2024 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[Luscion]

Hamilton on why he had no grip in quali.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... ULxbWCZpV3

“Well, the tyres were working throughout the weekend, then we got to qualifying and every time I went out of the garage, my tyres were for some reason below on temperature.”

“Every set was two or three degrees lower than it should have been, and you can’t catch it up and I couldn’t switch the tyres on after that. That’s something we have to really look at, because something went on with the blankets, I guess.”

Also mentions if he knew the team were going to put Russell on meds he would have just stayed out, thinks Russell had half a sec on him.

[Cs98]

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.

No track position, no championship position, no preferred team status. Simple. Besides, if you thought the softs were so good you'd just have put Russell on them.

[Cs98]

For all the reaching and complaining, the one thing you can draw from this race is that the lead car will be in a better position strategically 9 times out of 10. If Hamilton wants to be the guy leading the charge when chances like this pop up, he has to put himself in a better position in the races and quali, ahead of his teammate.

[DGP123]

Great weekend for George. Pole and a podium under unpredictable circumstances is happy outcome.

No, he had a good Saturday and a pretty bad Sunday. Sums up his career. Nobody was happy, the team and drivers were miserable.

Today just highlighted where Merc are with their line up. It’s an overrated line up, purely through the eyes of British fans. One is ageing, slow in Q, and making mistakes, while the other is a proven bottler, who not only makes mistakes every other race, but who’s race pace is poor. It’s why Toto wants the dream pairing of Max & KA for 26’, but doesn’t know how to make it happen.

[Jdn1327]

Great weekend for George. Pole and a podium under unpredictable circumstances is happy outcome.

No, he had a good Saturday and a pretty bad Sunday. Sums up his career. Nobody was happy, the team and drivers were miserable.

Today just highlighted where Merc are with their line up. It’s an overrated line up, purely through the eyes of British fans. One is ageing, slow in Q, and making mistakes, while the other is a proven bottler, who not only makes mistakes every other race, but who’s race pace is poor. It’s why Toto wants the dream pairing of Max & KA for 26’, but doesn’t know how to make it happen.

Agreed, both drivers made crucial errors on race day. Lewis with his off that cost him around 5 seconds and George with his trip over the kerbs. If they had a cleaner race maybe a double podium was on. Win for George and 3rd for Lewis. Too much in team nonsense and not a lot of focus on the actual racing.

[Formula 1 fan]

Can anyone explain to me what was so controversial about yesterday race because i didnt watch the race?

[Quantum]

Great weekend for George. Pole and a podium under unpredictable circumstances is happy outcome.

No, he had a good Saturday and a pretty bad Sunday. Sums up his career. Nobody was happy, the team and drivers were miserable.

Today just highlighted where Merc are with their line up. It’s an overrated line up, purely through the eyes of British fans. One is ageing, slow in Q, and making mistakes, while the other is a proven bottler, who not only makes mistakes every other race, but who’s race pace is poor. It’s why Toto wants the dream pairing of Max & KA for 26’, but doesn’t know how to make it happen.

George could've just followed Piastri home to 4th place. That's the flip side.
And to my recollection, the guys who finished in front of him made mistakes too.

[bluechris]

Great weekend for George. Pole and a podium under unpredictable circumstances is happy outcome.

No, he had a good Saturday and a pretty bad Sunday. Sums up his career. Nobody was happy, the team and drivers were miserable.

Today just highlighted where Merc are with their line up. It’s an overrated line up, purely through the eyes of British fans. One is ageing, slow in Q, and making mistakes, while the other is a proven bottler, who not only makes mistakes every other race, but who’s race pace is poor. It’s why Toto wants the dream pairing of Max & KA for 26’, but doesn’t know how to make it happen.

Agreed, both drivers made crucial errors on race day. Lewis with his off that cost him around 5 seconds and George with his trip over the kerbs. If they had a cleaner race maybe a double podium was on. Win for George and 3rd for Lewis. Too much in team nonsense and not a lot of focus on the actual racing.

In their defense, almost all the drivers did mistakes yesterday. The condition's where bad and constantly changing and both servers were hunting or defending hard.

[chrisc90]

Can anyone explain to me what was so controversial about yesterday race because i didnt watch the race?

Nothing IMHO. Just people bringing up strategy and tyre choice favouring one driver than another and not getting a soft tyre.

Sure the debrief video will tell us why

[basti313]

Great weekend for George. Pole and a podium under unpredictable circumstances is happy outcome.

No, he had a good Saturday and a pretty bad Sunday. Sums up his career. Nobody was happy, the team and drivers were miserable.

Today just highlighted where Merc are with their line up. It’s an overrated line up, purely through the eyes of British fans. One is ageing, slow in Q, and making mistakes, while the other is a proven bottler, who not only makes mistakes every other race, but who’s race pace is poor. It’s why Toto wants the dream pairing of Max & KA for 26’, but doesn’t know how to make it happen.

George could've just followed Piastri home to 4th place. That's the flip side.
And to my recollection, the guys who finished in front of him made mistakes too.

I do not think that is correct, George would have found a way with patience just like Ham passed Pia and Rus passed Ham later.
It was clear that they need to do a clear DRS pass. Just like Hamilton did shortly afterwards when Pia had an empty battery. The correct way for Russel would have been to simply take a clean line through the last corner and not squeeze on the outside...that would have opened either an option on start/finish or an option to pass with DRS in the next lap.

[Quantum]

I do not think that is correct, George would have found a way with patience just like Ham passed Pia and Rus passed Ham later.
It was clear that they need to do a clear DRS pass. Just like Hamilton did shortly afterwards when Pia had an empty battery. The correct way for Russel would have been to simply take a clean line through the last corner and not squeeze on the outside...that would have opened either an option on start/finish or an option to pass with DRS in the next lap.

George wanted the win, it was a possibility given the pace the Merc showed.
Patience is not something you have with 6 laps left of a Grand Prix while sitting in 4th. Let's not pretend it was lap 30 or something.
George went for it and it didn't work out, I'd rather that opportunistic move than sitting around waiting with a closing window of opportunity.

[Formula 1 fan]

Was Hamilton angry to team after race or not, what he said?

[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.

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.

Yeah, not giving up altogether but deferring a year. Consensus is ANT goes to Merc or Williams for ‘25, but if OCO gets a 1yr at Merc and Vowles succeeds with SAI there are no viable alternative seats. Sky questioned OCO as if he’d secured a seat & KMillman the photographer mentioned Merc specifically (talk of the paddock apparently), either way something to consider.

Edit:

[chrisc90]

Yeah, can’t understand why Merc are waiting. If they keep holding back the talent will likely be snapped up elsewhere.

[Jurgen von Diaz]

Yeah, can’t understand why Merc are waiting. If they keep holding back the talent will likely be snapped up elsewhere.

Perhaps Mercedes is waiting for more data and proof about Antonelli before deciding whether to put him in the Williams or Mercedes seat, or neither of them.