2024 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[j_ste]

Speaking of race engineers. Seeing as LH keep experimenting with his setups, wouldn't it be better if Bono advise him not to do it or make suggestions etc? It seems that they both lost a bit.

What are they losing by it? They still get in the points...they arent faster than three other teams, maybe maybe four.

So they try stuff because the downside isnt that bad. Their reality is quite bad. If you cant experiment when you have no chance of winning...when can you?

[Cs98]

Russell most definitely doesn't just opt for the safe baseline, or is content with 6th to 8th. That's the reality of the level of the car.

What's the point in trying mythological extreme setup that doesn't bring any better results? It's obviously not providing any useful data either, as the improvement is not coming.

Engineering wise, Mercedes have slipped to the 5th best team from 4th last year. Other teams would have attempted a major restructuring by now but Toto is asleep on his entitlement.

The point is to keep the boat from rocking. Let Hamilton have his set-up excuses in public if it helps him deal with losing out to George. The alternative, being honest about it, could just upset him and lead to unnecessary public conflict for the team. Toto has experience from 2016, he doesn't want another war of words in the media, or another "maybe they're sabotaging me" inference from media darling Hamilton.

Looking at the race you could see Lewis had issues George didnt in the slow speed corners, he would lose 2-4 tenths in the slow speed and gain it back everywhere else, its why he couldnt pass Ocon or Piastri despite him having damage. Lewis also admitted that him not getting into Q2 was his fault and not the car or the team's

He didn't make the time back everywhere else, he was slower in every sector. He was a second a lap slower in the middle stint when they were both following 2s behind other cars, in the case of Lewis the Alpine which he couldn't close on.

[Luscion]

The point is to keep the boat from rocking. Let Hamilton have his set-up excuses in public if it helps him deal with losing out to George. The alternative, being honest about it, could just upset him and lead to unnecessary public conflict for the team. Toto has experience from 2016, he doesn't want another war of words in the media, or another "maybe they're sabotaging me" inference from media darling Hamilton.

Looking at the race you could see Lewis had issues George didnt in the slow speed corners, he would lose 2-4 tenths in the slow speed and gain it back everywhere else, its why he couldnt pass Ocon or Piastri despite him having damage. Lewis also admitted that him not getting into Q2 was his fault and not the car or the team's

He didn't make the time back everywhere else, he was slower in every sector. He was a second a lap slower in the middle stint when they were both following 2s behind other cars, in the case of Lewis the Alpine which he couldn't close on.

Chasing down Piastri he would get close to drs range, get to the slow corners, drop to around 1.4-1.6secs behind and make it back up again, rinse and repeat, he got within drs range of Piastri a couple times towards the end but would drop out of it before the detection point

[Cs98]

The extreme setups are useful. The result bad or good is not the point of the setups. It's to see how the car behaves at that extreme and the team moves in a certain direction from there.
Merc have been 5th fastest this season and last season. Lewis almost came 2nd in the championship with the 5th best car and no one remembers or respects that. What's the point in driving to repeat that this year?
Might as well experiment to improve the car.

You've been smoking that narrative for the past 3 years and it has not yielded any relative performance gain for the team in that time.

Let me ask, why do we not hear this same story all the time from other teams that aren't winning? Every other team with championship ambitions that is hunting for more performance would surely be engaging in these set-up "experiments" every weekend? Sacrificing performance here and now for long term development, right? You think a guy like Alonso cares about P7? Why isn't he out there talking about doing "experiments" every weekend to make the car competitive? As for Lewis, why is it only on the weekends where he loses out to George that we hear about these "experiments"? Have we ever gotten to hear about one of these "experiments" yielding a positive outcome relative to his teammate? "We experimented with set-up and I gained relative to George". Have we ever heard that?

[Cs98]

Looking at the race you could see Lewis had issues George didnt in the slow speed corners, he would lose 2-4 tenths in the slow speed and gain it back everywhere else, its why he couldnt pass Ocon or Piastri despite him having damage. Lewis also admitted that him not getting into Q2 was his fault and not the car or the team's

He didn't make the time back everywhere else, he was slower in every sector. He was a second a lap slower in the middle stint when they were both following 2s behind other cars, in the case of Lewis the Alpine which he couldn't close on.

Chasing down Piastri he would get close to drs range, get to the slow corners, drop to around 1.4-1.6secs behind and make it back up again, rinse and repeat, he got within drs range of Piastri a couple times towards the end but would drop out of it before the detection point

Which is why I didn't pick the final stint for my comparison, eventhough it still illustrates the lack of pace not being able to get into DRS it was too influenced by being close to Piastri. With Ocon in the middle stint, he couldn't even get within 1,5s, he was just legitimately doing similar pace as the Alpine, around a second a lap down on Russell/Alonso.

[Luscion]

He didn't make the time back everywhere else, he was slower in every sector. He was a second a lap slower in the middle stint when they were both following 2s behind other cars, in the case of Lewis the Alpine which he couldn't close on.

Chasing down Piastri he would get close to drs range, get to the slow corners, drop to around 1.4-1.6secs behind and make it back up again, rinse and repeat, he got within drs range of Piastri a couple times towards the end but would drop out of it before the detection point

Which is why I didn't pick the final stint for my comparison, eventhough it still illustrates the lack of pace not being able to get into DRS it was too influenced by being close to Piastri. With Ocon in the middle stint, he couldn't even get within 1,5s, he was just legitimately doing similar pace as the Alpine, around a second a lap down on Russell/Alonso.

i'm more so pointing out his issues in the slow speed corners and how much time he was losing in them because the car wouldnt turn, which didnt seem to be the case with Russell, not really his pace relative to him. Overall the car was pretty damn slow

[Cs98]

Chasing down Piastri he would get close to drs range, get to the slow corners, drop to around 1.4-1.6secs behind and make it back up again, rinse and repeat, he got within drs range of Piastri a couple times towards the end but would drop out of it before the detection point

Which is why I didn't pick the final stint for my comparison, eventhough it still illustrates the lack of pace not being able to get into DRS it was too influenced by being close to Piastri. With Ocon in the middle stint, he couldn't even get within 1,5s, he was just legitimately doing similar pace as the Alpine, around a second a lap down on Russell/Alonso.

i'm more so pointing out his issues in the slow speed corners and how much time he was losing in them because the car wouldnt turn, which didnt seem to be the case with Russell, not really his pace relative to him. Overall the car was pretty damn slow

Probably overcooked the rears. Bono was telling him to introduce lift and coast to get rear temps under control.

[ringo]

The extreme setups are useful. The result bad or good is not the point of the setups. It's to see how the car behaves at that extreme and the team moves in a certain direction from there.
Merc have been 5th fastest this season and last season. Lewis almost came 2nd in the championship with the 5th best car and no one remembers or respects that. What's the point in driving to repeat that this year?
Might as well experiment to improve the car.

You've been smoking that narrative for the past 3 years and it has not yielded any relative performance gain for the team in that time.

Let me ask, why do we not hear this same story all the time from other teams that aren't winning? Every other team with championship ambitions that is hunting for more performance would surely be engaging in these set-up "experiments" every weekend? Sacrificing performance here and now for long term development, right? You think a guy like Alonso cares about P7? Why isn't he out there talking about doing "experiments" every weekend to make the car competitive? As for Lewis, why is it only on the weekends where he loses out to George that we hear about these "experiments"? Have we ever gotten to hear about one of these "experiments" yielding a positive outcome relative to his teammate? "We experimented with set-up and I gained relative to George". Have we ever heard that?

It's different when you used to win trying to claw your way back. Than when you don't know how to win and settle for what you get.
Aston Martin and Alonso are Force India fundamentally. P7 is what they expect. Stroll is nowhere and Alonso is new to the team and has no reason to experiment. They car is solidly 3rd of 4th best car on the grid. Force India are glad with that status.
As for Lewis only complaining about setup when he loses to George. That's not true. Even when he is ahead he says he made some changes after Practice 3 that seem to work or wasnt the best. He always says that. Why would he be a spoiled sport if he gets a good result and complains? The hate brigade will say he is ungrateful etc. The man cannot win in the eyes of some.
But again, why did he experiment and come 3rd last year? Clearly he knows what he is doing. And clearly he doesnt see beating George as any kind of career goal to accomplish. He's just keeping his head down and smelling the roses and learning about car setups. He really has nothing to prove after 103 wins and 7wdc.

[ringo]

Whar could cause the car not to turn?
Load transfer to the rear, camber settings?
Seems this car has severe understeer. Even from Japan it was understeering.
That 3 element front wing they have is maybe to blame.

[CHT]

How many engineers Toto lost in the last 3-4 years? Mike Elliot got sacked for 2023 car but 2024 car is even worse. Even narrower sweet spot and race pace got worse as well as tyre deg in comparison to the 2022 and 2023 cars. Will Toto let James Allison go as well, I remember James saying during Bahrain pre-season tests that MB has a better race pace than Ferrari.

Mike quit Merc just couple of weeks after Lewis visited the factory's wind tunnel in Oct..I supposed something must happen during that time

Perhaps Toto is now having second thoughts.

As works team Toto much be under tremendous pressure when having AM fighting infront

[chrisc90]

How many engineers Toto lost in the last 3-4 years? Mike Elliot got sacked for 2023 car but 2024 car is even worse. Even narrower sweet spot and race pace got worse as well as tyre deg in comparison to the 2022 and 2023 cars. Will Toto let James Allison go as well, I remember James saying during Bahrain pre-season tests that MB has a better race pace than Ferrari.

Mike quit Merc just couple of weeks after Lewis visited the factory's wind tunnel in Oct..I supposed something must happen during that time

Perhaps Toto is now having second thoughts.

As works team Toto much be under tremendous pressure when having AM fighting infront

Toto is out of his depth IMHO. All started in 2021.

[Waz]

How many engineers Toto lost in the last 3-4 years? Mike Elliot got sacked for 2023 car but 2024 car is even worse. Even narrower sweet spot and race pace got worse as well as tyre deg in comparison to the 2022 and 2023 cars. Will Toto let James Allison go as well, I remember James saying during Bahrain pre-season tests that MB has a better race pace than Ferrari.

Mike quit Merc just couple of weeks after Lewis visited the factory's wind tunnel in Oct..I supposed something must happen during that time

Perhaps Toto is now having second thoughts.

As works team Toto much be under tremendous pressure when having AM fighting infront

Toto is out of his depth IMHO. All started in 2021.

Before that actually - the big name engineers all assembled by Ross Brawn started leaving from the beginning of 2019 or late 2018. Only James Allison remains, who was also the only big name recruit of Toto.

The effects of that were starting to be seen in development by 2021. PU development went off course around 2019 or so too.

Remember the "we spent our tokens but won't tell where"? Until it was obvious they hadn't used them.

[Stu]

Whar could cause the car not to turn?
Load transfer to the rear, camber settings?
Seems this car has severe understeer. Even from Japan it was understeering.
That 3 element front wing they have is maybe to blame.

It is a classic symptom of excessive anti-dive & not enough load (so should be entirely expected for very low speed corners like the hairpins on this track).

[DGP123]

Mike quit Merc just couple of weeks after Lewis visited the factory's wind tunnel in Oct..I supposed something must happen during that time

Perhaps Toto is now having second thoughts.

As works team Toto much be under tremendous pressure when having AM fighting infront

Toto is out of his depth IMHO. All started in 2021.

Before that actually - the big name engineers all assembled by Ross Brawn started leaving from the beginning of 2019 or late 2018. Only James Allison remains, who was also the only big name recruit of Toto.

The effects of that were starting to be seen in development by 2021. PU development went off course around 2019 or so too.

Remember the "we spent our tokens but won't tell where"? Until it was obvious they hadn't used them.

Yep. That’s why unless there is a serious recruitment drive, on top of, Simone Resta, they still won’t be challenging in, 26’. There’s no fundamental understanding of GE, and I doubt the engine advantage will as big as the hybrid era, which they seem to be relying on. McL will do a better job anyway, so that’s one rival you will be behind from the get-go. New era, same old problems is what I envisage, with George and a teenager on board.

[PlatinumZealot]

Russell most definitely doesn't just opt for the safe baseline, or is content with 6th to 8th. That's the reality of the level of the car.

What's the point in trying mythological extreme setup that doesn't bring any better results? It's obviously not providing any useful data either, as the improvement is not coming.

Engineering wise, Mercedes have slipped to the 5th best team from 4th last year. Other teams would have attempted a major restructuring by now but Toto is asleep on his entitlement.

The point is to keep the boat from rocking. Let Hamilton have his set-up excuses in public if it helps him deal with losing out to George. The alternative, being honest about it, could just upset him and lead to unnecessary public conflict for the team. Toto has experience from 2016, he doesn't want another war of words in the media, or another "maybe they're sabotaging me" inference from media darling Hamilton.

Why dont you beleive Hamilton based on what has happened before in 2022 and 2023?

I'm trying to understand why you are setting up you foot to be shoved squarely in your mouth by mid-seadon when Lewis is actually driving for pure performance?

You're playing a risky gsme bro. Never bet against, Lewis Hamilton they always say.