2024 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[Jurgen von Diaz]

I just don’t buy the experiment excuses. Never bought them in 22’ either. This was always going to be a difficult year for Lewis. He usually starts out slow anyway. If by race 5 he is still miles off then I will say the decline is real. At least he still has the race pace.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/merc ... /10587338/

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/merc ... /10589909/

What about George? He seems happy, comes to track, finds his setups and drives ok result. If the case is that without experiments Lewis would be faster than George, i don't thinks so. Why is it always Lewis that "sacrifices" his speed to the teams benefit? That sounds full time test driver or Lewis wants to do the experiments cause he is more lost with the car than George.

[chrisc90]

Surely the guy in the simulator should be able to test these pretty easily aswell.

[Luscion]

I just don’t buy the experiment excuses. Never bought them in 22’ either. This was always going to be a difficult year for Lewis. He usually starts out slow anyway. If by race 5 he is still miles off then I will say the decline is real. At least he still has the race pace.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/merc ... /10587338/

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/merc ... /10589909/

What about George? He seems happy, comes to track, finds his setups and drives ok result. If the case is that without experiments Lewis would be faster than George, i don't thinks so. Why is it always Lewis that "sacrifices" his speed to the teams benefit? That sounds full time test driver or Lewis wants to do the experiments cause he is more lost with the car than George.

it's been 3 weekends with another practice session to go out of a 24-race season, if you look at last year where there wasnt any talks of experiments, lewis finished ahead of russell 7 out of the first 12(techincally 11 as Imola was cancelled) races, with 4 podiums

[Jurgen von Diaz]

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/merc ... /10587338/

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/merc ... /10589909/

What about George? He seems happy, comes to track, finds his setups and drives ok result. If the case is that without experiments Lewis would be faster than George, i don't thinks so. Why is it always Lewis that "sacrifices" his speed to the teams benefit? That sounds full time test driver or Lewis wants to do the experiments cause he is more lost with the car than George.

it's been 3 weekends with another practice session to go out of a 24-race season, if you look at last year where there wasnt any talks of experiments, lewis finished ahead of russell 7 out of the first 12(techincally 11 as Imola was cancelled) races, with 4 podiums

I mean this is identical like '22. Hamilton "sacrifices" his speed for experiments, he isn't a number two driver isn't he? He should wonder why is it always him and not George? It has to be something that Lewis need to do that he can deliver the speed that George does right now.

[Jurgen von Diaz]

Sainz is in the same situation than Lewis and he already challenged Leclerc on the track. Mean while 7-time champion is doing test driving (again) for the team that he is leaving... wtf?

[dialtone]

How can some folks here criticize attempting to find the right setup for the car? There is no prize to win in FP1 and 2. If the team has correlation issues, how are they supposed to find what’s wrong if they don’t run these tests?

And why would any driver care about whether they are testing setup windows or going for performance in FP1-2?

I don’t understand how the evaluation of a team and driver is happening in FP2… Ham is leaving but he’s a professional and somehow here people think that he’s going to soil his reputation with the brand he’s been with for 20 years because he’s going to Ferrari next year? That would be so unprofessional as to be impossible.

[lio007]

Surely the guy in the simulator should be able to test these pretty easily aswell.

It's a bit confusing, because Anthony Davidson said in early 2024 that the car felt like a racecar for the first time in the sim.

[dialtone]

Surely the guy in the simulator should be able to test these pretty easily aswell.

It's a bit confusing, because Anthony Davidson said in early 2024 that the car felt like a racecar for the first time in the sim.

They have correlation issues, they’ve had for the past 2 years. How are they not solved is the real question. Running tests is what Ferrari did at Zandvoort where Leclerc was running extreme setups to figure out the car and after the race said that it was the turn around of the car thanks to the experiments. Leclerc crashed out in qualifying that weekend. This is what drivers and teams with correlation issues do.

[Cs98]

How can some folks here criticize attempting to find the right setup for the car? There is no prize to win in FP1 and 2. If the team has correlation issues, how are they supposed to find what’s wrong if they don’t run these tests?

And why would any driver care about whether they are testing setup windows or going for performance in FP1-2?

I don’t understand how the evaluation of a team and driver is happening in FP2… Ham is leaving but he’s a professional and somehow here people think that he’s going to soil his reputation with the brand he’s been with for 20 years because he’s going to Ferrari next year? That would be so unprofessional as to be impossible.

I don't think anyone cares about FP for the sake of FP. But so far there has been a pattern of poor practice sessions leading to poor quali and race results.

And why would any driver care about whether they are testing setup windows or going for performance in FP1-2?

Because if you are testing strange set-ups instead of marginally improving every session (from a baseline set-up) you end up behind the curve. I can't think of one race these past 3 years where Merc found special performance from all these "experiments". It's always them trying something weird and then having to revert to baseline when instead they could have spent that time adapting the baseline set-up to each driver's preferences.

[dialtone]

Because if you are testing strange set-ups instead of marginally improving every session (from a baseline set-up) you end up behind the curve. I can't think of one race these past 3 years where Merc found special performance from all these "experiments". It's always them trying something weird and then having to revert to baseline when instead they could have spent that time adapting the baseline set-up to each driver's preferences.

They have Russell for that. Lewis is happy to follow that setup window perhaps if it doesn’t work, or is more interested in figuring out what’s wrong and helping the team than extracting a bit extra performance from the car. He certainly could do better if he refined his setup, but I don’t get the ‘washed’ comments as if he’s not doing his job by doing this.

[Cs98]

They have Russell for that. Lewis is happy to follow that setup window perhaps if it doesn’t work, or is more interested in figuring out what’s wrong and helping the team than extracting a bit extra performance from the car. He certainly could do better if he refined his setup, but I don’t get the ‘washed’ comments as if he’s not doing his job by doing this.

Again, nothing suggests these experiments over the past few years have helped or led the team in the right direction. The problem does not lie in the set-up, it's in design and correlation. Also, Russell's set-up is developed for Russell.

[dialtone]

They have Russell for that. Lewis is happy to follow that setup window perhaps if it doesn’t work, or is more interested in figuring out what’s wrong and helping the team than extracting a bit extra performance from the car. He certainly could do better if he refined his setup, but I don’t get the ‘washed’ comments as if he’s not doing his job by doing this.

Again, nothing suggests these experiments over the past few years have helped or led the team in the right direction. The problem does not lie in the set-up, it's in design. Also, Russell's set-up is developed for Russell.

The problem is in the design yeah, how do you suggest they figure out what’s wrong if they have correlation issues?

[Cs98]

They have Russell for that. Lewis is happy to follow that setup window perhaps if it doesn’t work, or is more interested in figuring out what’s wrong and helping the team than extracting a bit extra performance from the car. He certainly could do better if he refined his setup, but I don’t get the ‘washed’ comments as if he’s not doing his job by doing this.

Again, nothing suggests these experiments over the past few years have helped or led the team in the right direction. The problem does not lie in the set-up, it's in design. Also, Russell's set-up is developed for Russell.

The problem is in the design yeah, how do you suggest they figure out what’s wrong if they have correlation issues?

I suggest they try to hoan in on the best performing set-up every weekend, step by step, not getting ahead of themselves. Then try to find the common denominator between the best performing set-ups and apply that knowledge to the simulator. The issue I have is these "experiments" seem more like stabs in the dark. It's trying to take three steps at once and more often than not (if not always) they end up back on square one.

[Il Leone]

Surely the guy in the simulator should be able to test these pretty easily aswell.

It's a bit confusing, because Anthony Davidson said in early 2024 that the car felt like a racecar for the first time in the sim.

Lewis was also saying the same things and now he's back to complaining.

For me he knows he's struggling to match Russell and is looking for ways to find that lost pace.

[dialtone]

Again, nothing suggests these experiments over the past few years have helped or led the team in the right direction. The problem does not lie in the set-up, it's in design. Also, Russell's set-up is developed for Russell.

The problem is in the design yeah, how do you suggest they figure out what’s wrong if they have correlation issues?

I suggest they try to hoan in on the best performing set-up every weekend, step by step, not getting ahead of themselves. Then try to find the common denominator between the best performing set-ups and apply that knowledge to the simulator. The issue I have is these "experiments" seem more like stabs in the dark. It's trying to take three steps at once and more often than not (if not always) they end up back on square one.

I don’t think you have the data to say their way of experimenting is flawed. They are also certainly doing what you say since Russell is doing it. More tests and more data is always better for analysis.

I would really just wonder why they haven’t found the issue yet, the drivers have no fault here, they are paid to do what the engineers tell them to.