2024 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[Matt2725]

It's outrageous that Lewis is still altruistically giving to the team doing all these experiments that will never benefit him.

Agreed, Toto is sucking the joy of racing from Hamilton and setting up everything for Russell. That's not the way to repay your 6x Champ... I had my doubts before, but after reading that 1-stop in Spa was meant for Hamilton, it all became clear... Typical Toto, what he lacks in leadership skills and personal accountability, he makes up for with a lack of sportsmanship

The 1 stop meant for Hamilton was an off-hand comment by Hamilton himself. If anything the two stop allowed him to claim the win eventually.

[Quantum]

It's outrageous that Lewis is still altruistically giving to the team doing all these experiments that will never benefit him.

Agreed, Toto is sucking the joy of racing from Hamilton and setting up everything for Russell. That's not the way to repay your 6x Champ... I had my doubts before, but after reading that 1-stop in Spa was meant for Hamilton, it all became clear... Typical Toto, what he lacks in leadership skills and personal accountability, he makes up for with a lack of sportsmanship

The 1 stop meant for Hamilton was an off-hand comment by Hamilton himself. If anything the two stop allowed him to claim the win eventually.

Yup, 100%.
But that inconveniences a pop at Toto
He can be very lucky he 2 stopped.

[DRS]

Prediction here, Kimi will give Russell all he can handle immediately. Big Hamilton fan here, I think he's gone stale, sad to say but I can't ever see him reaching past heights.

[214270]

https://www.crash.net/f1/news/1055606/1 ... ctly-built

Seems to me RUS problems in practice might’ve pressured the mechs leading to an error setting up HAM car correctly for quali. This probably contributed to a desire to reset & address the problem for the race and so they took on new components to facilitate.

It’s all pointing to something in the suspension that was awry, hence the change going into the race.

[Luscion]

Hamilton: “It was the worst balance I’ve probably ever had so. One of the worst balances. Basically I had so much front end but no rears I had to turn… it’s not the way you drive. I had to yank the steering to break the traction from the front, slide the front through every corner. It’s the weirdest way I had to drive.”

“I knew that I wouldn’t be able to overtake. It’s difficult to follow in the middle, at least be close at the end. I don’t know why our pace was so bad on our side. It happens.”

“We had a great car on Friday. We made the tiniest changes into Saturday. One of the components wasn’t correctly built. That led us the wrong way then on Saturday.”

“We didn’t find out until the end of the day. This race was the best race they said at least to make the change. We needed one engine as I lost one earlier. We knew it was going to be a tough day.”

Shovlin: “It was nice to get a car on the podium, but we aren't fooling ourselves; this weekend hasn't been good enough and we need to improve. The first stint for both drivers was weak. We couldn't stop the rear tyres from overheating, and, at one point, it was looking like we were in for a very difficult afternoon.”

“The Hard tyre suited us much better. George had clean air to work out how to get the best out of the tyres and maintain them in a good window. That served him well later in the race.”

“Lewis' race was difficult as he kept bumping into DRS trains and just couldn't make it through them. The closer he got to the cars ahead the more tyre overheating he suffered with.”

“Regardless, we were not strong enough here to get a podium on merit and that's what we need to put our efforts into resolving. We've got a different challenge in Singapore next week but are looking forward to getting back on track.”

[AR3-GP]

Merc was really good in singapore last year, but I don't know what to expect given the situaton with the latest upgrades.

[GrizzleBoy]

Interesting that nobody except Lewis is explaining what actually went wrong with his car and his pace in the media briefings.

Doesnt exactly smack of cohesion or goodwill.

Edit:
Infact,:

-Toto putting Lewis performance down to an intentional experiment

-Lewis explaining it as a mistake in the build of the cars suspension discovered after qualifying and clearly not setup properly after being changed

-Shovlin putting it down to DRS trains and tyre issues and mentioning nothing about the setup or having to inrentionally slide the front wheels to balance the car.

Certainly doesnt sound like anyone is singing from the same hymnsheet, does it.

[Luscion]

Merc was really good in singapore last year, but I don't know what to expect given the situaton with the latest upgrades.

Yea its an odd one to read for sure, the W14 went well on high downforce tracks and the W15 as well but now their issues with tyre temps seems to have gotten worse. after the race Lewis said they had upgrades coming but didnt say when so maybe they bring something to help them there

[SKYnRacing24]

Hamilton: “It was the worst balance I’ve probably ever had so. One of the worst balances. Basically I had so much front end but no rears I had to turn… it’s not the way you drive. I had to yank the steering to break the traction from the front, slide the front through every corner. It’s the weirdest way I had to drive.”
.”

It really did look like that from the onboards. I wish i could of screen recorded just to show how weird it was lool

For Singapore Russell was great here last year, especially in qualy. Hamilton was 4 tenths behind. For the race Merc aced the strategy and Hamilton looked to have the edge, obviously we know how that went but there race pass overall was "meh". Most of the race came down to good grid position and fluky safety cars.

Im not sure how the W15 will work around here in its current guise. Other high downforce low speed tracks like monaco, parts of hungary and zandvoort weren't that great but im expecting some Russell magic around here. Hamilton i fear will struggle regardless if the pace is there. He has no confidence in qualy trim at all.

As the RACE said. He can't attack the corners the way he wants to. This years tyres need a certain attacking style Russell has seemed to have nailed. Hamilton can't tap into that because he gets his inherent natural speed from the style hes accustomed to. This track is Bumpy, Close walls, Need to hustle through most corners. Recipe for a disaster for the champ.

This is a track not totally dependant on grid position though so race pace is still crucial.

[214270]

Reminds me of ‘22 getting round that corner, except this had nothing to do with bouncing.

[DRS]

Reminds me of ‘22 getting round that corner, except this had nothing to do with bouncing.

https://i.ibb.co/sgg9LFP/IMG-4841.gif

I saw that, the car looked all over the place.

[Dunlay]

It's outrageous that Lewis is still altruistically giving to the team doing all these experiments that will never benefit him.

Agreed, Toto is sucking the joy of racing from Hamilton and setting up everything for Russell. That's not the way to repay your 6x Champ... I had my doubts before, but after reading that 1-stop in Spa was meant for Hamilton, it all became clear... Typical Toto, what he lacks in leadership skills and personal accountability, he makes up for with a lack of sportsmanship

I am not a fan of Toto either, but it would be odd to blame Toto for a lacklustre Lewis weekend. 1-stop thingy was a poor comment, like sabotage kind. Why is it that when George has an off weekend, it's George who is responsible and when Lewis has one, then everything under the Sun is responsible for it? Every driver has to work with the team to get the best possible outcome through the weekend. They don't have 2014-2020 like dominant machine that you can simply jump in and drive to wins. George struggled in FP1, lost most of FP2 and had a interrupted FP3. Yet, he put the car on best possible position and also drove an excellent race to benefit from misery of other drivers. That's not "setting up everything for Russell". As a Ferrari fan, you need to be prepared for this storm coming home.

Situation was similar on Red Bull's side too, Perez got the best out of the weekend, while Max was sobbing all through the race. I don't see the comments any different on that thread either. Just shows, one side of the garage didn't do a good enough job.

[Farnborough]

Reminds me of ‘22 getting round that corner, except this had nothing to do with bouncing.

https://i.ibb.co/sgg9LFP/IMG-4841.gif

I noticed that too (was going to mention it in thread) and a delight to watch, properly torqued up under full chassis loading ! Hustling and dragging it by the scruff of it's neck into those corner.

A poor weekend for him, but footage like that is brilliant

[214270]

Reminds me of ‘22 getting round that corner, except this had nothing to do with bouncing.

https://i.ibb.co/sgg9LFP/IMG-4841.gif

I noticed that too (was going to mention it in thread) and a delight to watch, properly torqued up under full chassis loading ! Hustling and dragging it by the scruff of it's neck into those corner.

A poor weekend for him, but footage like that is brilliant

Full speed for your enjoyment !



EDIT: Look how far down the road GAS is (car in front) after the camera swoops round, crazy speeds.

[j_ste]

It's outrageous that Lewis is still altruistically giving to the team doing all these experiments that will never benefit him.

Agreed, Toto is sucking the joy of racing from Hamilton and setting up everything for Russell. That's not the way to repay your 6x Champ... I had my doubts before, but after reading that 1-stop in Spa was meant for Hamilton, it all became clear... Typical Toto, what he lacks in leadership skills and personal accountability, he makes up for with a lack of sportsmanship

I am not a fan of Toto either, but it would be odd to blame Toto for a lacklustre Lewis weekend. 1-stop thingy was a poor comment, like sabotage kind. Why is it that when George has an off weekend, it's George who is responsible and when Lewis has one, then everything under the Sun is responsible for it? Every driver has to work with the team to get the best possible outcome through the weekend. They don't have 2014-2020 like dominant machine that you can simply jump in and drive to wins. George struggled in FP1, lost most of FP2 and had a interrupted FP3. Yet, he put the car on best possible position and also drove an excellent race to benefit from misery of other drivers. That's not "setting up everything for Russell". As a Ferrari fan, you need to be prepared for this storm coming home.

Situation was similar on Red Bull's side too, Perez got the best out of the weekend, while Max was sobbing all through the race. I don't see the comments any different on that thread either. Just shows, one side of the garage didn't do a good enough job.

Horner already said that they tried some things with Max’s car that didn’t work. And Toto has pretty much said the same and Lewis too.

When elite talents are telling you the car is screwed up. They probably know the car is screwed up…and it’s not like they haven’t overcome screwed up cars before. They have both, many times.
But that’s down to their talent and sometimes their talent can’t overcome it.