2024 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[organic]

But those in front was on old mediums, not new. old mediums that had been sliding around all over the shop..... they was worn, highly worn, you could tell, because LH was catching them with the hard tyre, and GR caught them extremly easy on his mediums. Softs would have been the tyre if that was Redbull, ill be shocked if Horner doesnt mention it some time, just for a dig at Toto.

George was in front of him on new mediums! How is this so hard to grasp? New softs behind new mediums makes no sense, you'd waste the best part of the tyre chasing your own teammate and then by the time you are supposed to overtake the McLarens you've already used up the best performance. Now if you only view it from the perspective of Hamilton (which I know most in this thread always do), then maybe you'd want the softs just to have a better chance of getting a shot of passing George in those first laps. But from a team perspective it doesn't make sense to adopt such a strategy since they don't care about the order between teammates, and wouldn't want them losing time fighting each other anyways.

All these issues for Lewis can be explained by one thing, track position due to poor quali.

Simple solution: lewis on softs russel step aside to lewis ago at the mclarens.

Here the softs wouldn't work like that. They're C5 and the race was going to be a 2-stop using two sets of hards without rain. The softs would be cooked after 5 laps

[ringo]

I guess you are the Pirelli engineer.
The softs would be fine. The track had more than 55 laps of rubber baked down in it and the fuel weight was low.
The softs would have made it to the end even if they lost their edge.

[denyall]

A typical Mercedes weekend haha. At least it was a podium and fourth and not sixth and seventh again.

Car still isn't working but getting better. Next races will be fun if the path continues and they are faster every weekend.

Certainly seems that Allison's leadership is paying dividends after the complete rework of the car.

[CHT]

A typical Mercedes weekend haha. At least it was a podium and fourth and not sixth and seventh again.

Car still isn't working but getting better. Next races will be fun if the path continues and they are faster every weekend.

Certainly seems that Allison's leadership is paying dividends after the complete rework of the car.

Barcelona will be a good track to gauge the pecking order.

[ringo]

I think regardless of what would have happened had Lewis gone on the soft. They team should have given him what he wanted. They had nothing to gain being conservative with a hard tyre. They hard meant he was predetermined to hold station, unless George crashes out.
I can sense the frustration with Lewis. He can only blame himself and the team also for the Q3 bad lap.
His time will come this year. He is more competitive for the first time this year. The car can run with the Mclarens today.
George's time will come also, but he's going to need to control him impulsiveness. He could have wait another lap to overtake Piastri.

[Dunlay]

A month back, nobody could have predicted Mercedes taking a podium with authority. Great progress with the development. If the progress continues, it would become common sight for Mercedes to be winning races again. Great weekend for George. He did a great job, albeit with a couple of mistakes. Pole and a podium under unpredictable circumstances is happy outcome. Hopefully both cars can be on podium regularly.

[venkyhere]

The true 'worth' of this new front wing will be revealed at Barcelona, where it isn't just slow turns and straights.

On the much debated 'why did they put HAM on H for lap55 safety car'
- they knew from the inter to slick changeover that the advantage M had over H in pure pace, on their car, far outweighed the longevity advantage of H ; as in the first stint on slicks, HAM with M was much faster than RUS fighting at the front with his H.
- RUS is the lead driver now, the team will 100% want to 'not have a fight between drivers' on a safety car restart, so because they wanted RUS to go on fresh M, they forced HAM to H ; since they didn't want a fight. They prioritized this, over a possible P2 for HAM had they simply left him on M itself (like how Redbull and McLaren left their cars on a few lap old Ms), there was enough tyre life on M for everyone. They wanted the P2 to go to RUS instead of HAM. They ended up throwing P2 away and settling for P3. I don't find anything wrong with it - HAM has been advantaged by them for so many years in the past, having their guinea pig driver BOT. If HAM is pissed off now, time to suck it up, that's how the game goes.

It is nothing else.

[ringo]

Bottas was no guinea pig. 11 wins is more than any #2 driver was getting. Over the years Bottas had virtually equal treatment. There was only a race or 2 he was asked to give Lewis the priority, and that happened when he could not go faster. For what Hamilton has accomplished, he hasn't received true #1 status even with all those championships.
It's unfair, but he can only suck it up. He has no one to seek justice from. All he can do is drive the nuts off the car harder than George can and try to qualify better. Bono is probably upset Lewis is leaving him also, and will give Lewis the short end of the stick without hesitating.
Interesting situation at Merc, but it makes the season exciting to see how Hamilton deals with the adversity. Can he come out on top while getting the Mark Webber treatment?

[214270]

It went unnoticed on the broadcast but HAM got shafted by ZHO who parked himself on the dry line. Gap to PIA went from about 2 to 6s.

https://imgur.com/a/3V7bGvu

On a separate note, OCO to Mercedes for ‘25 picking up steam. Sounds like they’re waving the white flag on ANT if that’s the case - if the SAI pursuit is real, he might not even get a Williams drive.

[PinkFloydPulse]

They would be proper mad to take OCO onboard…

[Hammerfist]

It went unnoticed on the broadcast but HAM got shafted by ZHO who parked himself on the dry line. Gap to PIA went from about 2 to 6s.

https://imgur.com/a/3V7bGvu

On a separate note, OCO to Mercedes for ‘25 picking up steam. Sounds like they’re waving the white flag on ANT if that’s the case - if the SAI pursuit is real, he might not even get a Williams drive.

I remember noticing that in the live timing. I assumed he had an off. Thanks for posting.

Giving up on kimi? No way. But those f2 results need improvement. Perhaps Merc feel the same about that.

[JordanMugen]

Simple solution: lewis on softs russel step aside to lewis ago at the mclarens.

Russel is the lead driver! Why would you do that, it doesn't make sense to put your lead driver under pressure.

[Dunlay]

Simple solution: lewis on softs russel step aside to lewis ago at the mclarens.

Russel is the lead driver! Why would you do that, it doesn't make sense to put your lead driver under pressure.

If Mercedes was convinced that the Softs can make it, they would have bolted the same to George.

Mercedes need more dynamic strategy engineers. When the SC came out, they had 16 laps to go and that's why they made the decision to put the mediums and hards to both and not go with Softs. IMO what they failed to account was that they were going to lose a few laps behind SC and the lapped car of Zhou was behind the top 4 and he needed to overtake. In the end, they only got 12 race laps and they could have potentially used Softs on one of the drivers to get bold.

[DDopey]

They would be proper mad to take OCO onboard…

I think Ocon has the type of character that perfectly fits with Toto and Toto’s Mercedes doctrine.

[PinkFloydPulse]

They would be proper mad to take OCO onboard…

I think Ocon has the type of character that perfectly fits with Toto and Toto’s Mercedes doctrine.

Ocon with his antics and lack of mental strenght does not fit in any modern F1 team… The guy wrecked havoc in every team he drove for and is just a big liability. You think Toto would allow that kind of driving and behaviour? I doubt it… But let’s see… Stranger and nore wilder things have happened in F1 than Ocon coming to Merc