2023 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[Hammerfist]

I think it’s a little too early to be making comparisons for this season, but over the era of the car Russell does appear to be getting hold of the horns better on the W13/14 so far.

Nonsense. Hamilton was easily quicker during the races from the summer onwards last year, and Chandhok stated this last season on numerous occasions on Sky. Lewis also won the Q h2h last year. Lewis was ahead and quicker than Russell in Abu Dhabi too, before the car broke down. Beat Russell two weeks ago in Bahrain too.

Complete and utter nonsense that Russell has got a better feeling with these types of cars.

Agreed.

[AR3-GP]

Well then, they've been incompetent in the extreme with new car design for 2023. Sounds like B.S.

I think if they are running a concept that is like Ferrari/RB/AMR, then you know that it works already.

Didn’t they say last year that they tested rivals’ designs and that they didn’t think they were worth pursuing further?

What’s changed?

Makes me wonder how true those past statements were, because what they’re saying now makes sense given the AM is flying with so many Merc components.

I'm also skeptical of claims of how well they investigated non-W13 ideas. Engineers don't work in vacuum. They already strongly believed in their original ideas. They're human. It will have been hard for them to look at other ideas without some bias against them simply because it was not their own idea.

[PlatinumZealot]

Big news and good noises coming out of the Mercedes camp:
https://the-race.com/formula-1/mercedes ... ter-shift/

Says Merc are making big gains in the WT in the last 10 days.

“The trajectory is set now, it’s not anymore single qualifyings or races, we’re now storming full steam ahead on changing things. ”

Asked by The Race to elaborate on the nature of the ‘big steps’, he said: “Big steps in relative performance to where we are even now.

“The kind of gains that are coming in our R&D and in aero are much bigger than we’ve had for a long time – so we’ve unlocked some potential because we’ve simply looked at things from a different angle now.

He said the new development work going has “probably managed to find more performance in a week than we found in almost a month, let’s say, over the winter”.

This is fascinating.

What in the hell were they doing over the winter, then? Clearly not evaluating any other paths.

In engineering spending an mount of time on knowing what not to do can be just as useful.

[PlatinumZealot]

Awesome video. Shows that it's not anything inherently wrong. Lewis clearly cannot feel the car. He drives based on braking feel. George seems to be able to "understand" this car better and is not concerned about how it feels under braking into the first sector twisties.

Lewis clearly mucking up braking points and on throttle.

I think... There is nothing to worry about here. Once the car is sorted normal service will resume..

[taperoo2k]

Big news and good noises coming out of the Mercedes camp:
https://the-race.com/formula-1/mercedes ... ter-shift/

Says Merc are making big gains in the WT in the last 10 days.

“The trajectory is set now, it’s not anymore single qualifyings or races, we’re now storming full steam ahead on changing things. ”

Asked by The Race to elaborate on the nature of the ‘big steps’, he said: “Big steps in relative performance to where we are even now.

“The kind of gains that are coming in our R&D and in aero are much bigger than we’ve had for a long time – so we’ve unlocked some potential because we’ve simply looked at things from a different angle now.

He said the new development work going has “probably managed to find more performance in a week than we found in almost a month, let’s say, over the winter”.

This is fascinating.

What in the hell were they doing over the winter, then? Clearly not evaluating any other paths.

Sounds like they had tunnel vision over the W13 concept to the exclusion of all else. I'd guess there are a lot of bruised ego's amongst those in charge of Mercedes technical team. Might have been a case of the engineers knowing it was never going to work but being ignored by the management.

[AR3-GP]

They say intent is everything. Look how much George tries to shorten the corner here by cutting inside the curb (but staying in track limits):

George on the left. Hamilton the right. There's no reason for Hamilton to be so far to the left. It's a pretty unambitious lap on his part. When you see George trying to shorten the track like this, and Leclerc last year ducking his head inside the cockpit when he was on the straights. The younger guys are definitely hungrier.

[Sevach]

https://www.racefans.net/2023/03/19/no- ... ull-wolff/

Here's a hint of what the car will look like at the second half of the season.

[ringo]

Russel seems to have more downforce in his setup. Also Lewis doesnt have confidence you can see it clearly here. So yep Russel performing better in the car at this stage.

But i dont think that trail braking is going to help his tyre deg. We have seen last time out he burnt out pretty quickly in the race.

He did good to be in P3 and it's worth being as high up as possible. He can run a cleaner race and be up the road even if his tyre management is not the greatest.

[ringo]

The only thing I worry about when it comes to Lewis is Mercedes never being able to give him a car that can win again. That is a distinct possibility now and he may end up never competing at the front again. We shall see.

What I'm sad about is that Russel got to the team as they fell back. I would have liked to see him defeat Hamilton for the championship.

If the mighty verstappen could not stop Lewis in the final 4 races of 2021 how on earth would George Russell have done that? Especially considering we saw he was outperformed by Hamilton in 2022? Are we now saying George is better than Max?

I think Russel is more talented than Max. Have always maintained that. I am not a big fan like Harty and Mendis are. But having seen how Russel raced max last year in spain. And some other hilights of his.. He is very good.
But to agree with your point, we cannot know how Lewis will perform against George with both being in a front running car.
More often than not last year Hamilton threatened for a win compared to George. He had better qualifying and also better race pace.
I think the same will happen this year.
So I will just enjoy the first 6 races and let mendis and Harty enjoy themselves until LH starts to wake up.
Russel benefited from a lot of luck last year and the last race mechanical failure put a nail in LH coffin in terms of points. But throughout the year LH was the lead performer.
Russel can be the lead performer this year, or he can still be behind LH. Anything can happen. I am just enjoying the racing without trying to prove rhe LH is an F1 imposter theory.

[ringo]

They say intent is everything. Look how much George tries to shorten the corner here by cutting inside the curb (but staying in track limits):

George on the left. Hamilton the right. There's no reason for Hamilton to be so far to the left. It's a pretty unambitious lap on his part. When you see George trying to shorten the track like this, and Leclerc last year ducking his head inside the cockpit when he was on the straights. The younger guys are definitely hungrier.

https://i.postimg.cc/J4q3mQw9/image.png

Agreed. It's like starting a new job at 21 years old vs being in a job for 15 years at the age of 36.

Anyhow if that quote on the team finding so much performance in the tunnel is true..I wonder what they found. It could be floor design?

[pursue_one's]

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff said Hamilton hasn’t felt fully at one with the W14 so far. “They’re both different drivers(Lewis and George),” he explained, “they need a car with a certain behaviour in order to drive fast.

“Lewis, at no time [has] his car given him this season any feedback that allows him to push to the limits. And if you haven’t got that car underneath you, in sector one you’re never able to push fast through the corners and this is what we’ve seen.”

“It’s all in sector one,” said Wolff. “George just drives around that and is able to have more confidence in the car in sector one. It’s something that we know is up to us to give them both a better car in order to storm ahead.”

https://www.racefans.net/2023/03/19/tra ... st-sector/

[JordanMugen]

Obviously the thing Mercedes probably can't change during this season is the forward cockpit position they have compared to other cars.

I was curious as to how much undercut the original W13 had compared to the Red Bull or Alpine etc. It seems that it was a lot less. Could Mercedes incorporate a lot more undercut than that around the existing side impact structures of the W14?

High-res photo of original launch W13 at Silverstone shakedown

[Zynerji]

What I'm sad about is that Russel got to the team as they fell back. I would have liked to see him defeat Hamilton for the championship.

If the mighty verstappen could not stop Lewis in the final 4 races of 2021 how on earth would George Russell have done that? Especially considering we saw he was outperformed by Hamilton in 2022? Are we now saying George is better than Max?

I think Russel is more talented than Max. Have always maintained that. I am not a big fan like Harty and Mendis are. But having seen how Russel raced max last year in spain. And some other hilights of his.. He is very good.
But to agree with your point, we cannot know how Lewis will perform against George with both being in a front running car.
More often than not last year Hamilton threatened for a win compared to George. He had better qualifying and also better race pace.
I think the same will happen this year.
So I will just enjoy the first 6 races and let mendis and Harty enjoy themselves until LH starts to wake up.
Russel benefited from a lot of luck last year and the last race mechanical failure put a nail in LH coffin in terms of points. But throughout the year LH was the lead performer.
Russel can be the lead performer this year, or he can still be behind LH. Anything can happen. I am just enjoying the racing without trying to prove rhe LH is an F1 imposter theory.

Russell has always struck me as "manufactured". Like a Backstreet Boy...

[harty71]

If the mighty verstappen could not stop Lewis in the final 4 races of 2021 how on earth would George Russell have done that? Especially considering we saw he was outperformed by Hamilton in 2022? Are we now saying George is better than Max?

I think Russel is more talented than Max. Have always maintained that. I am not a big fan like Harty and Mendis are. But having seen how Russel raced max last year in spain. And some other hilights of his.. He is very good.
But to agree with your point, we cannot know how Lewis will perform against George with both being in a front running car.
More often than not last year Hamilton threatened for a win compared to George. He had better qualifying and also better race pace.
I think the same will happen this year.
So I will just enjoy the first 6 races and let mendis and Harty enjoy themselves until LH starts to wake up.
Russel benefited from a lot of luck last year and the last race mechanical failure put a nail in LH coffin in terms of points. But throughout the year LH was the lead performer.
Russel can be the lead performer this year, or he can still be behind LH. Anything can happen. I am just enjoying the racing without trying to prove rhe LH is an F1 imposter theory.

Russell has always struck me as "manufactured". Like a Backstreet Boy...

The PlayStation Generation is an improvement, like PS3 vs PS5.

[ringo]

Backstreet boys were also cery successful.
I dont change my opinion. All of the young drivers are basically manufactured. It's only natural as the sport develops and grows.