2025 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[AR3-GP]

The race in Japan was run at a high pace, but the fans, at least in the front positions, did not see a large number of overtaking manoeuvres.

"In the last two weekends, it has always been an easy one-stop strategy. I think that after the tarmac of the track, Pirelli needs to add softer tyres, because the hard ones last forever," said Russell, who was fifth, 17 seconds behind the winner Max Verstappen.

https://f1sport.auto.cz/clanek/russell- ... drzi-vecne

Did not age well... Drivers are shooting themselves in the foot with comments like this. No one other than Mclaren benefits from the softer tires.

[Lasssept]

[kurtj]

The race in Japan was run at a high pace, but the fans, at least in the front positions, did not see a large number of overtaking manoeuvres.

"In the last two weekends, it has always been an easy one-stop strategy. I think that after the tarmac of the track, Pirelli needs to add softer tyres, because the hard ones last forever," said Russell, who was fifth, 17 seconds behind the winner Max Verstappen.

https://f1sport.auto.cz/clanek/russell- ... drzi-vecne

Did not age well... Drivers are shooting themselves in the foot with comments like this. No one other than Mclaren benefits from the softer tires.

If that helps McLaren, so be it. Others need to get their act together. The decision shouldn't be made because one team gets benefited out of it.

But from a racing standpoint, none of these tires really work. Soft tires forces drivers to drive slower. Only a hand full of laps will be push laps and then they simply drive around in circles waiting for pit stop. If they bolt soft tires on tracks which are difficult to overtake, then cars will go 5 to 6 seconds slower to manage the tires with one stop. With harder tires, it would still be procession on difficult to overtake tracks as drivers don't want to get into the wake of the car ahead that destroys the tires, so choose to sit behind with a margin. Pirelli has destroyed the racing in F1. They need better tracks (these cars have outgrown most of the tracks) and better tire supplier.

[Lasssept]

[OverheatedTurbo]

Mercedes Season defining upgrades will be those at Imola. If they don’t work, the season is over and they shift more to 2026.

[AR3-GP]

Antonelli's first home race. It is a good weekend for upgrades to make an impact.

[organic]

Antonelli's first home race. It is a good weekend for upgrades to make an impact.

Not convinced by the likelihood of success. Merc have been having big aero correlation issues since mid-2024. Their '25 step forward was mostly in the improved interaction with the tyres and management of overheating, but I don't have large confidence that they understand how to take further performance steps.

[OverheatedTurbo]

Antonelli's first home race. It is a good weekend for upgrades to make an impact.

Not convinced by the likelihood of success. Merc have been having big aero correlation issues since mid-2024. Their '25 step forward was mostly in the improved interaction with the tyres and management of overheating, but I don't have large confidence that they understand how to take further performance steps.

We’ll see when we get to that triple header.

[Lasssept]

[AR3-GP]

When Russell was comfortable in the car in 2022 and 2024, they won races. It’s clear now that certain things were not all the fault of the silvers.

[SB15]

It really puts a different perspective on things. The narrative of bad Mercedes cars. After steering the car to Hamilton in 2023 (and potentially limiting its potential as a result) , they didn’t win any races. When Russell was comfortable in the car in 2022 and 2024, they won races.

Which is a shame, because that would indicate Lewis is 100% dependent on the car being a certain performance window in order for him to perform well. I don't want to do this Lewis Hamilton performance debate, but it still looks like it still the case for him at Ferrari. I guess it could be how these new tyres are designed and operated, how stiff these suspension are, or could be how these new cars drives/transfers its weight during many corners.

[AR3-GP]

It really puts a different perspective on things. The narrative of bad Mercedes cars. After steering the car to Hamilton in 2023 (and potentially limiting its potential as a result) , they didn’t win any races. When Russell was comfortable in the car in 2022 and 2024, they won races.

Which is a shame, because that would indicate Lewis is 100% dependent on the car being a certain performance window in order for him to perform well. I don't want to do this Lewis Hamilton performance debate, but it still looks like it still the case for him at Ferrari. I guess it could be how these new tyres are designed and operated, how stiff these suspension are, or could be how these new cars drives/transfers its weight during many corners.

Not going to dwell on it either but people just get old. James Allison talked in 2021 or 2022 about how he as an engineer was afraid of staying at Mercedes "past his shelf life". I think engineers last longer than drivers. James Allison belongs to a club with Newey, Brawn, Byrne. They can never age out. I believe (or fear...) Merc developments because of him. He is the reason that the lotus cars in the early 2010s had no tire degradation. The Mercedes turn around with the rear tire degradation (finally...) was just after he joined in 2017. This year they are no longer trying to force the car in a direction that ground effect is not meant to go in. Imola should be interesting.

[Farnborough]

It really puts a different perspective on things. The narrative of bad Mercedes cars. After steering the car to Hamilton in 2023 (and potentially limiting its potential as a result) , they didn’t win any races. When Russell was comfortable in the car in 2022 and 2024, they won races.

Which is a shame, because that would indicate Lewis is 100% dependent on the car being a certain performance window in order for him to perform well. I don't want to do this Lewis Hamilton performance debate, but it still looks like it still the case for him at Ferrari. I guess it could be how these new tyres are designed and operated, how stiff these suspension are, or could be how these new cars drives/transfers its weight during many corners.

I've voiced this before about just how fundamental the changes are in going to the 18 inch size. Prior to the change, engineering perspective was that they may match the previous size (13 inch) for absolute performance, but in a much narrowed band of technical sphere.
The 13's covered a multitude of error, all,of which now is forced to be accommodated in how the suspension works to control various aspect.
LH (no I'm not going to make comparison with GR here, he's left the team ) seemed to excel on those 13's but for me his history on these 18's is far more open to question. This IS relevant to MB in answering that development perception in prior posts.
The F2 incomers were a year ahead onto 18's (think that's correct) and we see those arriving now into F1. This and the prevalence of SIM interest just appears to equip them with more natural store of reactions around driving these tyres. As in, what's in their personal reaction "library" to various fast respone needed situations.

Danny Ric I'd put in the same boat in regard to 18's too.

The suspension engineers I too belive have in some teams underestimated their own part in just how this csn be approached.

I've described before as more "faith than feel" scenario of driving, with some of these demands quite detached from previous store of built up experience.

Antonelli appears to have arrived at a very decent level in this aspect. Skilled it seems anyway, but certainly not needing to make substantial adaptation to be competitive.

Edit:- for the avoidance of doubt .... for errors i mean technical errors in suspension application, alignment, purity of understanding and attention to just how precisely the tyre has to be placed to reach it's absolute peak performance envelope. Not driver error, there's just much more elasticity in the 13's to blot out error at extreme of performance.

[SB15]

It really puts a different perspective on things. The narrative of bad Mercedes cars. After steering the car to Hamilton in 2023 (and potentially limiting its potential as a result) , they didn’t win any races. When Russell was comfortable in the car in 2022 and 2024, they won races.

Which is a shame, because that would indicate Lewis is 100% dependent on the car being a certain performance window in order for him to perform well. I don't want to do this Lewis Hamilton performance debate, but it still looks like it still the case for him at Ferrari. I guess it could be how these new tyres are designed and operated, how stiff these suspension are, or could be how these new cars drives/transfers its weight during many corners.

I've voiced this before about just how fundamental the changes are in going to the 18 inch size. Prior to the change, engineering perspective was that they may match the previous size (13 inch) for absolute performance, but in a much narrowed band of technical sphere.
The 13's covered a multitude of error, all,of which now is forced to be accommodated in how the suspension works to control various aspect.
LH (no I'm not going to make comparison with GR here, he's left the team ) seemed to excel on those 13's but for me his history on these 18's is far more open to question. This IS relevant to MB in answering that development perception in prior posts.
The F2 incomers were a year ahead onto 18's (think that's correct) and we see those arriving now into F1. This and the prevalence of SIM interest just appears to equip them with more natural store of reactions around driving these tyres. As in, what's in their personal reaction "library" to various fast respone needed situations.

Danny Ric I'd put in the same boat in regard to 18's too.

The suspension engineers I too belive have in some teams underestimated their own part in just how this csn be approached.

I've described before as more "faith than feel" scenario of driving, with some of these demands quite detached from previous store of built up experience.

Antonelli appears to have arrived at a very decent level in this aspect. Skilled it seems anyway, but certainly not needing to make substantial adaptation to be competitive.

Edit:- for the avoidance of doubt .... for errors i mean technical errors in suspension application, alignment, purity of understanding and attention to just how precisely the tyre has to be placed to reach it's absolute peak performance envelope. Not driver error, there's just much more elasticity in the 13's to blot out error at extreme of performance.

This is very interesting topic, because the 13 inch tyre was able to cope with the many different driving styles because those tyres could handle a lot of stress and cool down much quicker thanks to it's small size with no wheel cover. The 18 inch needs to cool down a lot longer meaning the tyres could immediately overheat if not properly maintained and I think the wheel caps are not helping the issue either since most of the heat from the brakes are being contained and that's maybe why Mclaren designed their wheel hub in such an extreme way.

I believe this is where Verstappen has a massive advantage over the rest of the competition, because he knows what window to place the tyres in over a race distance and where to get the most out of them during qualifying.

[maygun]

Antonelli's first home race. It is a good weekend for upgrades to make an impact.

Not convinced by the likelihood of success. Merc have been having big aero correlation issues since mid-2024. Their '25 step forward was mostly in the improved interaction with the tyres and management of overheating, but I don't have large confidence that they understand how to take further performance steps.

As a armchair enjoyed just looking at the visual changes, Merc was actually very innovative in aero concepts in the last couple of years IMO, maybe only not good at the floor and sidepod side (they were but didn't work out).

Most of the front wing innovations came from them, the weird cut out on the edge of the rear wing thing came from them, the overall outline shape (top corners fold thing) for the diffuser came from them.