2023 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[Puffpirat]

Toto told sky after the race that there will be new parts for Spa but called it „hundredth developments“. Doesn’t really sound like a new floor but let’s see

What Toto says and what comes to fruition is highly questionable for these last 1.5 seasons.

That is true just found it interesting he didn’t even say tenths anymore.

I mean I’m all for scrapping this season and focusing on 2024.

[denyall]

Toto told sky after the race that there will be new parts for Spa but called it „hundredth developments“. Doesn’t really sound like a new floor but let’s see

What Toto says and what comes to fruition is highly questionable for these last 1.5 seasons.

That is true just found it interesting he didn’t even say tenths anymore.

I mean I’m all for scrapping this season and focusing on 2024.

I wonder if the floor being changed was scraped due to the tub shape? Maybe they realized that the possible gain was not worth it under the shape restriction there car has?

[Spoutnik]

I'd say Mercedes are holding up pretty well considering Ferrari, AM and McLaren brought a new underbody to their car. While a lot of credit goes to Lewis and George, it really makes me wonder what they're capable of if Mercedes brings a new underbody.

The two drivers are the reason they are P-2 in the constructors. Lewis and George deliver most races. You hardly see one making a mess of the weekend like Stroll, Perez is or Leclerc which cuts the maximum points their cars are potentially able to collect. Merc have collected close to the theoretical maximum the W14 can deliver, where as Ferrari, Aston and even Redbull haven't.
The car rightfully should be 4th in the championship on pace.

It’s ironic because it means cars which are arguably faster, are also taking the advantage of more WT hours due to the fact that the allocation is not based directly on pace, but instead the WCC.

I have been saying for months now, that they would benefit from tanking the WCC. Mercedes with P7 or or P8 windtunnel time would be a frightening combination heading into 2024.

110% I agree.
See today, Ferrari made a strategic mistakes (pitting to early while there was no tyre deg). Both Merc driver did a great job on the 1st run.
Also, Perez started out of position.
Lewis, for the first time since AD2021 benefited from a SC situation.
= P3 & P5

In theory, it should've been more like : P6/7/8

I am criticizing Russell quite a lot for obvious reason (he thinks he smth he isnt) but his only real mistake this year is Montreal

The issue with these drivers doing "too much" of a great job is that it made the team believe they are doing a Nice job.
If Russell hadn't won in Brazil and Hamilton didnt had flash of performance while others were drunk (Hungary : P10 to P2 or the come-back in Spain comes to mind) maybe the team would've stop believing in their zero pod concept

[AR3-GP]

The two drivers are the reason they are P-2 in the constructors. Lewis and George deliver most races. You hardly see one making a mess of the weekend like Stroll, Perez is or Leclerc which cuts the maximum points their cars are potentially able to collect. Merc have collected close to the theoretical maximum the W14 can deliver, where as Ferrari, Aston and even Redbull haven't.
The car rightfully should be 4th in the championship on pace.

It’s ironic because it means cars which are arguably faster, are also taking the advantage of more WT hours due to the fact that the allocation is not based directly on pace, but instead the WCC.

I have been saying for months now, that they would benefit from tanking the WCC. Mercedes with P7 or or P8 windtunnel time would be a frightening combination heading into 2024.

110% I agree.
See today, Ferrari made a strategic mistakes (pitting to early while there was no tyre deg). Both Merc driver did a great job on the 1st run.
Also, Perez started out of position.
Lewis, for the first time since AD2021 benefited from a SC situation.
= P3 & P5

In theory, it should've been more like : P6/7/8

I am criticizing Russell quite a lot for obvious reason (he thinks he smth he isnt) but his only real mistake this year is Montreal

The issue with these drivers doing "too much" of a great job is that it made the team believe they are doing a Nice job.
If Russell hadn't won in Brazil and Hamilton didnt had flash of performance while others were drunk (Hungary : P10 to P2 or the come-back in Spain comes to mind) maybe the team would've stop believing in their zero pod concept

Absolutely. With lesser drivers, they would have binned it off after getting blown away in Belgium.

[Spoutnik]

It’s ironic because it means cars which are arguably faster, are also taking the advantage of more WT hours due to the fact that the allocation is not based directly on pace, but instead the WCC.

I have been saying for months now, that they would benefit from tanking the WCC. Mercedes with P7 or or P8 windtunnel time would be a frightening combination heading into 2024.

110% I agree.
See today, Ferrari made a strategic mistakes (pitting to early while there was no tyre deg). Both Merc driver did a great job on the 1st run.
Also, Perez started out of position.
Lewis, for the first time since AD2021 benefited from a SC situation.
= P3 & P5

In theory, it should've been more like : P6/7/8

I am criticizing Russell quite a lot for obvious reason (he thinks he smth he isnt) but his only real mistake this year is Montreal

The issue with these drivers doing "too much" of a great job is that it made the team believe they are doing a Nice job.
If Russell hadn't won in Brazil and Hamilton didnt had flash of performance while others were drunk (Hungary : P10 to P2 or the come-back in Spain comes to mind) maybe the team would've stop believing in their zero pod concept

Absolutely. With lesser drivers, they would have binned it off after getting blown away in Belgium.

Monza was painful too...
Strongly agree with your point

[Puffpirat]

What Toto says and what comes to fruition is highly questionable for these last 1.5 seasons.

That is true just found it interesting he didn’t even say tenths anymore.

I mean I’m all for scrapping this season and focusing on 2024.

I wonder if the floor being changed was scraped due to the tub shape? Maybe they realized that the possible gain was not worth it under the shape restriction there car has?

That’s what I hope at least. Why waste resources on such an expensive part when there are big changes coming for the 2024 car anyway. But your crystal ball is as good as mine

[mkay]

That is true just found it interesting he didn’t even say tenths anymore.

I mean I’m all for scrapping this season and focusing on 2024.

I wonder if the floor being changed was scraped due to the tub shape? Maybe they realized that the possible gain was not worth it under the shape restriction there car has?

That’s what I hope at least. Why waste resources on such an expensive part when there are big changes coming for the 2024 car anyway. But your crystal ball is as good as mine

There's probably still some value in using the W14 "B" as a testing mule for 2024 concepts. Ultimately, with little rule changes for 2024, I am not sure why they're not keen to test new ideas and concept on this year's car. Would potentially save them time/money down the road if they are not sure about the right development path to take.

[PlatinumZealot]

The floor concept is clearly the big issue. The pods changed and the car seemed to be just medicore at everything and special at nothing.

[ringo]

That longer tub shape could partly explain the poor mechanical behavior in the low speed. the mass of the car has a wider distribution longitudinally compared to the others, or radius of gyration if you will. It seems to be something that is affecting the car and the engineers may have tried various things to negate it. I am no chassis expert, but I suspect there had to be compromises to use such a narrower but longer tub shape. The car is probably harder to rotate and it's weight doesnt shift in a desirable way in the low speed, and maybe the engineers tried to use aero to negate it. Who knows. But I am not expecting any rear grip issues to be resolved this year.

[AR3-GP]

I wonder if the floor being changed was scraped due to the tub shape? Maybe they realized that the possible gain was not worth it under the shape restriction there car has?

That’s what I hope at least. Why waste resources on such an expensive part when there are big changes coming for the 2024 car anyway. But your crystal ball is as good as mine

There's probably still some value in using the W14 "B" as a testing mule for 2024 concepts. Ultimately, with little rule changes for 2024, I am not sure why they're not keen to test new ideas and concept on this year's car. Would potentially save them time/money down the road if they are not sure about the right development path to take.

You have to balance this with not showing the cards to the competition. You don't want to tip anyone off to an interesting idea.

[Cs98]

I don’t think the current direction is solely down to George. That’s a bit unfair on him. He got a win in what’s as described as a ‘Sh!tbox’ by Toto. The fact they were slightly more competitive in the last few races shown the team there might have been pace on the W13. It wasn’t on George at all.

They are a long way behind, and of McLaren and Mercedes both thought their concept wasn’t good at the start of the season during testing, then Mclaren have massively out developed Mercedes by the pace in the last 2 races.

His only goal is to have a car in which he can beat Lewis.. The team recognized they didn't listen to Lewis.
It's a bit like Sainz and Leclerc. When the car is slow, it - suprisingly - fit better Sainz' driving style, it's the direction Ferrari took in the 2nd half of 2022 we saw were it leads them.

The team overall isn't able to solve the obvious issues of the car : i) laughable top seed (or let's say efficiency cause they are running less wing) ii) traction issue out of the slow speed corners (due - apparently - to suspension design) iii) one lap pace (which is costly on race day as the car isn't good at overtaking car due to the lack of top speed) iv) high speed corner (which was their strenght last year apparently..)

Pretty silly post. In 2022 the dominant narrative from Merc was that Hamilton was taking charge of development duties as the experienced hand and suffering in the championship as a consequence. Now you're seriously trying to blame George for how the development turned out because he had a few successful races in a bad car? That's just sad.

[Cs98]

Lmao Russell more concerned about Ham leapfrogging him, apart from anything else.


Living rent free

He wants to beat his teammate and was on target to do so, naturally he's not happy about the SC. No neutral person would think that's weird.

[AR3-GP]

Hamilton was giving the RB a proper stare down after the race today:

[Just_a_fan]

Hamilton was giving the RB a proper stare down after the race today:

https://i.postimg.cc/7PMBFJ7V/image.png
https://i.postimg.cc/j56XYBW5/image.png

There's video of him doing that recently and then talking to the team pointing to a bit of the car, explaining what the other car has on it. Maybe they want to see something that isn't clear in photos.

[Shrieker]

Lmao Russell more concerned about Ham leapfrogging him, apart from anything else.

Living rent free

Not a good look for sure. Those 2 will have problems if they have a championship potential car.

I mean that's a given. No two dancers on a single rope.

Red bull just have it perfect. Perez can't challenge, but with the car they have, will bring home enough points to bring home the wcc title. Also, he helps Max whenever he can. In fact, Max owes a bit his first title to him.