2023 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[DGP123]

Very poor race from the car, slow and poor tyre management, they haven't got a prayer this season have they?

Obviously not. Just focus on 24’ now. Waste of time, effort and resources trying to bridge this size of gap.

[harty71]

Very poor race from the car, slow and poor tyre management, they haven't got a prayer this season have they?

Obviously not. Just focus on 24’ now. Waste of time, effort and resources trying to bridge this size of gap.

For me, just give up on the car now and big push for next season.

[mendis]

Very poor race from the car, slow and poor tyre management, they haven't got a prayer this season have they?

Obviously not. Just focus on 24’ now. Waste of time, effort and resources trying to bridge this size of gap.

For me, just give up on the car now and big push for next season.

Considering how badly they have worked on 2023 car, is there a hope that this team would make the revised concept for 2024 a success? RB would already be 2 years ahead in understanding their concept and continuing to refine it, whereas Mercedes has to start now or assuming they have started the work late last year and that conept will see the light later this year. They will still be quite far behind as every new concept is a learning on the track and that means, play catch up.

[ringo]

Very poor race from the car, slow and poor tyre management, they haven't got a prayer this season have they?

I think George as predicted just focusing too much on Lewis and cost the team more points. He pushing too hard in the start of the stints to try to pass both Lewis and then Alonso.
He would be much better if he is much more patient.
As for AMR the raw pace is not that much ahead of Mercedes. The W14 when push is just as fast but the AMR has better balance, better low speed as we see with how Alonso can rotate the car on entry and exit and it also has good tyre wear. Just more downforce overall.

Mercedes need to react now. The P2 or P3 is not far away. Ferrari's weakness is Sainz. He will create opportunities for points.

[harty71]

Obviously not. Just focus on 24’ now. Waste of time, effort and resources trying to bridge this size of gap.

For me, just give up on the car now and big push for next season.

Considering how badly they have worked on 2023 car, is there a hope that this team would make the revised concept for 2024 a success? RB would already be 2 years ahead in understanding their concept and continuing to refine it, whereas Mercedes has to start now or assuming they have started the work late last year and that conept will see the light later this year. They will still be quite far behind as every new concept is a learning on the track and that means, play catch up.

I think we better start lowering our expectations, they are now a best of the rest team, if that. Verstappen will be well on his way to breaking all the records come the end of the season.

[Shrieker]

Very poor race from the car, slow and poor tyre management, they haven't got a prayer this season have they?

Last season, there was this 'hope' that if somehow they could get rid of the bouncing, the performance of the car could be unleashed.

This season not even that possibility exists. Oh how the mighty has fallen...

[ringo]

Obviously not. Just focus on 24’ now. Waste of time, effort and resources trying to bridge this size of gap.

For me, just give up on the car now and big push for next season.

Considering how badly they have worked on 2023 car, is there a hope that this team would make the revised concept for 2024 a success? RB would already be 2 years ahead in understanding their concept and continuing to refine it, whereas Mercedes has to start now or assuming they have started the work late last year and that conept will see the light later this year. They will still be quite far behind as every new concept is a learning on the track and that means, play catch up.

I think they can look for something to overtake Redbull. But with how the regs are written that's limited a lot of what can be done.

[harty71]

Very poor race from the car, slow and poor tyre management, they haven't got a prayer this season have they?

I think George as predicted just focusing too much on Lewis and cost the team more points. He pushing too hard in the start of the stints to try to pass both Lewis and then Alonso.
He would be much better if he is much more patient.
As for AMR the raw pace is not that much ahead of Mercedes. The W14 when push is just as fast but the AMR has better balance, better low speed as we see with how Alonso can rotate the car on entry and exit and it also has good tyre wear. Just more downforce overall.

Mercedes need to react now. The P2 or P3 is not far away. Ferrari's weakness is Sainz. He will create opportunities for points.

George drove fine IMO, he lost the battle with Hamilton at the start, I think he has better pace but never got to really show it.

[Spoutnik]

[chrisc90]

I think they can look for something to overtake Redbull. But with how the regs are written that's limited a lot of what can be done.

Mercedes to out develop Red Bull? Wow. They are 1 second off race pace at a RB operating at 85% of its potential during the race. RB were managing tyres since about lap 25.

There is no chance Mercedes will out develop/perform RB in this era of regulations. They are on damage limitation.

[DGP123]

I think they can look for something to overtake Redbull. But with how the regs are written that's limited a lot of what can be done.

Mercedes to out develop Red Bull? Wow. They are 1 second off race pace at a RB operating at 85% of its potential during the race. RB were managing tyres since about lap 25.

There is no chance Mercedes will out develop/perform RB in this era of regulations. They are on damage limitation.

Out-develop RB

[chrisc90]

I think they can look for something to overtake Redbull. But with how the regs are written that's limited a lot of what can be done.

Mercedes to out develop Red Bull? Wow. They are 1 second off race pace at a RB operating at 85% of its potential during the race. RB were managing tyres since about lap 25.

There is no chance Mercedes will out develop/perform RB in this era of regulations. They are on damage limitation.

Out-develop RB

My head was baffled aswell. I'll await some further clarification from Ringo however.

[SparkyAMG]

Hard to take as a Mercedes fan. At least last year they could blame the bouncing or the compromises they had to make because of it and it felt like there was light at the end of the tunnel. This year they've just built a slow car and gotten rid of the W13s tyre management advantage in the process.

I imagine they'll bring their sidepod update (as planned and already commissioned by the sounds of it) and otherwise write off the W14 and start exploring other concepts in CFD and the wind-tunnel for '24 if they haven't already.

It'll be interesting how quickly these new sidepods do arrive. This time last year James Allison was implying they'd get on top of the W13's flaws after ~4 races and we know how that turned out.

[Juzh]

I think they can look for something to overtake Redbull. But with how the regs are written that's limited a lot of what can be done.

Mercedes to out develop Red Bull? Wow. They are 1 second off race pace at a RB operating at 85% of its potential during the race. RB were managing tyres since about lap 25.

There is no chance Mercedes will out develop/perform RB in this era of regulations. They are on damage limitation.

It could be done back in the unlimited era. 2017 RB13 went from almost 1.5s deficit at the start of season to battling for wins at the end. Highly unlikely this could be accomplished nowadays.

[chrisc90]

I think they can look for something to overtake Redbull. But with how the regs are written that's limited a lot of what can be done.

Mercedes to out develop Red Bull? Wow. They are 1 second off race pace at a RB operating at 85% of its potential during the race. RB were managing tyres since about lap 25.

There is no chance Mercedes will out develop/perform RB in this era of regulations. They are on damage limitation.

It could be done back in the unlimited era. 2017 RB13 went from almost 1.5s deficit at the start of season to battling for wins at the end. Highly unlikely this could be accomplished nowadays.

The lack of budget is also likely hurting Mercedes.

Maybe they should just throw a bit of the cap out the window and spend a little more, knowing that potentially the car is 4th best, but the WT penalty for the breach of Cost cap will drop their WT time to somewhere around 3rd in the WCC for allowance terms.