2023 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[AR3-GP]

Looked like exhaust caught fire, maybe pu itself is fine.

It lost a significant amount of power and was smoking before igniting.
No sound of metal eating itself though...

Looked to me like a holed piston. Engine still free, power loss and a pulsed exhaust plume.

It's going to take a bad luck hit on Hamilton's side to recover from this. George will be taking a grid drop later in the season to double the punishment.

[mzso]

Even though his PU failed it's kind of disappointing to see the team getting rid of Russel out of Hamilton's way wit a too early pit stop and also the FIA giving a usual helping hand to Ham with a well timed red flag.

[AR3-GP]

Even though his PU failed it's kind of disappointing to see the team getting rid of Russel out of Hamilton's way wit a too early pit stop and also the FIA giving a usual helping hand to Ham with a well timed red flag.

I strongly doubt the FIA was helping out Hamilton with the red flag.

The only thing that would have made the race interesting was seeing Russell on fresh tires to the end after the first safetycar, vs Verstappen who owed a pitstop. There was never going to be a competition between Hamilton and Verstappen. Verstappen too quick in a straight fight.

[Farnborough]

TW apologised to GR for the effect of pit then caught in red flag, obviously not in their control as it switched against them on the fly.
I saw it as trying to undercut MV while he was still behind LH as they didn't know how long he could be stuck there. Looks like they were favouring GR to see if they could keep track position over RB.

Did look like GR had the wick turned up that could have caused the damage to motor. More correctly, lower power conservation mode cancelled to bring him back into play.

[ringo]

Russel made his gambles as usual. He was delusional to think he could challenge for the win. He will continue to drop the ball if he continues to think his gambles are going to make him challenge Max.
Hamilton will just slowly chip away and rack up points until the car comes good. And by then Russel may be just too far behind to be prioritized. George was more consistent in the first half of last year. In the latter part he started flaking away. Hopefully he keeps realistic and takes less risk. The car has the pace to not need to take big risks.

[chrisc90]

I dont think there would have ever been any chance of a undercut on lap 9 by swapping that early to the hard tyre. De Vries did 37 laps on the medium and was always pretty consistent at 1.24 even with the fuel coming out the car.
GR would have had to have some serious pace on those tyres to even make a undercut work on his own team mate.

I really dont think it was a plausible option to pit to be fair. A fair question to ask would have been that if there wasnt a red flag, who else would have pitted within the window you could earn yourself a cheap stop. Russell and Sainz pitted together with magnusson who was in P11. Perez pitted to get his tyre change in but he only did that to get his tyre change out the way and go long, as RB had planned by starting him on the hard. The 2 Alfa's pitted and Sargent, but they werent any threat to Russells race.

Had the SC come out 10 laps later, that would be a completely different ball game, and you would have seen a LOT more of the front runners pitting under the SC and went onto their next tyre being the hard.

[chrisc90]

Russel made his gambles as usual. He was delusional to think he could challenge for the win. He will continue to drop the ball if he continues to think his gambles are going to make him challenge Max.
Hamilton will just slowly chip away and rack up points until the car comes good. And by then Russel may be just too far behind to be prioritized. George was more consistent in the first half of last year. In the latter part he started flaking away. Hopefully he keeps realistic and takes less risk. The car has the pace to not need to take big risks.

Unless discussed prior to the race, it was the team that told George to Box. George was more concerned about Marcus telling him to manage the tyre in 5-6 but then Lewis is pushing behind, so George obviously thought he was under threat from Lewis. He was told he was free to push after the exchange with the engineer. After Marcus told him he was P7, he said it was a "Bold call and he liked it."

[Mchamilton]

Even though his PU failed it's kind of disappointing to see the team getting rid of Russel out of Hamilton's way wit a too early pit stop and also the FIA giving a usual helping hand to Ham with a well timed red flag.

Really? You don't think it was simply the team pitting the lead car under the sc to gain time in the stop? Seriously. Get a grip.

[AR3-GP]

Russel made his gambles as usual. He was delusional to think he could challenge for the win. He will continue to drop the ball if he continues to think his gambles are going to make him challenge Max.
Hamilton will just slowly chip away and rack up points until the car comes good. And by then Russel may be just too far behind to be prioritized. George was more consistent in the first half of last year. In the latter part he started flaking away. Hopefully he keeps realistic and takes less risk. The car has the pace to not need to take big risks.

What I see a lot of is people who can't stand the idea that George is ambitious. It's very strange. George is not doing anything differently to the many great drivers who came before him, or who sit alongside him currently.

[mendis]

Even though his PU failed it's kind of disappointing to see the team getting rid of Russel out of Hamilton's way wit a too early pit stop and also the FIA giving a usual helping hand to Ham with a well timed red flag.

I strongly doubt the FIA was helping out Hamilton with the red flag.

The only thing that would have made the race interesting was seeing Russell on fresh tires to the end after the first safetycar, vs Verstappen who owed a pitstop. There was never going to be a competition between Hamilton and Verstappen. Verstappen too quick in a straight fight.

It was difficult to read what the intent was from Mercedes in pitting George. Lewis looked faster because there were 4 DRS zones to George that had none. Taking George out obviously made the job easy for Max. He blasted past. George went to P7 with that SC stop. Max would have romped away anyway leaving no chance for George to do anything from that position. It obviously says Mercedes thought they had pace on par with RB that in fact wasn't the case. They asked George to manage pace and let Lewis attack him like Turkey 2010. They screwed George with the pit stop and made the job easy for Max. I am sure George is going to question any such decisions in future by the strategists. As it stands, George is a better race strategist than Mercedes pit wall, similar to Sainz and Ferrari.

[mendis]

Russel made his gambles as usual. He was delusional to think he could challenge for the win.

You are assuming it was George's call to pit. Was there a radio from George to pit him?

[Big Tea]

Keep in mind that had there been no red flag, Russell would have had the option of what ever tyre he wanted for the last stint. It would have been useful to have had the choice of Meds late in the race or softs close to the end for a dash v some worn tyres or those on harder tyres.

[chrisc90]

Russel made his gambles as usual. He was delusional to think he could challenge for the win. He will continue to drop the ball if he continues to think his gambles are going to make him challenge Max.
Hamilton will just slowly chip away and rack up points until the car comes good. And by then Russel may be just too far behind to be prioritized. George was more consistent in the first half of last year. In the latter part he started flaking away. Hopefully he keeps realistic and takes less risk. The car has the pace to not need to take big risks.

What I see a lot of is people who can't stand the idea that George is ambitious. It's very strange. George is not doing anything differently to the many great drivers who came before him, or who sit alongside him currently.

Agree, I think that since George joined last year he brought something with him that Mercedes didn't always necessarily do in the past. GR come from one of the slowest teams on the grid where the team could try a bolder strategy with the other cars around them. I think he still has a bit of that racing blood in him where he's open to trying something oddball or wanting to be the one to dictate the strategy. Something that pre 2021 Mercedes probably really didn't 'need' to do given they were comfortably in front with plenty of time in hand.

One thing I like about George is he understands what's going on around him and can discuss possible plans with his engineer. The Zandvoort call in 2022 was a superb choice from him, yes the team were hesitant and he probably annoyed his team mate in make the switch to the softer tyre, but he knew what was likely to happen at that point in the race, which is a credit to him as it kept him in the points and got him P2.

Keep in mind that had there been no red flag, Russell would have had the option of what ever tyre he wanted for the last stint. It would have been useful to have had the choice of Meds late in the race or softs close to the end for a dash v some worn tyres or those on harder tyres.

I dont think there would have been a 3rd stint. The race was always a 1 stopper. The deg was probably better than expected from all the teams. That was confirmed that everyone was on the hard tyre from Lap 9 to the end. Had the race/pit windows played out as normal it would have meant a 30 lap stint on the hard at the end - or there abouts,

[mzso]

Still gonna be celebrating when George is beating a 40 year old in qualifying?

It will happen naturally.

I was observing how Zhao has been beating Bottas recently and Bottas was a stern challenge for Hamilton in qualifying. Doesn't make Zhao the greatest qualifier on the grid but it shows guys like Hamitlon and Alonso aren't immune to the effects of age.

That's not an excuse. See Alonso.

VS stroll..

Not vs Stroll. In absolute. He's bringing top level driving performance.

[Farnborough]

Apparently they were loosing control of tyre temperature GH car, going too high, making the decision to switch ASAP in response.