2024 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[Lasssept]

Lewis Hamilton: “Little tweaks [between FP1 and FP2] but the car was pretty much the same, and there’s a particular thing that we left, that we’re changing this weekend that we probably need to go back on.”

[PlatinumZealot]

Sholvlin sort of confiirms what I suspected. George is gentler on the rear tyres in qualifying. A bit of Jenson-esque smoothness on the throttle perhaps.

https://www.racefans.net/2024/07/19/ham ... e-shovlin/

[Luscion]

Sholvlin sort of confiirms what I suspected. George is gentler on the rear tyres in qualifying. A bit of Jenson-esque smoothness on the throttle perhaps.

https://www.racefans.net/2024/07/19/ham ... e-shovlin/

I do wonder if its specific to/affects Merc more. Shovlin talked yesterday about how they still havent fully fixed their issues with the rear tires of the car overheating and in this article about how theyre working on giving Lewis a more predictable car. Then you had Allison talking about it as well saying how the cars dont like being hustled and the tires are very fussy

(34:30 and again at 37:56)

[Hammerfist]

Sholvlin sort of confiirms what I suspected. George is gentler on the rear tyres in qualifying. A bit of Jenson-esque smoothness on the throttle perhaps.

https://www.racefans.net/2024/07/19/ham ... e-shovlin/

Yeah it was very noticeable in Canada, where he lost the car at the last corner, hungary last year as well, although it was pole, he loses it at the last corner. It seems by the end of the lap he often does not have any tire left.

[Lasssept]

Mercedes broke the curfew last night. It's the first of two

[Jurgen von Diaz]

What do you think? Would Hamilton leave if he had to make the decision now?

[chrisc90]

Maybe a little regret setting in?

[Dunlay]

What do you think? Would Hamilton leave if he had to make the decision now?

Lewis left because he wasn't offered a long term deal! Team's lack of form was an ingriedient in that decision making, but not the only reason.

[SKYnRacing24]

Sholvlin sort of confiirms what I suspected. George is gentler on the rear tyres in qualifying. A bit of Jenson-esque smoothness on the throttle perhaps.

https://www.racefans.net/2024/07/19/ham ... e-shovlin/

Yeah it was very noticeable in Canada, where he lost the car at the last corner, hungary last year as well, although it was pole, he loses it at the last corner. It seems by the end of the lap he often does not have any tire left.

Spot on mate, i was watching his qualy lap from last year and his rears are overheating on the way into the second to last corner. Anthony Davidson in Practice 2 yesterday said these tyres don't forget when there put under stress, they come back to bite again.

Back to the qualy lap, I gather Hamilton is expecting this to happen again which is why he literally chucks it in and gets a big tank slapper on entry but has just about done enough in S2 to get the pole.

The fact these tyres have a smaller window makes it even harder. Now most people will be banging on he has to adapt but sometimes when you've been driving a certain way most of your career its hard to configure that to something else just to exploit one lap pace, especially as it might affect his racepace which is still one of the best on the grid.

Age aside it might explain why we don't see those killer qualy laps these days like back then. The fact you can't lean on these Pirelli cheese tyres for one lap after caressing them slowly on the outlap is ridiculous but this is the modern F1 era.

I wonder if this affects drivers with similar driving styles like Leclerc and co also

[mkay]

Maybe a little regret setting in?

This quote came from Russell.

Mercedes won two races in a row, though only one on merit, and normal service has resumed in Hungary with Mercedes 3-4 tenths off the pace. Point is, Mercedes has gone forward relative to Ferrari, but they are still ways away from regularly contending for podiums, poles and wins on merit.

[Lasssept]

Toto Wolff post FP3: “We have a little more we can add power-wise, but there is a gap. I don’t know how much it will be, at the moment it looks like two tenths, maybe. That’s what it is.”

“At the moment you can say that McLaren seems to have the upper hand by a little bit, but Max’s long run overlaid with Norris’. I think it’s gonna be very tight again.”

“We knew that it was going to be difficult for us here, with the rear surface overheating. It doesn’t really come as a surprise.”

[PlatinumZealot]

George is doing well. He could be two tenths off pole. Great driver. And unfortunately he is not rated highly because everyone is focus on Lewis. I will be happy for George when he comes from Lewis' shadow next year for sure.

[214270]

Crap sprint for ANT; much work still to do learning to manage tyres.

Helluva fun one though.

[Luscion]

Unsure how reliable this person is but figured i'd post it anyways

We are getting very important news from Mercedes.

As you know, Mercedes have broke the curfew after the FP2 and had some work on their cars. Which as we know each team has 2 individual exceptions per year, which was the first one for Mercedes.

as announced previously they are getting upgrades for their cars in Hungary and Spa, the tests done in FP1 and FP2 were done on new mechanical parts and upgrades, which have been removed. it was already planned by the team and from the news that we have received the results were as expected.

New internal parts are being designed, mainly for the cooling system, which might give us some indication of either 4 possibilities,
1- better cooling system
2- internal air flow and better internal flow management
3- redesigned sidepods
4- weight distribution

keeping in mind that they have been very creative with the W13 cooling system and the zero pod design, where the radiators have been specially designed and positioned within the chassis.

we have also noticed a closed bulb in FP3 in contraire to an opened one in FP1-2, probably because of the high temperature on Friday, but mainly the front inlet is not used for car cooling but rather than driver cooling in some cases and probably front suspension element cooling in some rare cases, or probably some new elements in the front suspension.

[DGP123]

George is doing well. He could be two tenths off pole.

Or he could go out in Q1