straight, then again T13 loses another 0.15 give or take, and finally loses again in T14-15 a bit less than 0.1s. So it might be driving style but this style isn't suited to the car, more likely it's the car, his driving style is that of a 7 time world champion.

[JordanMugen]

HAM v VER
https://i.imgur.com/8ztlyXW.jpeg

That's hard to compare! Some of that just seems to be a difference in driving style with Max being an early braker and earlier on the throttle.

It seems like Turn 3 apex is the only place where the Mercedes is significantly slower?

That's Turn 6 not 3 (T3 is flat out so it doesn't show up here), but he's also slower in Turn 4 where he seems to be losing almost 0.1 just there, loses over 0.12 in T5-6-7, then loses a bit due to the exit from T11 that compromises T12 and all that straight, then again T13 loses another 0.15 give or take, and finally loses again in T14-15 a bit less than 0.1s. So it might be driving style but this style isn't suited to the car, more likely it's the car, his driving style is that of a 7 time world champion.

My bad, not meaning to say the driving style is the reason for the laptime difference. Just that the driving style is so different it makes it hard to compare the traces.

[mkay]

Personally, I’m not fully buying Wolff’s words. He sounded way too casual during the interviews. My guess, and I might be wrong, is that Mercedes planned this - they realised late last year that the W13-esque concept wouldn’t work but they just haven’t had time to complete development on the new concept. So the car we are seeing is months old. I reckon they decided over the winter to cut their losses as opposed to the past few days.

I do buy the overall story of them cutting losses and having a RB-clone in development as a plan B, I just think that work is further along than he’s letting on.

But I accept that it may be wishful thinking.

[mendis]

Personally, I’m not fully buying Wolff’s words. He sounded way too casual during the interviews. My guess, and I might be wrong, is that Mercedes planned this - they realised late last year that the W13-esque concept wouldn’t work but they just haven’t had time to complete development on the new concept. So the car we are seeing is months old. I reckon they decided over the winter to cut their losses as opposed to the past few days.

I do buy the overall story of them cutting losses and having a RB-clone in development as a plan B, I just think that work is further along than he’s letting on.

But I accept that it may be wishful thinking.

I think you are absolutely right. It is wishful thinking.

[PlatinumZealot]

He's decided to put his foot down and pressure the nerds to get chopping on reverse-engineering the RedBull.

I see Mercedes keeping the zero-pods but putting a RedBull-like undercut on the lower half, and lifting up the inlets.

[AR3-GP]

He's decided to put his foot down and pressure the nerds to get chopping on reverse-engineering the RedBull.

I see Mercedes keeping the zero-pods but putting a RedBull-like undercut on the lower half, and lifting up the inlets.

I don’t think an undercut makes sense with a zero pod.

[zibby43]

I wonder if Merc will finally play some games with the windtunnel sliding scale system. What they need is a lot more windtunnel time and CFD hours than Ferrari and Red Bull. They could in theory ballast the cars up and run an "off the pace" development program so they don't score too many WCC points. If they could finish P7 in the WCC by the halfway point of the season, they would have 30-40% more windtunnel time than RB and Ferrari for a full year.

Merc have many decisions to make. Will they be stuck in the grind of being not quite good enough but scoring too many points to actually gain the windtunnel time they need to reinvent their car, or will they take a year of sacrifice, in order to guarantee a considerable regulations advantage in the form of extra windtunnel and CFD hours for the 2024 car? It's an interesting gamble, but if you are going to say you are sacrificing, then you have to really swallow your pride and go all in. The drivers can't complain about not being able to race for points.

Daimler and all the sponsors are on line one. They want to know when you’re tendering your resignation or how fast they can terminate their deals.

[zibby43]

He's decided to put his foot down and pressure the nerds to get chopping on reverse-engineering the RedBull.

I see Mercedes keeping the zero-pods but putting a RedBull-like undercut on the lower half, and lifting up the inlets.

Agree that the inlets would need to be horizontal to go the undercut route. With how the rad’s are positioned, I think they’re fine to be able to make both of those changes.

[PlatinumZealot]

He's decided to put his foot down and pressure the nerds to get chopping on reverse-engineering the RedBull.

I see Mercedes keeping the zero-pods but putting a RedBull-like undercut on the lower half, and lifting up the inlets.

I don’t think an undercut makes sense with a zero pod.

When you think about it let me know your reasons.

[GSBellew]

Upside down L pod inlet, similar to the old Mclaren ones but flipped?

[ringo]

Whatever they do, they can ask why williams and mclaren and apline are not as fast.

I notice some russel vs hamilton discussions here. Hamilton lost out by 4 hundreths of a second, while running a race biased setup. It's hardly anything significant.
Both are fast drivers, Hamilton more interested in long term results and finding his way to the front with a front running car. Russel young and hot blooded just focusing on being ahead of Lewis at every turn. I don't even think Russel is worried about the car being midfeild.
Reason why Toto is focused on a hamilton 8th title and not Russel first? He just knows more we do about the two drivers.
Right now i doubt Lewis is even noticing Russel in the other car. Likewise Bono and most of the team.
Anyhow, I am hoping merc can somehow be the second fastest once the race gets going. I feel the ferrari wont be as strong as it looks in Qualifying. Likewise the AMR. I am expecting Alonso to fade away.

[Vanja #66]

Undercut on W14 slimpods won't work since they already lack the volume to have a meaningful front wheel wake management. Both AMR and Sauber ditched their deep undercuts even last season.

[CHT]

He's decided to put his foot down and pressure the nerds to get chopping on reverse-engineering the RedBull.

I see Mercedes keeping the zero-pods but putting a RedBull-like undercut on the lower half, and lifting up the inlets.

I don’t think an undercut makes sense with a zero pod.

When you think about it let me know your reasons.

The engine and electronics layout under the cover is designed to accommodate no side pod design. to add undercut merc will have to redesign the engine layout and move things around to create space for undercut..

This will require massive changes and includes rear wings..

[JordanMugen]

I see Mercedes keeping the zero-pods but putting a RedBull-like undercut on the lower half, and lifting up the inlets.

So this?



If this design was more promising, why did they ever abandon it in the first place?!

Obviously in order to legalise the side-impact structure wing with the legality rules as they are, the radiator inlet needs to go down to floor vertically (W14) or come out wider (W13). Otherwise they will have to drop the SIPS wing entirely and go back to that original W13 inlet design.

The shaping of the sidepod beyond that is up to them (whether it's slim and tapered "zero-pod" as you say, or a standard down-washing ski slope design or Ferrari bath tub design), but it seems an incredibly roundabout way to get back to the design they started with!