2023 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[georgekyr]

I don't think Mercedes has genuine fan following per se. Most current Mercedes fans are Lewis fans that came over from McLaren. I bet if Lewis leaves the team and Mercedes continues to be 2nd best or 3rd best, they would hardly have any following. Even if Lewis continues for another few years, but Mercedes doesn't have a winner, we would see the same with slightly lesser effect. Ferrari and McLaren have special following in that sense.

I believe that as well when discussing with friends. I am also a McLaren fan, following closely Merc because of Lewis for the past decade+. In order to find true Merc fans you need to go down to the younger people now 15-30 years old. The first memories they have is the silver arrows winning deciding to support that team. I am 43 and my first memories are the epic battles of Senna with Prost and Mansell.
F1 is unique (ok along with some more sports) were you can do indeed follow a driver beyond the team. I mean all I wanted when Senna got in that dreaded Williams, was for Williams to win. I do the same now with Lewis, but I am getting excited that my fav team is getting its act together.
Still, now I want Hamilton to become once again a world champion and Merc to give him that chance.
Going over to Ferrari would be the biggest marketing move in F1 ever and especially if he won a championship with them he would become the undisputed legend of all time probably for all time...And I would be cheering for the red car (for just 1 year...)

[Just_a_fan]

Just seems that fans have lost a bit of faith in Mercedes.

imo, the ones that's have lost faith are the fairweather fans, and those fans who jump from one team/driver to the another, because they "can't only be associated with people winning".

Merc AMG is still a fairly young team, founded in 2010 with Nico and 7x WDC(MS) and they have gone on to win 8 WCC from 2014 to 2021. I guess some Merc fans are perhaps new to F1 or too used to winning and they also hoping for instant success and recovery. the thought of Merc struggling is just incomprehensible at the moment.

Williams, Ferrari, Mclaren, Renault, RBR etc have all done through their highs and very low, and now Merc is having their moments I guess

The team's current name may be young, but the team itself has a much deeper history than 2010. Some suggest that Merc's success was all down to Brawn and his 1-year team that was bought by Merc. Others know that it goes back to one of the famous historic teams - a team that won world titles back in the 1960s and 1970s.

But that's the difference between team fans and F1 fans, I guess.

[Farnborough]

imo, the ones that's have lost faith are the fairweather fans, and those fans who jump from one team/driver to the another, because they "can't only be associated with people winning".

Merc AMG is still a fairly young team, founded in 2010 with Nico and 7x WDC(MS) and they have gone on to win 8 WCC from 2014 to 2021. I guess some Merc fans are perhaps new to F1 or too used to winning and they also hoping for instant success and recovery. the thought of Merc struggling is just incomprehensible at the moment.

Williams, Ferrari, Mclaren, Renault, RBR etc have all done through their highs and very low, and now Merc is having their moments I guess

The team's current name may be young, but the team itself has a much deeper history than 2010. Some suggest that Merc's success was all down to Brawn and his 1-year team that was bought by Merc. Others know that it goes back to one of the famous historic teams - a team that won world titles back in the 1960s and 1970s.

But that's the difference between team fans and F1 fans, I guess.

Funnily, I was looking over some bicycle parts at a little cycle "jumble" recently, picked up a hand rivetted construction as interesting and recognising it's form, the guy with the stand turned out to have worked for Uncle Ken and furthermore had rivetted, by hand, some of those world championship winning chassis. Had a nice conversation about various car including the six wheeler.

We were just west of Ockham

[georgekyr]

Well if you suggest that a Tyrell fan ought to support the current Merc team, because Tyrell was bought by BAR, which by the way used a different factory, chassis builder and engine and that evolved to Honda, which evolved to Brawn and then Merc,
Or that Aston Martin is essentially Jordan.
Or that Minardi is still racing under the logo of Alpha Tauri
Or that Stewart's fans are simply now RB fans because of all the Ford/Jaguar evolution line.
then oh well, I simply do not follow that line of thinking.

I have to note that the above are different for example in the Sauber team, where they sell essentially the branding and the organism remains the same.

[Farnborough]

Well if you suggest that a Tyrell fan ought to support the current Merc team, because Tyrell was bought by BAR, which by the way used a different factory, chassis builder and engine and that evolved to Honda, which evolved to Brawn and then Merc,
Or that Aston Martin is essentially Jordan.
Or that Minardi is still racing under the logo of Alpha Tauri
Or that Stewart's fans are simply now RB fans because of all the Ford/Jaguar evolution line.
then oh well, I simply do not follow that line of thinking.

I have to note that the above are different for example in the Sauber team, where they sell essentially the branding and the organism remains the same.

I feel you may have missed the subtlety and nuance of the original post

[georgekyr]

Well if you suggest that a Tyrell fan ought to support the current Merc team, because Tyrell was bought by BAR, which by the way used a different factory, chassis builder and engine and that evolved to Honda, which evolved to Brawn and then Merc,
Or that Aston Martin is essentially Jordan.
Or that Minardi is still racing under the logo of Alpha Tauri
Or that Stewart's fans are simply now RB fans because of all the Ford/Jaguar evolution line.
then oh well, I simply do not follow that line of thinking.

I have to note that the above are different for example in the Sauber team, where they sell essentially the branding and the organism remains the same.

I feel you may have missed the subtlety and nuance of the original post

Fair enough!

[CHT]

We all know James Allison has been involved in designing many championship-winning cars, perhaps only 2nd to AN.
And he too had also a dry spell from 2007 to 2017, a good 10 years without a championship car.

Perhaps finishing close 2nd or 3rd may not be such a bad thing.

[Stu]

https://scontent.flba3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/ ... e=64B54296

Is anyone else sick & tired of the Martketing 101 b******t!?

Only one team can win, competition is about challenging and beating your adversaries; sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes you win spite of yourselves, sometimes you win regardless. Ron Dennis started the whole 2nd place is first loser nonsense.

I don't understand the negativity around Mercedes and how/what they choose to communicate with their fans in the Mercedes Team thread...

… You can never copy a concept and do it better than the original, as is evidenced by every copy cat car in existence (please be gentle, not a F1 historian).

My statement was driven by a general exasperation at the kind of drivel that ‘needing’ to post ‘something’ on the socials encourages among the great & good to do.

Sometimes it is best to say nothing (or very little - “we really aren’t happy with our car’s performance and want to take the fight to RedBull” would suffice).

[Just_a_fan]

Is anyone else sick & tired of the Martketing 101 b******t!?

Only one team can win, competition is about challenging and beating your adversaries; sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes you win spite of yourselves, sometimes you win regardless. Ron Dennis started the whole 2nd place is first loser nonsense.

I don't understand the negativity around Mercedes and how/what they choose to communicate with their fans in the Mercedes Team thread...

… You can never copy a concept and do it better than the original, as is evidenced by every copy cat car in existence (please be gentle, not a F1 historian).

My statement was driven by a general exasperation at the kind of drivel that ‘needing’ to post ‘something’ on the socials encourages among the great & good to do.

Sometimes it is best to say nothing (or very little - “we really aren’t happy with our car’s performance and want to take the fight to RedBull” would suffice).

Funny you're so animated about Mercedes doing this.

[PlatinumZealot]

We all know James Allison has been involved in designing many championship-winning cars, perhaps only 2nd to AN.
And he too had also a dry spell from 2007 to 2017, a good 10 years without a championship car.

Perhaps finishing close 2nd or 3rd may not be such a bad thing.

That's right. Mercedes are in front of three faster teams at the moment. Two of them were faster on average over the season so far. A great achievement.

[Sevach]

My statement was driven by a general exasperation at the kind of drivel that ‘needing’ to post ‘something’ on the socials encourages among the great & good to do.

Sometimes it is best to say nothing (or very little - “we really aren’t happy with our car’s performance and want to take the fight to RedBull” would suffice).

Yeah, there's a big "this is beneath me" vibe everytime Toto opens his mouth.
Makes me wish he remains stuck in this no mans land forever.

[zibby43]

Is anyone else sick & tired of the Martketing 101 b******t!?

Only one team can win, competition is about challenging and beating your adversaries; sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes you win spite of yourselves, sometimes you win regardless. Ron Dennis started the whole 2nd place is first loser nonsense.

I don't understand the negativity around Mercedes and how/what they choose to communicate with their fans in the Mercedes Team thread...

… You can never copy a concept and do it better than the original, as is evidenced by every copy cat car in existence (please be gentle, not a F1 historian).

My statement was driven by a general exasperation at the kind of drivel that ‘needing’ to post ‘something’ on the socials encourages among the great & good to do.

Sometimes it is best to say nothing (or very little - “we really aren’t happy with our car’s performance and want to take the fight to RedBull” would suffice).

I don’t think Merc’s sponsors would be thrilled with that. There’s a commercial side to this business that is as equally important to the sporting side.

[JordanMugen]

Is anyone else sick & tired of the Martketing 101 b******t!?

Mercedes-Benz's slogan is literally "The Best or Nothing." Even Ferrari does not claim this, even though some might argue Ferrari road cars are sometimes more exotic than Mercedes!

For many years, the performance of Mercedes GP Petronas lived up to this. Now it does not.

When you make a claim of building "the best", the absolute finest of all motor vehicles (far better than any Alfa Romeo or Acura), it is logical you would seek to reinforce this superiority on the racing track.

In 2021, the rhetoric was that Merc didnt bring any major upgrade (bar Silverstone + the engine trick at the end of the year) to completly focus on 2022 while Red Bull was bringing update and sacrificied the 2022 development...

In the end, we saw what we saw

The Red Bull RB18 design rolled out with many measures to mitigate porpoising, including a gentle floor geometry to minimise ride height sensitivity. The Mercedes W13 seemingly rolled out with no measures to mitigate porpoising whatsoever and a very aggressive floor geometry with extremely strong ride height sensitivity -- albeit with spectacular downforce numbers in the wind tunnel.

But this is by the by, the more pertinent issue that Mercedes (and Ferrari) seemed to have underestimated the rate of improvement of the competition for the start of the 2023 season and did not improve their car sufficiently to start the 2023 season. It seems both teams set targets which were too low in terms of lap time improvement for their 2023 launch car compared to their 2022 car.

However, the Mercedes W14 is still a very solid upper midfield car and a fine bit of kit!

You can never copy a concept and do it better than the original, as is evidenced by every copy cat car in existence (please be gentle, not a F1 historian).

Williams FW04, an improved copy of the Lotus 79, won the world championship! [An unsubtantiated rumour is there was a Lotus 79 model "lying around" at the Imperial College wind tunnel which both Lotus and Williams hired...]

It seems Lotus overreached with the successor Lotus 80 which developed balance & porpoising problems (despite producing huge peak downforce numbers in the wind tunnel & on track in some situations -- sound familiar?) and then tried to fix that by focussing development spend on the even more radical twin-chassis Lotus 88 which was never allowed to race. Of course, the 50mm ride height rule and then flat floor rule came not long after this, creating a new era of Formula One.

[JordanMugen]

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.

Only if there are major problems with the old car like its layout and crash structure positions. If you are bringing an evolution, I don't think it's a major advantage.

Even if you are bring a radically different car, you still need to be confident that what you are doing is correct. No use spending 6 months designing a car, then putting it on the track and finding that it doesn't behave the same in the real world as the virtual world!

[Just_a_fan]

Williams FW04, an improved copy of the Lotus 79, won the world championship!

FW07.

The FW04 was a dog.