2023 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[j_ste]

For LH, his only chance of winning a WDC is if Merc can give him a can that is superior to the rest, as I think an "equal" car will not be sufficient to mount a challenge against a team like RBR + Max, who is now at his prime.

Looking at LH driving today, he is more like a gentleman and ambassador, rather than a ruthless fighter like Max we see today.

Nonsense. That equal car line you’ve copied from Marko, post weekend.

You may not like it, but LH driving at the moment is just reliable, predictable, and ordinary; aside from Hungary pole there was not much to talk about, and even with that LH didn't benefit on Sunday. LH is nowhere near his prime when he is able to take more risk and steal a win or 2 without the best car on the grid. Just like Max did in 2017 with RBR, securing a couple of wins with the 3rd best car on the grid.

Predictable and ordinary in a car he cant stand or understand, is great. The machines will only go as fast as they can go...and that speed is not in the realms of a Red Bull.

It was actually impressive that he was as fast as he was at Spa. Comsidering the adversity of the weekend...format and update related

[ValeVida46]

I'd say a lot of the teams have had issues with nailing a set-up, even for non-sprint weekends.

That's a given, but it's a relative situation. Mercedes tend to find the most with more running. Other teams tend to get better results with less running.
How many Fridays do we have Hamilton saying the car is nowhere, only for the car to turn around in FP2 and 3 relative their Friday position? Or he bags a podium on Sunday and people are questioning his comments from Friday?
As some have pointed out, they are still effectively running the start of season floor, itself a closely evolved iteration of the 2022 floor. Merc had a ton of set up headaches last year, and I think the link between the 2 is reflected in Merc needing more time to find a working baseline.

[CHT]

Nonsense. That equal car line you’ve copied from Marko, post weekend.

You may not like it, but LH driving at the moment is just reliable, predictable, and ordinary; aside from Hungary pole there was not much to talk about, and even with that LH didn't benefit on Sunday. LH is nowhere near his prime when he is able to take more risk and steal a win or 2 without the best car on the grid. Just like Max did in 2017 with RBR, securing a couple of wins with the 3rd best car on the grid.

https://www.sportskeeda.com/f1/2023-f1- ... er-ratings

Predictable and ordinary in a car he cant stand or understand, is great. The machines will only go as fast as they can go...and that speed is not in the realms of a Red Bull.

It was actually impressive that he was as fast as he was at Spa. Comsidering the adversity of the weekend...format and update related

Some may not agree
https://www.sportskeeda.com/f1/2023-f1- ... er-ratings

[Just_a_fan]

Technically yes it is, raise the car to stop the cycle looping into amplified vertical travel and it goes away, then it's slow.

Exactly the conundrum they started with in 2022.

That's not what the engineers mean!

1. A sprint weekend
2. No dry running prior to the actual race.
3. Multiple upgrades for the weekend.

The above is an excellent way to end up with a car that wasn't set-up properly. Not to mention, if memory serves the wet weather tires are still larger in diameter and thus that alters ride height by default.

Every team is facing pretty much the same challenges over the weekend and I guess the main difference is that Merc has got a fundamental design issue that makes the car difficult to set up. Merc is still struggling with the unpredictability of the car and this is not a good sign for their 2024 campaign

The car has certain hardpoints that can not be changed mid-season thanks to the budget cap. So the W14 is always going to be hamstrung to some extent. The W15 is the first chance the team has for a wholesale change rather than the current mash-up that is basically a reskinned W13.

[Just_a_fan]

You may not like it, but LH driving at the moment is just reliable, predictable, and ordinary; aside from Hungary pole there was not much to talk about, and even with that LH didn't benefit on Sunday. LH is nowhere near his prime when he is able to take more risk and steal a win or 2 without the best car on the grid. Just like Max did in 2017 with RBR, securing a couple of wins with the 3rd best car on the grid.

https://www.sportskeeda.com/f1/2023-f1- ... er-ratings

Predictable and ordinary in a car he cant stand or understand, is great. The machines will only go as fast as they can go...and that speed is not in the realms of a Red Bull.

It was actually impressive that he was as fast as he was at Spa. Comsidering the adversity of the weekend...format and update related

Some may not agree
https://www.sportskeeda.com/f1/2023-f1- ... er-ratings

Lewis would have gotten a better score if the sprint part of his weekend was better. Unfortunately, it wasn't. The incident in qualifying with Russell was hard to understand, and he was probably a bit overzealous against Perez as well.

So Russell messing up his own last Quali lap and then blocking Hamilton is a sign that Hamilton was sub-par? Strange metric that.

[AMG.Tzan]

You may not like it, but LH driving at the moment is just reliable, predictable, and ordinary; aside from Hungary pole there was not much to talk about, and even with that LH didn't benefit on Sunday. LH is nowhere near his prime when he is able to take more risk and steal a win or 2 without the best car on the grid. Just like Max did in 2017 with RBR, securing a couple of wins with the 3rd best car on the grid.

https://www.sportskeeda.com/f1/2023-f1- ... er-ratings

Predictable and ordinary in a car he cant stand or understand, is great. The machines will only go as fast as they can go...and that speed is not in the realms of a Red Bull.

It was actually impressive that he was as fast as he was at Spa. Comsidering the adversity of the weekend...format and update related

Some may not agree
https://www.sportskeeda.com/f1/2023-f1- ... er-ratings

“a bit overzealous with Perez” - excellent article

Meanwhile the whole point of Sprints is racing harder for shorter periods of time! Yet people find Lewis attacking quite harsh…as if the championship isn’t already dead in terms of racing! People will always find something wrong in a guy they don’t like! So in other words:

-Lewis takes an opportunity to pass someone “oh he’s overdriving and taking unnecessary risks”
-Lewis doesn’t attack “oh he’s reliable, predictable and ordinary”

I wouldn’t call the pole in Hungary predictable really…a Mclaren on pole would have been more predictable really! Lewis’s performance this year has been great! If it wasn’t for Russell we may have been talking about another pole position! And if it wasn’t for the wrong penalty in the sprint he would have been 3rd in the WDC!

I don’t remember Max winning or taking pole positions all the time when Mercedes was dominating even though Mercedes didn’t even have that kind of advantage Red Bull now has and there were 3-4 tracks were Mercedes always faltered! Not to mention the amount of crashes Max was causing back then…

[Spoutnik]

For LH, his only chance of winning a WDC is if Merc can give him a can that is superior to the rest, as I think an "equal" car will not be sufficient to mount a challenge against a team like RBR + Max, who is now at his prime.

Looking at LH driving today, he is more like a gentleman and ambassador, rather than a ruthless fighter like Max we see today.

Nonsense. That equal car line you’ve copied from Marko, post weekend.

I am not sure which Marko line you are referring to. All I know is in F1, records are meant to be broken and there will always be a new quickest driver on the grid. And at the moment it's Max.

You may not like it, but LH driving at the moment is just reliable, predictable, and ordinary; aside from Hungary pole there was not much to talk about, and even with that LH didn't benefit on Sunday. LH is nowhere near his prime when he is able to take more risk and steal a win or 2 without the best car on the grid. Just like Max did in 2017 with RBR, securing a couple of wins with the 3rd best car on the grid.

The same can be said with Valentino Rossi career in MotoGP, still the GOAT, but not necessarily the quickest on the grid anymore.

Imo, at halfway point this season, there's no driver who performed better than Lewis if we exclude Verstappen. He extracted close to 100% of the car each race, and his only subpar race was Austria but the car was slow out there.

He's pretty consistent.
P5, P5, P2, P6, P6, P4, P2, P3, P8, P3, P4, P4
He has not done any mistakes apart from the crash in FP3 at Monaco : i.e Alonso puts it in the wall in the Sprint race, Leclerc had some shunts, Sainz... I will not elaborate, same for Perez. Russell put it in the wall in Canada and had lot more Q2 exit.

He managed to keep Alonso behind for 2nd in Australia... the Merc had no right to be here.
He's 49 pts ahead of his teamates... who's not Lance Stroll so it means something. He's 1 pt behind Alonso who had the better car until Silverstone.

There's what journalist are saying : comparing him to Russell, "he's finished", "Woa Alonso is at his prime" and the reality. Hamilton is the best "racer" (finishing the highest possible on sunday) with Verstappen.

[Sidiamal]

If being 1 point off P3 of the WDC with a car that's been firmly 3rd best and 49 points up on a teammate that popular consensus considers a future world champion and one of the best talents on the grid is ordinary and predictable the problem may not be the "ordinary" driver in question but the person making the assessment having very odd standards.

[AR3-GP]

Interesting Move: Adil El Ouazizi Aerodynamics Team Leader at Red Bull has joined Mercedes as Principal Aerodynamicist.

[chrisc90]

Belgium Race Debrief

[CHT]

Belgium Race Debrief

.As many have discussed here @5.03 Merc is indeed still struggling to understand the car.

[chrisc90]

Belgium Race Debrief

.As many have discussed here @5.03 Merc is indeed still struggling to understand the car.

To a degree I think there is still some misunderstanding - but that’s probably the same for a lot of teams down the grid.

I think what he means is try to understand where the car is working and where it’s not, from a aero point of view. Setup generally finds its feet in the simulator and in free practice where some decent running can be had.
I, and others, still seem to think there is something ‘missing’ at the minute with Mercedes. I have a feeling they haven’t managed to find just the right way the ground effect cars get their performance and can have a wide setup window like RB where if it’s not perfect, the car is still forgiving. It could also be the simulation tools aren’t quite where they need to be - toto did say that the tools they made 10 years ago aren’t truly suitable for this era of car.
They will find their feet - I imagine there will be a few small upgrades in the second half of the season to see what they are learning from the data and runs and how to shape the car for the 2024 season. They need to work out where the W14 suffers and resolve that in the W15.

At the minute, I really don’t think the mid wing is hampering their performance a vast amount. I think they are learning how to shape the airflow around the side pods at the minute - hence we seen a more undercutting sidepod in spa - which is likely the direction they will take for the W15.
Of course - sidepod airflow is also helped by the floor and the floor edge so they will be crucial areas they need to work on.

[CHT]

Belgium Race Debrief

.As many have discussed here @5.03 Merc is indeed still struggling to understand the car.

To a degree I think there is still some misunderstanding - but that’s probably the same for a lot of teams down the grid.

I think what he means is try to understand where the car is working and where it’s not, from a aero point of view. Setup generally finds its feet in the simulator and in free practice where some decent running can be had.
I, and others, still seem to think there is something ‘missing’ at the minute with Mercedes. I have a feeling they haven’t managed to find just the right way the ground effect cars get their performance and can have a wide setup window like RB where if it’s not perfect, the car is still forgiving. It could also be the simulation tools aren’t quite where they need to be - toto did say that the tools they made 10 years ago aren’t truly suitable for this era of car.
They will find their feet - I imagine there will be a few small upgrades in the second half of the season to see what they are learning from the data and runs and how to shape the car for the 2024 season. They need to work out where the W14 suffers and resolve that in the W15.

At the minute, I really don’t think the mid wing is hampering their performance a vast amount. I think they are learning how to shape the airflow around the side pods at the minute - hence we seen a more undercutting sidepod in spa - which is likely the direction they will take for the W15.
Of course - sidepod airflow is also helped by the floor and the floor edge so they will be crucial areas they need to work on.

Merc approach seems very odd to me. I would have thought that Merc should rebuild the car from the bottom up instead of top down. ie. to introduce a new floor before other major upgrades. Without a solid foundation, anything they put on top will most unlikely to work and when they introduce a new floor, earlier upgrades may or may not work.

What Merc is going through right now reminds me of Mclaren MP4-18, ie. gambling on too radical design.
https://www.carthrottle.com/post/ajmggyd/

[AR3-GP]

.As many have discussed here @5.03 Merc is indeed still struggling to understand the car.

To a degree I think there is still some misunderstanding - but that’s probably the same for a lot of teams down the grid.

I think what he means is try to understand where the car is working and where it’s not, from a aero point of view. Setup generally finds its feet in the simulator and in free practice where some decent running can be had.
I, and others, still seem to think there is something ‘missing’ at the minute with Mercedes. I have a feeling they haven’t managed to find just the right way the ground effect cars get their performance and can have a wide setup window like RB where if it’s not perfect, the car is still forgiving. It could also be the simulation tools aren’t quite where they need to be - toto did say that the tools they made 10 years ago aren’t truly suitable for this era of car.
They will find their feet - I imagine there will be a few small upgrades in the second half of the season to see what they are learning from the data and runs and how to shape the car for the 2024 season. They need to work out where the W14 suffers and resolve that in the W15.

At the minute, I really don’t think the mid wing is hampering their performance a vast amount. I think they are learning how to shape the airflow around the side pods at the minute - hence we seen a more undercutting sidepod in spa - which is likely the direction they will take for the W15.
Of course - sidepod airflow is also helped by the floor and the floor edge so they will be crucial areas they need to work on.

Merc approach seems very odd to me. I would have thought that Merc should rebuild the car from the bottom up instead of top down. ie. to introduce a new floor before other major upgrades. Without a solid foundation, anything they put on top will most unlikely to work and when they introduce a new floor, earlier upgrades may or may not work.

What Merc is going through right now reminds me of Mclaren MP4-18, ie. gambling on too radical design.
https://www.carthrottle.com/post/ajmggyd/

Mercedes would like to change their monocoque, in order to have the floor they would like. They can't change the monocoque within the season due to cost, so they have to wait until the W15 to test those ideas.

[organic]

Belgium Race Debrief

.As many have discussed here @5.03 Merc is indeed still struggling to understand the car.

I think you're reading far too much into that bit

Every team is taking a huge amount of learning and understanding from their cars to better develop their 2024 cars. Andrea Stella has said that many times in both recent times and towards the beginning of the season

Mike Elliott isn't saying that they're lacking understanding of the car. Simply that more understanding is to come. Merc have historically been brilliant at slowly and methodically unpicking their car's performance and discovering new traits & setup windows as the season progresses - w12's post-silverstone characteristics are a good example

So yes I don't think many alarm bells should be or will be ringing when Merc fans hear what he says