2023 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[PlatinumZealot]

That was a great result but I think we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves!

Last year Mercedes again was fast here even battling Verstapen for some time but when the season progressed we didn’t get any closer to Red Bull apart from Brazil obviously where many things came into play to improve our pace!

Also the most annoying thing for me is they didn’t move to this concept early on after seeing what’s possible with the zero pods! Had they started with this spec they would have refined it by now and they would have been bringing performance upgrades by now! Now they’ll be on back foot again while Red Bull will be just refining their already quite developed concept!

On the other hand these side pods look so basic and underdeveloped, the chassis can’t be modified in-season, same goes for the rear suspension too! Which means there’s a lot of space for development for next year…

I'm not too sure that the zero pods can be singled out yet. The floor and suspension was likely responsible for bulk of handling improvements. Still struggled to out qualify McLaren, Alpine and Ferrari.

[AR3-GP]

Looking at hamilton's personal best lap, he gained around 0,4s-0,5s with DRS and slipstream compared to his previous best and all subsequent laps.
He tried again on last lap despite bono telling him it's probably not worth it. he then aborted after T1-T2, probably after seeing he's already down half a second.

It's a good point. I checked F1 tempo and the DRS on his fast lap was worth 4.7 tenths. Without it, the lap would have been a low 1.17 at best. This puts things into a much more accurate perspective in a like for like tire and fuel situation.

[KimiRai]

I think worth mentioning none of the other teams got the tyres working properly on Sunday. RB and Mercedes got the tyres working as they had done in fp2, but others fell away.

I would hesitate to draw broad sweeping conclusions from one session

I agree, while it could represent a change of trend it also could be an outlier, some people may be overreacting with the different performances from the teams today.

[AMG.Tzan]

That was a great result but I think we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves!

Last year Mercedes again was fast here even battling Verstapen for some time but when the season progressed we didn’t get any closer to Red Bull apart from Brazil obviously where many things came into play to improve our pace!

Also the most annoying thing for me is they didn’t move to this concept early on after seeing what’s possible with the zero pods! Had they started with this spec they would have refined it by now and they would have been bringing performance upgrades by now! Now they’ll be on back foot again while Red Bull will be just refining their already quite developed concept!

On the other hand these side pods look so basic and underdeveloped, the chassis can’t be modified in-season, same goes for the rear suspension too! Which means there’s a lot of space for development for next year…

I'm not too sure that the zero pods can be singled out yet. The floor and suspension was likely responsible for bulk of handling improvements. Still struggled to out qualify McLaren, Alpine and Ferrari.

Sure! But I think getting rid of the zero pods might have helped them broaden their operating window by making the floor less sensitive?

[Sidiamal]

The performance today was extremely encouraging but it has to be taken with the caveat that the other teams struggled with the conditions, and this is a track where Mercedes traditionally do very very well in. It's hard to have a good like for like comparison. Barcelona is a track that trends front-limited with the layout change so the car could always be expected to do well here (although to this extent would be difficult to say). I think Mercedes understand this themselves, hence their own claim that they'll see how the car behaves over this stretch of five races.

Montreal, Austria, Silverstone and Hungary are all tracks that activate the full range of car characteristics so we'll have a very good picture by the end of whether the car has turned a corner or if it's still stalling. I'm especially interested in the result in Austria because it's a track Mercedes cars typically do not like and it'll be a good test of the W14B's range.

[PlatinumZealot]

Definitely Montreal. That track will be interesting to gauge traction, which is a traditional weakness of the Mercedes.

[Sidiamal]

Definitely Montreal. That track will be interesting to gauge traction, which is a traditional weakness of the Mercedes.

You also need a very good suspension to ride the kerbs hard. It's going to be the best possible test of the new front axle.

[Hammerfist]

Well there's a saying that if you go well around Barcelona you'll go well everywhere else. Perhaps that's not as true with the removal of the slow chicane, but still.

[zakhassan44]

16.3 for max and a 16.6 for Lewis is right. 3tenths. Can’t dispute that.

It will be a good one to watch how the races ahead go from Mercedes here. Great pace this weekend but be good to see the normal lap time in true race pace rather than a final shootout for fastest lap which is never very telling of true car pace.

As someone said, a good bench stone will be if they can keep on top of the pace they displayed today.

Fingers crossed for them fighting for a podium spot and one team with 2 drivers on the podium will be good to see.

i think we need to remember that this race was always gonna be good for merc similarly to Australia. we have to wait for the next couple race to insist that the upgrades have worked

[f1jcw]

funny all the usual coming here to "put us staight" on the performance today.

Max is going to stroll to the title, why be concerned.

[zibby43]

16.3 for max and a 16.6 for Lewis is right. 3tenths. Can’t dispute that.

It will be a good one to watch how the races ahead go from Mercedes here. Great pace this weekend but be good to see the normal lap time in true race pace rather than a final shootout for fastest lap which is never very telling of true car pace.

As someone said, a good bench stone will be if they can keep on top of the pace they displayed today.

Fingers crossed for them fighting for a podium spot and one team with 2 drivers on the podium will be good to see.

i think we need to remember that this race was always gonna be good for merc similarly to Australia. we have to wait for the next couple race to insist that the upgrades have worked

The reason it’s still illustrative is the fact that this was also arguably RB’s strongest circuit as well with their car’s strengths.

What we saw with Ferrari is what we’ve seen all season. They’re just not there with the tires on a Sunday.

I don’t expect AM will be able to keep up with Merc’s development pace over a season, especially now that Merc have a direction.

What stuck out to me was Hamilton’s effusive praise of the “feel” of the car on Saturday and Sunday. Said it’s unequivocally the best it has felt in the new regs era.

By contrast, last year whenever Merc were fast, Hamilton would be at a loss to explain it and would say that the car felt the same as it did whenever it would perform poorly.

I do agree that additional races will paint a clearer picture, but there seems to be correlation between what Merc are seeing in simulation and what the car is doing on track. Back when this course change started, the team said it was seeing significant development potential in simulation.

[AR3-GP]

16.3 for max and a 16.6 for Lewis is right. 3tenths. Can’t dispute that.

It will be a good one to watch how the races ahead go from Mercedes here. Great pace this weekend but be good to see the normal lap time in true race pace rather than a final shootout for fastest lap which is never very telling of true car pace.

As someone said, a good bench stone will be if they can keep on top of the pace they displayed today.

Fingers crossed for them fighting for a podium spot and one team with 2 drivers on the podium will be good to see.

i think we need to remember that this race was always gonna be good for merc similarly to Australia. we have to wait for the next couple race to insist that the upgrades have worked

The reason it’s still illustrative is the fact that this was also arguably RB’s strongest circuit as well with their car’s strengths.

When you account for Hamilton having DRS on his fast lap attempt (worth something like 4 tenths), and the fact that Rb ran the slower tire for most of the race, does it really say much compared to prior rounds? I don't feel that it did. Margins are similar, but this is expected because Merc said the upgrade was supposed to be worth 2-3 tenths, but RB added their own upgrades at the same time.

I actually don't think the laptimes are what one needs to get sucked into. Instead one should simply take positives from the driver feel and Hamilton seems much happier with the handling, which was the stated goal of the upgrade.

As for the performance. I expect ebbs and flows. Anyone thinking that Merc are going to bury Aston to the tune of 35 seconds every weekend from here on out is getting way ahead of themselves. AMR clearly underperformed at the same time that Merc had one of it's strongest outings on a track that suits them, and not Aston.

[zibby43]

i think we need to remember that this race was always gonna be good for merc similarly to Australia. we have to wait for the next couple race to insist that the upgrades have worked

The reason it’s still illustrative is the fact that this was also arguably RB’s strongest circuit as well with their car’s strengths.

When you account for Hamilton having DRS on his fast lap attempt (worth something like 4 tenths), and the fact that Rb ran the slower tire for most of the race, does it really say much compared to prior rounds? I don't feel that it did. Margins are similar, but this is expected because Merc said the upgrade was supposed to be worth 2-3 tenths, but RB added their own upgrades at the same time.

I actually don't think the laptimes are what one needs to get sucked into. Instead one should simply take positives from the driver feel and Hamilton seems much happier with the handling, which was the stated goal of the upgrade.

As for the performance. I expect ebbs and flows. Anyone thinking that Merc are going to bury Aston to the tune of 35 seconds every weekend from here on out is getting way ahead of themselves. AMR clearly underperformed at the same time that Merc had one of it's strongest outings on a track that suits them, and not Aston.

If this new direction is making the car handle and feel better, I expect that the setup window will continue to grow larger and that should bring less variability to the team’s performance at various circuits. Setup is so critical to extracting tire performance.

There will always be circuit-specific swings in form relative to other competitors, just like when they were dominant and margins varied. But they need to eliminate the shockers where they qualify way out of position and are middling in the race.

George and Toto both said something today that I agree with: When they understand the development direction that they need to go in, Mercedes may be the best team on the grid at developing over the course of a season.

With the past concept, it seems like they were always in the “trying to understand what was going on” phase. Now the public noises coming from the team are, we know what’s going on now, and it’s a matter of putting in the time and effort to make up the gap.

[AR3-GP]

George and Toto both said something today that I agree with: When they understand the development direction that they need to go in, Mercedes may be the best team on the grid at developing over the course of a season.

This is incredibly loaded and subjective is it not? Mercedes don't have unlimited budget anymore, and they don't have unlimited windtunnel hours either. They will have whatever allocation P2/P3 affords.

[zibby43]

George and Toto both said something today that I agree with: When they understand the development direction that they need to go in, Mercedes may be the best team on the grid at developing over the course of a season.

This is incredibly loaded and subjective is it not? Mercedes don't have unlimited budget anymore, and they don't have unlimited windtunnel hours either. They will have whatever allocation P2/P3 affords.

Not loaded in my mind. They know more than anyone what they’re capable of. And they have a track record of success. They developed last year’s dog into a race-winning car. What they accomplished last year in bringing relatively untested in simulation hardware to the car was amazing. What they did in 2021 to maximize their package against RB was special. They out-developed Ferrari in 2017 and 2018 in years where Ferrari held the championship leads around/after the summer break. And in those years, Ferrari spent more money.

I think what’s a bit loaded is your assumption that Merc’s development success in the past was fueled only by resources.