2023 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[r85]

Seems clueless to what’s going on. Guess that’s what happens when you have a businessman running the team.

It's not very likely that he would make statements without any background knowledge from the technical staff regardless of whether it's right or wrong at the end. He's not wrong about the car characteristics changing though.

[Farnborough]

We will see the same every year, because there are genuine gains to be had by moving to next year early, especially lower down the grid.

Worth a caveat to that in my view......especially if there's a fundamental part of mechanical/chassis layout that prevents a desired aero concept from being brought to complete potential.

The earlier that's acknowledged, then the most comprehensive tub layout review can take place to facilitate covering the required alternative.
That essentially scraps the current running platform anyway as research in more valuable in focus on simulation of new direction.

Its a very tight set of regs, whether there's more than one core route through that at the moment looks quite slim, hence the convergence of concepts we see.
Many (social commentary, team PR etc) are getting hung up on "copying" and all the sentiment that entails, but all want to perform at the front.
Many times in F1 do they look similar for good reason, physics.

The ethos of these new rules was to level the technical playing field and see the driver's performance make the difference, it's heading there, but slowly.

[j_ste]

It becomes funny

Whack a mole. Like with Brasil, Im sure they will find a win somewhere but how that plays into 2024, who knows

[Sevach]

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/merc ... /10494939/

Bad situation.

[chrisc90]

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/merc ... /10494939/

Bad situation.

There’s the RB method and the Ferrari/AMR method. With the deep curves on top of the side pod feeding air to the diffuser. The only common thing is the undercut which teams have moved towards.

Maybe the problem is the correlation of the models and wind tunnel at Mercedes which has been tweaked to ‘agree’ with the zeropod concept so having a more natural sodepod method is throwing it off.

[Farnborough]

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/merc ... /10494939/

Bad situation.

There’s the RB method and the Ferrari/AMR method. With the deep curves on top of the side pod feeding air to the diffuser. The only common thing is the undercut which teams have moved towards.

Maybe the problem is the correlation of the models and wind tunnel at Mercedes which has been tweaked to ‘agree’ with the zeropod concept so having a more natural sodepod method is throwing it off.

Well that's not a RB sidepod, the one we can see on the car now, and so if evaluation took place on that, it's understandable there's conflict in output data.

There's huge difference in leading edge and air inlet treatment, they share almost nothing in concept with "underbite" type arrangements. More or less the MB issue in operation currently is a mid wing with a carbon fibre pod "glued" to the back of it.

[AR3-GP]

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/merc ... /10494939/

Bad situation.

But Mercedes said sidepods don't matter.

In any case, I wouldn't read too deeply into something like this. It's quite normal to lose a bunch of downforce when you try on something foreign. Your original car was optimized around different shapes. What you have to do is start the development cycle over again optimized around the new sidepod. This would take months. That's the real conundrum for them. They would be throwing themselves months behind the others, again.

Teams like Aston and Mclaren commited to that very early on. Mercedes have kept delaying. They want to pursue their own ideas. Time will tell what is correct.

[pursue_one's]

Allison says there are improvements that they’d like to make the current car that they know will also be carried into W15.

“The interesting thing and unusual thing about the McLaren upgrade is its lap time effect is really quite strong. It’s pretty unusual to have a step of that size, of relative competitiveness in the middle of the season.

Chapeau to them, they’ve done a really good piece of work there, but that also makes it interesting for us because we have the before and after shots and we know the lap time effect was big.

So, well worth us paying more attention than we normally might to a team or another competitor team’s upgrades because in this case, we know that whatever changed has made a really meaningful difference in their lap time.

So, quite useful for us to know what that was and see whether it can play into our own thoughts about developing our own car.”

[ValeVida46]

Just seems that fans have lost a bit of faith in Mercedes. Hence them needing to issue letters to the fans after a short run of moderate performances and no wins.

Not really, you could level this to all long suffering fans of Ferrari, Red Bull, Williams and McLaren.
It should also be outlined yet again, that Mercedes are not unique in making open letters. Ferrari and McLaren have done the same and it's actually prevalent in the world of sport, as it's a very effective means of communication.
Odd that there would be any contentious issue with a letter to fans.

Is Toto and the team out of their depth with the new regulations? Do people still have the faith in them to deliver?
We seen 2 years on concepts that haven’t worked, despite acknowledging it was a dud last year. There’s been promises of upgrades that haven’t materialised. (Where was the big silverstone upgrade?) The PR just seems like it’s giving the fans the things they want to hear but it never turns up

Mercedes don't have the luxury of blaming suppliers, which let's face it one or two teams have superb form of doing. They own their position, which would be second in the championship presently, but "Is Toto out of his depth"...
I assume Vasseur, Krack, Brown et al must be doing that much better... and of course they would never issue any PR statements at all, ever.
Can you imagine if Merc pulled an Aston Martin performance in Silverstone? Oooo boy....

Or what if Merc did a McLaren and waited 9 races before showing up, would they have been even more out of their depth?

I know there's bias at play, and some posters love adding imaginary levels of criticism to Mercedes/Toto that don't apply to other teams, but this is utterly ridiculous now. Mods feel free to delete this

[AR3-GP]

Or what if Merc did a McLaren and waited 9 races before showing up, would they have been even more out of their depth?

At this point no one has won a race besides RB. 2nd in the WCC is certainly an accomplishment and testament to Mercs consistency, but Merc will get bored of consistently finishing 2nd. That arguably happened last year already. Teams like AMR and Mclaren have made big jumps, and to me that is more impressive.

As an example, one would not pat Ferrari on the back even though they've been 2nd/3rd in the WCC for a number of years. I think it's more promising to show that you can make significant improvement because it shows an understanding of development direction when you can do that. Mclaren have now done that. That Mercedes seem to be stalled (like Ferrari had been for the last decade), doesn't really make for promise. Hamilton certainly would not be happy to have the 2nd fastest car for the next 5 years, with the same deficit to RB all along the way.

If Merc had done what Mclaren did, it would show they are on the right path and you could almost overlook the beginning of the season because they clearly understood where they went wrong. With Merc waffling about with the performance of sidepods, floors, and whether or not they should be copying someone else, it's a bit disconcerting.

Caveat of course is that they have the 2nd place windtunnel hours. So it's no surprise they are more limited. I suggested they should strategically tank the WCC previously.

At this point, I'm looking more to Mclaren since they carry the P6 WindTunnel hours for the rest of the season. A sizeable advantage over RB and Mercedes. Mclaren look like they will be the ones to trouble RB in 2024 and their driver lineup is just as impressive as Mercs and more balanced than RBs (unless they bring Ricciardo).

[r85]

Or what if Merc did a McLaren and waited 9 races before showing up, would they have been even more out of their depth?

At this point no one has won a race besides RB. 2nd in the WCC is certainly an accomplishment and testament to Mercs consistency, but Merc will get bored of consistently finishing 2nd. That arguably happened last year already. Teams like AMR and Mclaren have made big jumps, and to me that is more impressive.

As an example, one would not pat Ferrari on the back even though they've been 2nd/3rd in the WCC for a number of years. I think it's more promising to show that you can make significant improvement because it shows an understanding of development direction when you can do that. Mclaren have now done that. That Mercedes seem to be stalled (like Ferrari had been for the last decade), doesn't really make for promise. Hamilton certainly would not be happy to have the 2nd fastest car for the next 5 years, with the same deficit to RB all along the way.

If Merc had done what Mclaren did, it would show they are on the right path and you could almost overlook the beginning of the season because they clearly understood where they went wrong. With Merc waffling about with the performance of sidepods, floors, and whether or not they should be copying someone else, it's a bit disconcerting.

Caveat of course is that they have the 2nd place windtunnel hours. So it's no surprise they are more limited. I suggested they should strategically tank the WCC previously.

At this point, I'm looking more to Mclaren since they carry the P6 WindTunnel hours for the rest of the season. A sizeable advantage over RB and Mercedes. Mclaren look like they will be the ones to trouble RB in 2024 and their driver lineup is just as impressive as Mercs and more balanced than RBs (unless they bring Ricciardo).

RB pretty much secured the 2022 - 2025 regs for themselves with the RB18 as the baseline model, which was built with their allotted CFD/WT time from 2021. It's more about prize money than development time, which is why Mercedes was still going for P2 last year (and for competition's sake).

[AR3-GP]

Or what if Merc did a McLaren and waited 9 races before showing up, would they have been even more out of their depth?

At this point no one has won a race besides RB. 2nd in the WCC is certainly an accomplishment and testament to Mercs consistency, but Merc will get bored of consistently finishing 2nd. That arguably happened last year already. Teams like AMR and Mclaren have made big jumps, and to me that is more impressive.

As an example, one would not pat Ferrari on the back even though they've been 2nd/3rd in the WCC for a number of years. I think it's more promising to show that you can make significant improvement because it shows an understanding of development direction when you can do that. Mclaren have now done that. That Mercedes seem to be stalled (like Ferrari had been for the last decade), doesn't really make for promise. Hamilton certainly would not be happy to have the 2nd fastest car for the next 5 years, with the same deficit to RB all along the way.

If Merc had done what Mclaren did, it would show they are on the right path and you could almost overlook the beginning of the season because they clearly understood where they went wrong. With Merc waffling about with the performance of sidepods, floors, and whether or not they should be copying someone else, it's a bit disconcerting.

Caveat of course is that they have the 2nd place windtunnel hours. So it's no surprise they are more limited. I suggested they should strategically tank the WCC previously.

At this point, I'm looking more to Mclaren since they carry the P6 WindTunnel hours for the rest of the season. A sizeable advantage over RB and Mercedes. Mclaren look like they will be the ones to trouble RB in 2024 and their driver lineup is just as impressive as Mercs and more balanced than RBs (unless they bring Ricciardo).

RB pretty much secured the 2022 - 2025 regs for themselves with the RB18 as the baseline model, which was built with their allotted CFD/WT time from 2021. It's more about prize money than development time, which is why Mercedes was still going for P2 last year (and for competition's sake).

the payoff and marketing benefit of a WDC, is worth more than the WCC prize money.

[ValeVida46]

At this point no one has won a race besides RB. 2nd in the WCC is certainly an accomplishment and testament to Mercs consistency, but Merc will get bored of consistently finishing 2nd. That arguably happened last year already. Teams like AMR and Mclaren have made big jumps, and to me that is more impressive.

Be that as it may, Mercedes have repeatedly said they 2nd isn't what they are racing for. No team should be racing for that. But repeatedly these words get twisted. And Yes AMR made a big jump relative to throwing away and entire season last year. McLaren? Finished 5th last year and are 5th this year 100 points behind 4th with an outside chance of top 2.
I agree it's been an impressive turnaround, but at the cost of 30 races or a season and a half to get there.

As an example, one would not pat Ferrari on the back even though they've been 2nd/3rd in the WCC for a number of years. I think it's more promising to show that you can make significant improvement because it shows an understanding of development direction when you can do that. Mclaren have now done that. That Mercedes seem to be stalled (like Ferrari had been for the last decade), doesn't really make for promise. Hamilton certainly would not be happy to have the 2nd fastest car for the next 5 years, with the same deficit to RB all along the way.

We have yet to see how the 2nd half plays out. Mercedes might finish ahead of McLaren this year without adding another update, while going balls deep into the W15. As Allision said, they are looking at rival ideas, including the McLaren updates and making choices as to what they can assimilate and learn from. It's still no guarantee of progress, as rival teams are faced with the same options in a confined ruleset.

If Merc had done what Mclaren did, it would show they are on the right path and you could almost overlook the beginning of the season because they clearly understood where they went wrong. With Merc waffling about with the performance of sidepods, floors, and whether or not they should be copying someone else, it's a bit disconcerting.

But that's not true though. Merc have gone their way and are in 2nd position are still invoking the ire of non-Mercedes fans. That would have been 10 times worse had they started the season like McLaren, and you know this..
The comments regarding sidepods are an outlier as they were the only ones with zeropods. They have the Data and we don't, but I assume that perhaps others may have the data and could share to this forum how they might know better than Mercedes waffling.

.
Caveat of course is that they have the 2nd place windtunnel hours. So it's no surprise they are more limited. I suggested they should strategically tank the WCC previously.

At this point, I'm looking more to Mclaren since they carry the P6 WindTunnel hours for the rest of the season. A sizeable advantage over RB and Mercedes. Mclaren look like they will be the ones to trouble RB in 2024 and their driver lineup is just as impressive as Mercs and more balanced than RBs (unless they bring Ricciardo).

It's an option for sure. I agree Mercedes should stop development on this car now, with only minimal development on the carryover parts for next year. Any excess savings on the budget cap from not introducing updates such as the floor would of course then be invested into the W15. The cockpit positioning, tub space/floor compromise of the vanilla W14 is a big hinderance anyway, and what can be garnered will not be easily 1:1 correlated into a differing concept.
So as it appears to be the concertina development pattern, I would only hazard a guess that this is the right way forwards given what Williams, Aston Martin and McLaren have done thus far.

[AR3-GP]

Be that as it may, Mercedes have repeatedly said they 2nd isn't what they are racing for. No team should be racing for that. But repeatedly these words get twisted. And Yes AMR made a big jump relative to throwing away and entire season last year. McLaren? Finished 5th last year and are 5th this year 100 points behind 4th with an outside chance of top 2.
I agree it's been an impressive turnaround, but at the cost of 30 races or a season and a half to get there.

Nobody remembers 2nd-10th place. I couldn't tell you where AMR or Mclaren finished last year with 100% accuracy. I just know it was somewhere at the back and they got a load of WT hours as a reward. Likewise, in 1-2 years time, I will not remember that Mercedes finished 2nd in 2023. Do you remember all of the 2nd and 3rds Ferrari racked up in the last decade? Could you recite the last decade of WCC positions for Ferrari? I could not. However, I could give you the WCC winner for at least 2 decades back from memory.

We have yet to see how the 2nd half plays out. Mercedes might finish ahead of McLaren this year without adding another update, while going balls deep into the W15. As Allision said, they are looking at rival ideas, including the McLaren updates and making choices as to what they can assimilate and learn from. It's still no guarantee of progress, as rival teams are faced with the same options in a confined ruleset.

Mercedes likely will finish 2nd in the WCC, but as I said above, no one remembers that. If Mclaren's plan to piss away 30 races and some change leads to an actual title, the title will be remembered more than some consistent second places.

But that's not true though. Merc have gone their way and are in 2nd position are still invoking the ire of non-Mercedes fans. That would have been 10 times worse had they started the season like McLaren, and you know this..
The comments regarding sidepods are an outlier as they were the only ones with zeropods. They have the Data and we don't, but I assume that perhaps others may have the data and could share to this forum how they might know better than Mercedes waffling.

I have seen even more criticism from fans of Mercedes and it's drivers in other places. Suggestions that Hamilton should quit this team. Constant jokes about the W13, etc etc. Anyway, Mercedes don't need to pander to random people on the internet or suits and ties in Stuttgart. They need to pander to a championship and strategize accordingly.

It's an option for sure. I agree Mercedes should stop development on this car now, with only minimal development on the carryover parts for next year. Any excess savings on the budget cap from not introducing updates such as the floor would of course then be invested into the W15. The cockpit positioning, tub space/floor compromise of the vanilla W14 is a big hinderance anyway, and what can be garnered will not be easily 1:1 correlated into a differing concept.
So as it appears to be the concertina development pattern, I would only hazard a guess that this is the right way forwards given what Williams, Aston Martin and McLaren have done thus far.

"Concertina development pattern". I like this terminology.

[Jambier]

RB pretty much secured the 2022 - 2025 regs for themselves with the RB18 as the baseline model,

Yes and maybe not: How do you all feel about tyre blanket ban?

This may change dramatically the pecking order for 2024

For instance we know that Aston doesn’t like cold tracks, they need very hot one and we can see the impact it have on them

So if there is new tyres, Pirelli already warn that it will be totally different, hence change the order I believe