Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team 2014

[turbof1]

they publish this on Wednesday or Thursday.

That's nice info. It's a bit unlogical to make a list right before the weekend. Chances are they will run free practices with old engines, while putting in fresh engines before FP3. It's relative safe to think that many teams did so, since we are speaking about Monza.

But it's the FIA we are talking about; getting a list in the first place from them is pretty gallant for them.

[dans79]

they publish this on Wednesday or Thursday.

That's nice info. It's a bit unlogical to make a list right before the weekend. Chances are they will run free practices with old engines, while putting in fresh engines before FP3. It's relative safe to think that many teams did so, since we are speaking about Monza.

But it's the FIA we are talking about; getting a list in the first place from them is pretty gallant for them.

It's for the stewards so they know when penalties need to be applied.

[Edax]

It's a big writing on the wall, and the most simplest truth, but for Hamilton to close down the gap, by simply assuming they keep ending up as 1st and second all the remaining races, he NEEDS to win 4 out of 5 coming races, in order to have everything in his own hands in the final race.

Excluding technical failures that does not seem unrealistic.

Of the 13 races we had so far
7 x Hamilton finished in front of Rosberg
3 x Hamilton retired while leading Rosberg
1 x Rosberg retired behind Hamilon.
3 x Hamilton finished behind Rosberg, although in Germany that was mainly due to the engine fire.

All in all the probability of Hamilton finishing in front of Rosberg in a clean race seems to be about 75-85%.

I think that is also part of Rosbergs frustation. If he would have won the championship now it would be "because the better driver had some bad luck". It is not like Senna and Prost, which were more evenly matched.

It would not surprise me if that is also the cause for the sloppy pass in Spa and the errors at Monza. I think Rosberg feels that in order to really claim the title he also must show that he can beat Hamilton on track.

So I guess that he will not take the prudent and cautious approach to the next races that you would expect from a points leader, but he will go flat out to prove his abilities. That can backfire.

[Hobbs04]

Dear Toto,

Please explain if giving up 7 points wasn't Rosberg's punishment, what exactly was his punishment?

Sincerely,

F1 fans


Edit: Damn down voted for sarcasm

[Kingshark]

Excluding technical failures that does not seem unrealistic.

Of the 13 races we had so far
7 x Hamilton finished in front of Rosberg
2 x Hamilton retired while leading Rosberg
1 x Rosberg retired while leading Hamilon.
3 x Hamilton finished behind Rosberg, although in Germany that was mainly due to the engine fire.

All in all the probability of Hamilton finishing in front of Rosberg in a clean race seems to be about 75-85%.

Rosberg was leading in Britain, so I have that fixed for you. I do believe that Nico would have won in Silverstone despite Lewis's marginal pace advantage, because he had track position.

Hamilton so far this season though has been generally quicker than Rosberg in the race, but not by much.

This is based on who was faster in each weekend (which is not synonymous with the race result):

Australia: Unknown
Malaysia: Hamilton
Bahrain: Rosberg
China: Hamilton
Spain: Rosberg
Monaco: Too close to call
Canada: Hamilton
Austria: Hamilton
Britain: Hamilton
Germany: Rosberg
Hungary: Hamilton
Belgium: Rosberg
Monza: Hamilton

That's 7-4 in favor of Lewis. Hence, on balance, there's:

1. A 63.6% chance that Lewis will be quicker.
2. A 36.4% chance that Nico will be quicker.

If you divide that among 6 races - Nico should be faster in 2 of them, and Lewis in 4 of them. All speculation of course.

[Kingshark]

Singapore will be Rosberg territory I feel. He was giving Lewis a tonking around there last year, when Nico qualified 3 positions ahead and was 14 seconds up the road before the safety car (after which he got rubber stuck in his front wing). Nico was also phenomenal around there in 2008, 2009 (before his silly mistake) and 2012.

USA will be Hamilton's race to lose. He won an epic race there in 2012 (still one of his best wins IMO). Likewise he properly mopped the floor with Nico around Austin last year, as he finished over 30 seconds ahead.

Neither Nico nor Lewis are anything special around Japan nor Brazil. Lewis especially has only had one podium apiece around each circuit, which is quite shocking considering the cars he's had throughout his career. OTOH, Nico hasn't really done anything special either around Suzuka or Interlagos. 50/50 I suppose.

Abu Dhabi - before 2013 I would have said Hamilton without thinking twice, but last year Nico finished over 45 seconds ahead of Lewis here (cracked chassis might have something to do with it). This one could go either way I suppose.

Russia - I have no frigging clue.

[prince]

I feel, Lewis needs a better race engineer than Peter Bonnington and may be the whole of race management team. All of Lewis' results at Merc are of his own smart thinking with very little help from his race engineer. So many times Bonnington comes on radio when Lewis does not need it and seems sleeping when he actually need him. And whenever he gives inputs, most of the times Lewis ignores it. Yesterday's was also a classical case. In last few years, I have seen only Rocky (Vettel's engineer) and Andrea Stella (fernando's engineer) to be precise and very effective race engineers who understand what their driver exactly need.

P.S.: Rocky is not Vettel's engineer this year and that could also be a reason why Sebastian is struggling in terms of race strategy.

apart from Jock Clear and Andy Shovlin who else would you fancy to have in your engineering team to be able to say there is nothing more to be found..
We just cannot judge from a armchair enthusíasts perspective with conversations rarely broadcasted in real time...

Reputations matter for nothing in front of results. It is in fact the results that build the reputation. I agree that we don't get to hear all of the conversation between driver and his race team, but we see the results and when results are not in line with the expectations (borne out of set standard), the criticism comes naturally. Hungary, they messed up by not giving an Option-Option and gave a prime, which by all mathematical calculations would have been a faster strategy when there is such a big performance margin between two compounds used. They add a pit stop very early anticipating a safety car, which even if safety car would have arrived, was a bad strategy. Lewis tells his engineer, "Don't talk to me Man" when he is going for the last quali lap in Q3 in Belgium. See what happened in the last race. That says something, isn't it? Give me one instances where his race team did, "Wow, hell of a strategy, that's gold mine!". When you have a great Car, a great driver then benchmarks are very high and you need a race strategy team which also raises its standard. Sorry, but his current strategy team isn't something that is doing justice.

[alexx_88]

I think that Lewis is the one that is very agitated in the car, rather than being the engineer's fault. Bonnington was also MSC's race engineer and we've never heard any complaints from him.

Regarding strategy, it's not his job to do it, plain and simple. It has been said that Merc have only one strategist that needs to ensure that the driver behind can't undercut the leading driver and that they both get the best strategy available. Given that this season it has mostly been 1-2s or a car retiring, I'd say that this has worked spot on.

If anything, the technical problems have put a lot of pressure on Hamilton to catch up, as early as race 1, so his nervousness in the car is something that can easily be explained, given that this is his best chance to get the second title.

[adrianjordan]

So if you were Hamilton and you faced a situation where Nico had to put in a 6th PU component, would you fit a complete new 6th PU and take the penalty at the same time or would you try and maximise on the chance to grab a load of points back?

Personally I'd take the fresh PU as chances are that Nico would come through the field and any points different at the end of the race wouldn't be that great...

[prince]

I think that Lewis is the one that is very agitated in the car, rather than being the engineer's fault. Bonnington was also MSC's race engineer and we've never heard any complaints from him.

Regarding strategy, it's not his job to do it, plain and simple. It has been said that Merc have only one strategist that needs to ensure that the driver behind can't undercut the leading driver and that they both get the best strategy available. Given that this season it has mostly been 1-2s or a car retiring, I'd say that this has worked spot on.

If anything, the technical problems have put a lot of pressure on Hamilton to catch up, as early as race 1, so his nervousness in the car is something that can easily be explained, given that this is his best chance to get the second title.

When MSC was in Merc, he wasn't fighting for Championship and neither did he had a great car and no one was expecting anything. Mediocrity was acceptable at that time, not now. To reach this point, Merc has sacrificed many people who were not worth of being there and I am only saying that, the process of evaluating should become more stringent. Let's say, by next year if the other teams make up performance difference and there is going to much tougher competition, could Merc afford to make the same racing decisions that they made for Lewis? Part of staying at top is to ensure everyone is achieving more than what is expected. But here, I am arguing that, not even expectations are being met.

[alexx_88]

Could you offer some examples when the race engineer/strategy guy disadvantaged Lewis by their decisions?

PS: Believe me, if there was anything wrong with the guy with MSC driving, he would've been kicked out by now. Or do you think that MSC came out of retirement just for fun? He always pushed for the best he could get and if he felt that the engineer stopped him from achieving that, he would undoubtedly act on that.

[SiLo]

So if you were Hamilton and you faced a situation where Nico had to put in a 6th PU component, would you fit a complete new 6th PU and take the penalty at the same time or would you try and maximise on the chance to grab a load of points back?

Personally I'd take the fresh PU as chances are that Nico would come through the field and any points different at the end of the race wouldn't be that great...

I would also take a new PU, especially considering the fact that Hamilton is more likely to make the overtakes he needs to still finish in front of Rosberg. They have the drivers championship in the bag already, and the pace to beat all other cars around them from half way down the grid. I like the idea of this possibility!

[Richard]

All of Lewis' results at Merc are of his own smart thinking with very little help from his race engineer. So many times Bonnington comes on radio when Lewis does not need it and seems sleeping when he actually need him. And whenever he gives inputs, most of the times Lewis ignores it. Yesterday's was also a classical case.

Lewis tells his engineer, "Don't talk to me Man" when he is going for the last quali lap in Q3 in Belgium. See what happened in the last race. That says something, isn't it?

Hamilton has always been like that on the radio. We've heard similar comments from many other drivers.

Also if Hamilton's wins are purely due to his "own smart thinking with very little help from his race engineer", are you saying a driver can drive the car at the same time as knowing the track position of every other car on the the track, working out if their pit stops would put them in clean air, while also interpreting all the car telemetry?

F1 is a team sport, don't let driver ideology lead you to a conclusion that the boffins in the back rooms are a waste of space.

[Kiril Varbanov]

We've heard similar comments from many other drivers.

Most notable among which are, of course, the headliner Kimi with "Leave me alone", "Don't talk to me while I'm a corner"; Alonso: "I don't want to hear anything until the end of the race" (later winning it!); R. Groshjean: "Yeah I’m OK, but we speak too much on the radio. I think upshift...

The pit wall people are indispensable part of the sport, IMO. "Lewis is gaining 0.2 in Parabolica with early apex" is too much, however. (the phrase is fictional).

[turbof1]

Often the drivers do ask themselves for this kind of info though. Lewis very often asks where he looses time compared to Rosberg.

Often it depends on the situation, and I do have the impression that racing engineers don't always correctly judge when the information is desired by the driver. Which is normal of course, behind the wheel drivers tend to become prima donna's.

In Italy Lewis had a "been there" situation. Theoritically speaking, saving tyres to attack at the end of the race is a viable tactic. But Lewis knows from his own that his advantage is the greatest when he has fresh tyres. Drivers often can judge such race situations better then a race engineer, who works more from calculated data.

But when situations abruptly change, a safety car, changing weather conditions, a fron wing broken etc, you need your engineer to quickly reoptimise to the most efficient strategy. IMO a racing driver is better suited to judge the short term, while a racing engineer is better suited to take the whole race into account. Often it conflicts, and in such a situation either one can be right: in Spa Hamilton quickly felt he lost performance and asked to retire. The racing engineer was right at that point to tuff it out in order to capitalise on abrupt race developments should those come. They didn't, but at that point you have to take that risk.