2024 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[Jurgen von Diaz]

Ok, I gotta add some nuance here.

Difficult car != slow, predictable car != fast.

Forget about loving or hating the driver, if what Lewis described is true then recent Merc cars were usually slow AND unpredictable. If you're disproportionately losing rear downforce on corner entry while trail braking, then that's an engineering problem, there's nothing the driver can do. You're never gonna GAIN on corner entry relative to Red Bull, all you can do is minimize the loss. Then, because the rear is unstable, you're gonna lose on the EXIT as well

As a counter example, Schumacher was great at driving difficult cars that were still very fast, like the B195 (not gonna mention the B194 bc controversy). It was so oversteery that even a veteran like Berger found it difficult. However, that car DID allow Schumacher to brake very deep, trail brake right to the apex and flick it around by TAKING ADVANTAGE of the oversteer, then get on power very early. If the B195 was punishing Michael for trail braking, then he'd have never been able to beat Williams (Hill driving) on mid corner apex speed alone.

Who would like a difficult and slow car, no one. But it is what it is, your driving style is what it is, you just have to deal with the tools you get. At the end of the day, if your teammate is ahead, he has been doing better job. Simple as that.

OOOk. Your perspective would be correct for a team like Williams. For Mercedes? If the team isn't fighting for the championship until the last race, then Stuttgart is wasting it's money, regardless of who's driving for it.

Lewis is slowing down? Stuttgart gets rid of him. However, if Lewis is being honest about the cars problems then it's almost irrelevant who's replacing him. The car would still have been slower than Red Bull, Mclaren and Ferrari, so Stuttgart would feel that it's wasting it's money, because nobody could fight for the championship in the last three mercs.

When George beats Lewis, there is an explanation of what is wrong with the car. When Lewis beats George, that is how it is meant to be, goat is back and so on... When George beats Lewis again, there is an explanation of what is wrong with the car. Like George doesn't deserve any credit.

[GrizzleBoy]

Who would like a difficult and slow car, no one. But it is what it is, your driving style is what it is, you just have to deal with the tools you get. At the end of the day, if your teammate is ahead, he has been doing better job. Simple as that.

OOOk. Your perspective would be correct for a team like Williams. For Mercedes? If the team isn't fighting for the championship until the last race, then Stuttgart is wasting it's money, regardless of who's driving for it.

Lewis is slowing down? Stuttgart gets rid of him. However, if Lewis is being honest about the cars problems then it's almost irrelevant who's replacing him. The car would still have been slower than Red Bull, Mclaren and Ferrari, so Stuttgart would feel that it's wasting it's money, because nobody could fight for the championship in the last three mercs.

When George beats Lewis, there is an explanation of what is wrong with the car. When Lewis beats George, that is how it is meant to be, goat is back and so on... When George beats Lewis again, there is an explanation of what is wrong with the car. Like George doesn't deserve any credit.

I think it's a combination of the fact that:

A) Everyone just knows how fast Lewis is.

B) Nobody being honest with themselves thinks that Lewis can just forget how to be fast since just one year ago. Just as they don't believe 2023 means George isn't fast.

C) On more than one occasion, despite the car having the speed to win, Lewis has battled from the midfield/back to still end up just behind or ahead of George.

D) Nobody being honest with themselves can say they don't understand the concept of No.1 contracts, or leaving drivers being managed out of a team in different ways (i.e. technical discussions, knowledge of workings of upgraded parts etc)

E) The knowledge that Lewis has been since George joined the team, asked to be the one to run the experiments. And when he has not been running them, his performance has been much more normal.

F) The fact that there really were issues with his car when he was slow sometimes (i.e. experimental setups/mechanics building parts wrong requiring multiple pit lane starts/inexplicably being made to start on softs in Singapore etc) and when George was slow, he really was just slow. If there was an explanation for it, someone would've mentioned what it was.

G) George's race pace is still an issue. Even though he's capable of winning when the car is dominating, when car performance is close or Lewis qualifies even somewhat near to him, you can almost guarantee he is not keeping his place on track or at the very least not moving forward too much. If you want to say that this is due to Lewis having a different setup, then it means George's qualifying gians are due to a different setup and the the very idea of their head to head goes out the window anyway.

[Jurgen von Diaz]

Everyone knows how fast Lewis used to be. Next month he will be 40's. His raw pace is gone, as we can see from qualifying statistics. And the experiments—we all know how difficult times Lewis has had with the car since 2022. He has been volunteering for testing, and why not. Toto said that both did experiments, but with Lewis, it went more wrong than with George, and oh boy, we have heard about when Lewis did experiments. Lewis has struggled more with the car than George, who has been more comfortable when the car is difficult, so it is natural that he is the one to solve the team's and his own problems if his driving style is more vulnerable with the car.

[Lasssept]