2015 Singapore Grand Prix - 18-20 September

[Spoutnik]

I watch again the lap of Hamilton. The Merc suspension's seems really soft quite honestly. And also lot of understeer imo if you compare with the others car and the usual Hamilton's lap.

[motobaleno]

I don't buy all this tyre pressure conspiracy theory.
can anyone produce some sort of fact supporting it other than mercedes (who is mercedes?) told it to grandpa demon hill while if the official mercedes driver deny it that's bernie gagball?

[Juzh]

http://e-flux.com/aup/wp/wp-content/upl ... 2_1247.jpg

A lot of them.

Your jaw must be on the floor

It's trough to the basement.

[condor]

Sort of disproves the common misconception that Mercedes AMG F1 has the "best" chassis, most "efficient" aero.
Their PU advantage has reduced over the past couple of months and this track exaggerates this. The Q3 gap at Monza was not Mercedes AMG F1 turning "down" their engines.

Their masked chassis shortcomings is properly the main deciding factor in not supplying RBR customer spec engines for 2016

You've basically just ignored almost every race so far. Their chassis is widely lauded as the best. Even better than the Red Bulls this year. Their setup just isn't working well with the tyres at this track/surface/temps and they haven't been able to find out and solve it.

[Spoutnik]

It seems more like a suspension/setup wise imo

[dans79]

It's to do with the tyre pressure limits. After Merc's problems in 2013 with overheating tyres, they've gone for a philosophy where the geometry doesn't work the tyres very hard. The problem though is that it requires lower tyre pressures. Lower tyre pressures cause the tyre carcass temp to heat up faster (less air, gets hotter) which matched to their suspension setup gets a perfect rise in pressure and temperature for both maximum contact area and getting the tyres into their thermal working range.

The FIA/Pirelli tyre pressure limits has hurt them because it is putting the tyres out of the working temp zone. It's interesting that the FIA and Pirelli are imposing these pressure limits on not just the high speed circuits but also the low speed ones now.

I can add to this.

Higher pressures won't let the sidewalls flex as much, and sidewall flexing generates a lot of heat. Add to that, a track that doesn't have a lot of high speed turns, and you get a team that can't turn the tires on, because the car is designed to be gentle on the tires. That's why Your heard Merc on the radio to Nico at the end of Q2 talking about pressures and bleeding the tires.

Add to that the track again mutes Merc's pu advantage and you get the gap we saw.

In the race the extra fuel will help flex the tires, and get heat in them. I bet Merc tries to go one stop less than everyone else, so they can get into clean air and run, on the easier to heat up softs.

[matt_b]

I would say Mercedes have the suspension too soft, you can see lewis' wheels bouncing all over the place losing so much grip compared to the others. Suzuka and the rest of the tracks are completely different so i'm sure pre-Singapore dominance will resume. Should be a fun race between Red Bull and Ferrari and interesting to see if the track is better for overtaking.

[Chene_Mostert]

Sort of disproves the common misconception that Mercedes AMG F1 has the "best" chassis, most "efficient" aero.
Their PU advantage has reduced over the past couple of months and this track exaggerates this. The Q3 gap at Monza was not Mercedes AMG F1 turning "down" their engines.

Their masked chassis shortcomings is properly the main deciding factor in not supplying RBR customer spec engines for 2016

You've basically just ignored almost every race so far. Their chassis is widely lauded as the best. Even better than the Red Bulls this year. Their setup just isn't working well with the tyres at this track/surface/temps and they haven't been able to find out and solve it.

Nope, their PU is arguably the best.

[Sevach]

Hamilton doesn't think they'll finish on the podium.

[NoDivergence]

All season long they have dominated in every type of teach and were said by other teams to have highest corner speeds by GPS trace. Only thing that has changed this weekend is higher tire pressures.

[search]

Hamilton doesn't think they'll finish on the podium.

Rosberg also said the top 4 are out of reach.

[godlameroso]

That's only in relation to the other cars. Besides they're not going to go anywhere near that fast in the race. Everyone won't go faster than 1:51 for much of the race because of fuel usage. In fact I think Red Bull has a better chance of actually winning the race than Ferrari because the Renault engine is far more economical, they always seem to come alive in the later part of the race relative to the others.

[condor]

Sort of disproves the common misconception that Mercedes AMG F1 has the "best" chassis, most "efficient" aero.
Their PU advantage has reduced over the past couple of months and this track exaggerates this. The Q3 gap at Monza was not Mercedes AMG F1 turning "down" their engines.

Their masked chassis shortcomings is properly the main deciding factor in not supplying RBR customer spec engines for 2016

You've basically just ignored almost every race so far. Their chassis is widely lauded as the best. Even better than the Red Bulls this year. Their setup just isn't working well with the tyres at this track/surface/temps and they haven't been able to find out and solve it.

"When I compare high-speed performance, if we had the [best] engine, I think we would be P2 [behind Mercedes]." -Verstappen

"We looked at the data and Turn 3 and Turn 9 in Barcelona, only Mercedes was quicker than us. -Sainz

"According to our calculations," he told Auto Motor und Sport, "we have one of the best chassis in the field. Mercedes is maybe two or three tenths ahead of us." - Horner

As another poster here has already said, "So all engines equalized, Mercedes according to their own competitors would still be ahead."

One race where they've gotten the setup completely wrong does not disprove anything. We've also seen in the past where certain cars come alive (and conversely are nowhere) on certain tyres and temps. In 2007/2008 the Ferraris were doing pirouettes as soon as it rained while the McLarens were in a different league faster. Whereas in the dry and in high speed circuits, the Ferrari was much quicker.

[condor]

Sort of disproves the common misconception that Mercedes AMG F1 has the "best" chassis, most "efficient" aero.
Their PU advantage has reduced over the past couple of months and this track exaggerates this. The Q3 gap at Monza was not Mercedes AMG F1 turning "down" their engines.

Their masked chassis shortcomings is properly the main deciding factor in not supplying RBR customer spec engines for 2016

You've basically just ignored almost every race so far. Their chassis is widely lauded as the best. Even better than the Red Bulls this year. Their setup just isn't working well with the tyres at this track/surface/temps and they haven't been able to find out and solve it.

Nope, their PU is arguably the best.

Their PU *IS* the best, not even arguable. But that doesn't mean their chassis isn't also the best. Williams, Lotus, Force India also run this best PU but they're not even close to Mercedes AMG. The car simply isn't working well at Singapore. It worked very well at Monaco where Hamilton was dominating the race until the safety car error. That's also a low speed street circuit which requires excellent mechanical grip. Every track the Mercedes has been dominant. Except for Singapore where something clearly isn't right. If you think Singapore presents a uniquely true test of a chassis' mechanical grip and low/medium speed aero compared to Monaco, Hungary, Australia etc. then I suggest you please take the advice in your own signature.

[Sevach]

All season long they have dominated in every type of teach and were said by other teams to have highest corner speeds by GPS trace. Only thing that has changed this weekend is higher tire pressures.

All season long we were told(and looked at numbers) how Mercedes made huge amounts of time on slow speed corners, which makes what happened today completely crazy.

Doesn't look better for the race imo, yesterday their long runs were way off the pace, of course everybody made "excuses" for that, but given what we just saw...