2023 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[Jdn1327]

Also:-

Meanwhile, George Russell has tweeted as he watches the podium celebrations.

"Proud of this team," the 25-year-old writes. "We had what it took to win this race today, especially with the decision to pit under the SC. We'll continue to fight, our time will come."

Seems to be in agreement with his team to me

Yeah that wasnt a good call by Merc imo. George would have had some traffic to clear hence would have lost time. And Im sure max would have unleashed the real pace of the rb19 if it ever came to that situation, and when you have max on fresh hards vs russels mercs on older hards, with approximately 30 laps to go, even with an optimistic 15sec deficit i think max would have closed that gap and get him with a few laps to spare.

He would’ve ve beaten hamilton though. Unfairly but yeah.

What's unfair about it though? He qualified better and he gets the optimum strategy. I don't see why Hamilton deserves excuses and GR doesn't? Then Mercedes might as well become a one car team like RedBull

[mendis]

Also:-

Meanwhile, George Russell has tweeted as he watches the podium celebrations.

"Proud of this team," the 25-year-old writes. "We had what it took to win this race today, especially with the decision to pit under the SC. We'll continue to fight, our time will come."

Seems to be in agreement with his team to me

Yeah that wasnt a good call by Merc imo. George would have had some traffic to clear hence would have lost time. And Im sure max would have unleashed the real pace of the rb19 if it ever came to that situation, and when you have max on fresh hards vs russels mercs on older hards, with approximately 30 laps to go, even with an optimistic 15sec deficit i think max would have closed that gap and get him with a few laps to spare.

He would’ve ve beaten hamilton though. Unfairly but yeah.

What's unfair about it though? He qualified better and he gets the optimum strategy. I don't see why Hamilton deserves excuses and GR doesn't? Then Mercedes might as well become a one car team like RedBull

If George beats Lewis, it indeed is unfair. Because it's Lewis and we don't like anyone beating him.

[Farnborough]

I didn't see it as favouring one driver or the other.

They usually work to lead driver gets first call on pit etc.

They got themselves into first second race position, they're not just going to sit there and wait to be picked off by RB.

GR was pulling the aero train, tyres getting over temp it seems, SP at that point out of play, get GR onto hards while MV was still behind LH to see what could happen then. GR wasn't going to have the lead when MV got to him on those tyres anyway as deg would have caught him. Roll the dice while they held position is what they did, we didn't see it play out obviously, and so don't know where it would have ended.
Also forces RB to consider MV strategy, that's one advantage of having two cars against the one, maybe they can force the other team into compromise as MB didn't have luxury of ultimate race pace advantage.

All seems reasonably straightforward to me.

[Hammerfist]

Also:-

Meanwhile, George Russell has tweeted as he watches the podium celebrations.

"Proud of this team," the 25-year-old writes. "We had what it took to win this race today, especially with the decision to pit under the SC. We'll continue to fight, our time will come."

Seems to be in agreement with his team to me

Yeah that wasnt a good call by Merc imo. George would have had some traffic to clear hence would have lost time. And Im sure max would have unleashed the real pace of the rb19 if it ever came to that situation, and when you have max on fresh hards vs russels mercs on older hards, with approximately 30 laps to go, even with an optimistic 15sec deficit i think max would have closed that gap and get him with a few laps to spare.

He would’ve ve beaten hamilton though. Unfairly but yeah.

What's unfair about it though? He qualified better and he gets the optimum strategy. I don't see why Hamilton deserves excuses and GR doesn't? Then Mercedes might as well become a one car team like RedBull

You really can’t see how pitting under race conditions vs pitting under safety car is unfair? Wow.

[basti313]

All seems reasonably straightforward to me.

I agree. That was a 100% standard call to pit one of the cars in this situation.
Looking at the gap, it would have been very close for Hamilton to fall behind Tsunoda and according to the management calls in the first laps (to allow DRS for Ham) I would expect Rus to have more pace. So Rus was also the clear go to guy for the spicy strategy.

[organic]

Yeah that wasnt a good call by Merc imo. George would have had some traffic to clear hence would have lost time. And Im sure max would have unleashed the real pace of the rb19 if it ever came to that situation, and when you have max on fresh hards vs russels mercs on older hards, with approximately 30 laps to go, even with an optimistic 15sec deficit i think max would have closed that gap and get him with a few laps to spare.

He would’ve ve beaten hamilton though. Unfairly but yeah.

What's unfair about it though? He qualified better and he gets the optimum strategy. I don't see why Hamilton deserves excuses and GR doesn't? Then Mercedes might as well become a one car team like RedBull

You really can’t see how pitting under race conditions vs pitting under safety car is unfair? Wow.

It wouldn't have been on equal terms, but i wouldn't consider it "unfair". By George pitting under SC Lewis would've had free air or maybe been able to cling onto Max whilst George would've been in traffic (eg behind gasly)

[Hammerfist]

What's unfair about it though? He qualified better and he gets the optimum strategy. I don't see why Hamilton deserves excuses and GR doesn't? Then Mercedes might as well become a one car team like RedBull

You really can’t see how pitting under race conditions vs pitting under safety car is unfair? Wow.

It wouldn't have been on equal terms, but i wouldn't consider it "unfair". By George pitting under SC Lewis would've had free air or maybe been able to cling onto Max whilst George would've been in traffic (eg behind gasly)

First off i doubt lewis could have hung onto max who like i said would have been going flat out to beat george. I mean he could not hang on to a tire managing Max as we saw.

Secondly when you lose time through the pits to your teammate you always lose out in the end and i really cant comprehend how it is not unfair.

George especially has benefited from safety cars on multiple occasions last year and the hamilton bashers claimed those were fair wins for george. It almost happened again yesterday. No mas amigo.

[mendis]

Yeah that wasnt a good call by Merc imo. George would have had some traffic to clear hence would have lost time. And Im sure max would have unleashed the real pace of the rb19 if it ever came to that situation, and when you have max on fresh hards vs russels mercs on older hards, with approximately 30 laps to go, even with an optimistic 15sec deficit i think max would have closed that gap and get him with a few laps to spare.

He would’ve ve beaten hamilton though. Unfairly but yeah.

What's unfair about it though? He qualified better and he gets the optimum strategy. I don't see why Hamilton deserves excuses and GR doesn't? Then Mercedes might as well become a one car team like RedBull

You really can’t see how pitting under race conditions vs pitting under safety car is unfair? Wow.

Why didn't Mercedes stack both of them? That would be equal treatment and I am sure you would have liked it. You don't seem to understand the concept of qualifying ahead to reap the optimum strategy. If that's unfair, Lewis should work hard and qualify ahead.

[Wil992]

All seems reasonably straightforward to me.

Yep, I can’t see what the fuss is about.
They know they can’t live with RB on pure pace, and they had 2 cars in the fight vs 1 RB. So the obvious thing is roll the dice, pit one, leave one out, RB can’t cover off both cars because Perez is out of the picture. Maybe it works maybe it doesn’t, but trying to simply outrun RB with this car was never going to work.
In reality, just matching MV’s strategy was likely to result in a 2nd and 3rd (obviously they didn’t expect the DNF), so they were trying to turn a podium into a win. Maybe not ideal if the championship is on the line, in that case you’d possibly take 2nd and move on. But it’s not on the line is it, so going for the win seems reasonable, it is a race after all.

[Farnborough]

What's unfair about it though? He qualified better and he gets the optimum strategy. I don't see why Hamilton deserves excuses and GR doesn't? Then Mercedes might as well become a one car team like RedBull

You really can’t see how pitting under race conditions vs pitting under safety car is unfair? Wow.

Why didn't Mercedes stack both of them? That would be equal treatment and I am sure you would have liked it. You don't seem to understand the concept of qualifying ahead to reap the optimum strategy. If that's unfair, Lewis should work hard and qualify ahead.

Stacking is used when conditions force an immediate pit stop, otherwise it may hand strategic advantages to another team, just because some view it unfair on here for their favourite driver. It's the ability to try and shift the ground enough to gain a possible position they may not be realistically on for, whichever driver they could use for team advantage.

Potential to make the opposing team respond in the wrong direction is valuable.

The whole team is trying to beat RB and all the others. Took a shot but no one can predict the safety car etc, that's just how it works.

[organic]

I just remembered Norris had an engine related dnf in Bahrain. So that is 3 PU related DNFs in 3 races for Mercedes so far. The push for power has cost some reliability?

[ValeVida46]

I just remembered Norris had an engine related dnf in Bahrain. So that is 3 PU related DNFs in 3 races for Mercedes so far. The push for power has cost some reliability?

Last season Honda had several PU related failures, especially the first half, and Ferrari had a catalogue throughout the season whereas Mercedes appeared more reliable over the season.
It's quite possible with the E10 fuels Honda and Ferrari pushed the reliability envelope much harder, which if proven can lead to development of the engine in accordance Appendix 4 article 5 along with safety and cost savings.
Cost to reliability it looks like Mercedes may have decided to push the envelope harder to give them some scope to improve over time. If the car isn't close to matching Red Bull this year then it makes sense to take the reliability hit until they have something capable of challenging.

[Zxeros]

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.

Somehow, they always do. With red flags, VSC, SC, all sorts.

You didn't watch last season? he seemed to lose out with nearly every red flag and sc situation, and no need to even talk about 2021, to claim he gets gifts from them is laughable.
George benefited a lot from SC situations last season, so to see people lose their minds the moment he loses out to it is bizarre.
At the time it looked like a good idea and even Hamilton was upset he wasn't able to pit like George.

[Sieper]

Well, I thought it a bit strange to also ask from George to let Lewis in DRS range, yes, it makes defending from Max easier, but it also costs George. If they would have let him run out front fully he would have benefitted from the SC more as he wouldn’t have fallen as far back. I never get these small digs at redbull here, whilst Toto has come out and say on the question when asked was that he’d rather see Lewis take his 8 and only then George his first.

[RonMexico]

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.

Somehow, they always do. With red flags, VSC, SC, all sorts.

You didn't watch last season? he seemed to lose out with nearly every red flag and sc situation, and no need to even talk about 2021, to claim he gets gifts from them is laughable.
George benefited a lot from SC situations last season, so to see people lose their minds the moment he loses out to it is bizarre.
At the time it looked like a good idea and even Hamilton was upset he wasn't able to pit like George.

Baku/Imola/Silverstone versus Abu Dhabi. He had huge luck