2023 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[chrisc90]

Yeah, definitely doesn’t seem to be going well for Lewis at present. Personally I think 2021 ended him when max/RB brought string competition to the team/Lewis.
Then the W13 wasn’t strong enough to be fighting in the top 3, the development over the winter wasn’t to his liking so put come the little dogs towards the team, now he’s got rid of Angela, which in itself is a odd one given their bond together, then put it out there as she wants to focus on the next stage of career. (So be interesting to see where she goes next if she has something lined up as that’s what most people jump ship for, other than to retire)

[harty71]

Painful viewing, it's time to accept that he no longer has it, that goes for us fans but most of all for himself, hang them up Lewis.

[ringo]

For me Hamilton has shown signs of turning on his team when he is not doing well and then saying something nice to cover it up. He has been blessed with a superior car for years before last year and now we are starting to see the cracks again in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, I do think he is a phenomenal driver and competitor but I am not convinced about him when things go wrong. Now we have a very strong teammate and a car that is not the best. Little comments that have been made and his sacking of Angela after 7 years ( from what I understand it was his decision). I do not think he comprehended how much she did and how valuable she was when that decision was made. I think he is really angry and lashing out in all directions and that is not going to help his lap times. Obviously just an opinion from an armchair .

I think people are looking under an electron microscope at Hamilton's 16 year career.
Count how many qualifying sessions he has completed since 2007 and then realize how we over analyze a single session.
How many times do we go to work and just dont feel like giving 100%?
The man is human and people need to give him a break.
He clearly is not strong at this circuit when it comes to tyre prep for qualifying or even some of the corners here. Russel is on top of his game, young and hungry. So nothing to take away from him.
Also seems to be running the car lower to the ground, giving up some comfort or even balance comapared to Lewis to get more lap time.
Come tomorrow Lewis may well have the better pace.
At this stage, after 16 years, 103 wins etc, what a single session?
As for his trainer. She is 49 years old with 2 kids. It was only a matter of time she went hime and spent time with her family.
Also who knows if as you say the young generation of drivers are on a different level. And this level of preparation and training is partly attributed to more advanced and modern trainers than Angela?
Maybe Lewis notices this and says okay if I need to win, I need to keep evolving and adopt the kind of trainers these younger guys have and adopt their sim culture etc etc.

[organic]

Don't judge drivers halfway through the weekend

[ringo]

Painful viewing, it's time to accept that he no longer has it, that goes for us fans but most of all for himself, hang them up Lewis.

Dramatic much?
That time will come yes. But i dont think it us frim this single session.
Bahrain its was a few hundreths. Not even a tenth, and he still had better race pace.
Here George did really well with a consistent quarter second pace advantage over Hamilton.
No excuses there, George is hooked in.
But it's just a session. He may well do a decent race tomorrow and still finish ahead of George.

But I also think the team needs George's performance as a sign of hope. He was up there the whole weekend. Right on pace with the ferrari. He may even have better race pace than sainz.

From what I can see even Ferrari got it wrong with their car. It didnt look impressive at all.

[harty71]

Painful viewing, it's time to accept that he no longer has it, that goes for us fans but most of all for himself, hang them up Lewis.

Dramatic much?
That time will come yes. But i dont think it us frim this single session.
Bahrain its was a few hundreths. Not even a tenth, and he still had better race pace.
Here George did really well with a consistent quarter second pace advantage over Hamilton.
No excuses there, George is hooked in.
But it's just a session. He may well do a decent race tomorrow and still finish ahead of George.

But I also think the team needs George's performance as a sign of hope. He was up there the whole weekend. Right on pace with the ferrari. He may even have better race pace than sainz.

From what I can see even Ferrari got it wrong with their car. It didnt look impressive at all.

It's not so much the performance, more the words.

[AMG.Tzan]

People writing “Lewis doesn’t have it anymore, hang up the gloves Lewis”

Yet the guy bleached Russell two weeks ago, battled Alonso in a much faster Aston Martin (at that stage of the race) and got quite close to Sainz! Russell on the other hand got bleached by a pay driver! These are pure excuses from people painfully waiting 8 years for Mercedes’s domination to end!

I’m a Hamilton fan and I was pissed off today by his performance compared to Russell but apparently that’s a track that suits Russell more as was the case last year! Apart from that Hamilton always seems to go more for a Race setup with less downforce whereas Russell goes for more downforce…that’s why Hamilton lost almost all his 0,4 secs in the 1st sector alone!

[harty71]

[chrisc90]

People writing “Lewis doesn’t have it anymore, hang up the gloves Lewis”

Yet the guy bleached Russell two weeks ago, battled Alonso in a much faster Aston Martin (at that stage of the race) and got quite close to Sainz! Russell on the other hand got bleached by a pay driver! These are pure excuses from people painfully waiting 8 years for Mercedes’s domination to end!

I’m a Hamilton fan and I was pissed off today by his performance compared to Russell but apparently that’s a track that suits Russell more as was the case last year! Apart from that Hamilton always seems to go more for a Race setup with less downforce whereas Russell goes for more downforce…that’s why Hamilton lost almost all his 0,4 secs in the 1st sector alone!

What about everyone else then? Or is the W14 just still .750 behind everyone else?

Surely everyone else in front of Lewis didn’t set the car up for the race.

The Lewis era is over. I’ll honestly be shocked if he wins another race before he retires.

[AR3-GP]

People writing “Lewis doesn’t have it anymore, hang up the gloves Lewis”

Yet the guy bleached Russell two weeks ago, battled Alonso in a much faster Aston Martin (at that stage of the race) and got quite close to Sainz! Russell on the other hand got bleached by a pay driver! These are pure excuses from people painfully waiting 8 years for Mercedes’s domination to end!

I’m a Hamilton fan and I was pissed off today by his performance compared to Russell but apparently that’s a track that suits Russell more as was the case last year! Apart from that Hamilton always seems to go more for a Race setup with less downforce whereas Russell goes for more downforce…that’s why Hamilton lost almost all his 0,4 secs in the 1st sector alone!

Russell outqualified Hamilton in Bahrain. Then only finished 5 seconds behind, mostly due to losing out at the start, and then getting stuck behind Stroll.

Is getting outqualified in Bahrain, and then only finishing 5 seconds up the road a "bleaching"? lol

They were very matched in Bahrain. There were no cleaning products delivered.

[harty71]

People writing “Lewis doesn’t have it anymore, hang up the gloves Lewis”

Yet the guy bleached Russell two weeks ago, battled Alonso in a much faster Aston Martin (at that stage of the race) and got quite close to Sainz! Russell on the other hand got bleached by a pay driver! These are pure excuses from people painfully waiting 8 years for Mercedes’s domination to end!

I’m a Hamilton fan and I was pissed off today by his performance compared to Russell but apparently that’s a track that suits Russell more as was the case last year! Apart from that Hamilton always seems to go more for a Race setup with less downforce whereas Russell goes for more downforce…that’s why Hamilton lost almost all his 0,4 secs in the 1st sector alone!

Is getting outqualified in Bahrain, and then only finishing 5 seconds up the road a "bleaching"? lol

That's it, Russell had more pace than Hamilton in Bahrain and that's after Hamilton said he had opted for race pace. The trouble is, Russell had a poor start and did his tyres in, in the last stint he was much faster than Hamilton and as you say, finished 5 secs behind.

Hamilton has finally met a driver at Merc who is just as fast in qualifying as he is in race. Hamilton's comments say it all, he knows that he just can't match Russell in this car.

[Sofa King]

The obsession with Lewis reflects poorly on his detractors. Everyone deserves respect, especially legends of their sport

Yet again, a team thread derailed with whataboutery regarding potential driver moves and comparisons!

MANY POSTS DELETED

If you want to discuss such things, why not use the pre-silly season silliness thread?

[mkay]

People writing “Lewis doesn’t have it anymore, hang up the gloves Lewis”

Yet the guy bleached Russell two weeks ago, battled Alonso in a much faster Aston Martin (at that stage of the race) and got quite close to Sainz! Russell on the other hand got bleached by a pay driver! These are pure excuses from people painfully waiting 8 years for Mercedes’s domination to end!

I’m a Hamilton fan and I was pissed off today by his performance compared to Russell but apparently that’s a track that suits Russell more as was the case last year! Apart from that Hamilton always seems to go more for a Race setup with less downforce whereas Russell goes for more downforce…that’s why Hamilton lost almost all his 0,4 secs in the 1st sector alone!

Russell outqualified Hamilton in Bahrain. Then only finished 5 seconds behind, mostly due to losing out at the start, and then getting stuck behind Stroll.

Is getting outqualified in Bahrain, and then only finishing 5 seconds up the road a "bleaching"? lol

They were very matched in Bahrain. There were no cleaning products delivered.

Russell had better pace in the first stint, but Lewis had some margin on the hards. His early second pit stop, trying to cover an undercut, was misguided. He had a 10-sec gap to Russell at some point during the race.

Definitely close-ish but Lewis was marginally faster.

[AR3-GP]

People writing “Lewis doesn’t have it anymore, hang up the gloves Lewis”

Yet the guy bleached Russell two weeks ago, battled Alonso in a much faster Aston Martin (at that stage of the race) and got quite close to Sainz! Russell on the other hand got bleached by a pay driver! These are pure excuses from people painfully waiting 8 years for Mercedes’s domination to end!

I’m a Hamilton fan and I was pissed off today by his performance compared to Russell but apparently that’s a track that suits Russell more as was the case last year! Apart from that Hamilton always seems to go more for a Race setup with less downforce whereas Russell goes for more downforce…that’s why Hamilton lost almost all his 0,4 secs in the 1st sector alone!

Russell outqualified Hamilton in Bahrain. Then only finished 5 seconds behind, mostly due to losing out at the start, and then getting stuck behind Stroll.

Is getting outqualified in Bahrain, and then only finishing 5 seconds up the road a "bleaching"? lol

They were very matched in Bahrain. There were no cleaning products delivered.

Russell had better pace in the first stint, but Lewis had some margin on the hards. His early second pit stop, trying to cover an undercut, was misguided. He had a 10-sec gap to Russell at some point during the race.

Definitely close-ish but Lewis was marginally faster.

Fair enough. I didn't think they were far apart. "Bleaching" seemed insulting.

[ringo]

It's going to be a loong season.
Hamilton is actually in a very good position now in terms of points.
He is very adaptable, but if you follow his career he usually takes the first quarter of the season to figure out what's going on and what he needs to do to get into a groove. After that things start to click in his head and he starts to operate like a machine.
Russell is behind on points and if he wants to beat Lewis this year he needs to finish ahead in a few more races before LH wakes up.
Nico took the same approach. Win qualifying and survive the first stint.
Russell is running more downforce for sure and taking more risk with the setup to ensure he is ahead at the start.
Lewis need only get on top of the balance of the car and limit the occadional brain fades and he should be alright.

In the grand scheme of things. The car isn't as bad as last year if both the drivers are always in q3. It's just not able to race redbull. I expect both LH and George to be closely matched on points because of this.