Poll: Reasons why Merc might not win in 2019

[Capharol]

Q: Reasons why Merc might not win in 2019?
A: because the other were better

plain and simple IF it comes this way.... to me a useless poll, we could start polls like, Why would RB not end 2nd? or Why could the Ferrari not be so fast as testing showed?,

[GPR-A]

Q: Reasons why Merc might not win in 2019?
A: because the other were better

plain and simple IF it comes this way.... to me a useless poll, we could start polls like, Why would RB not end 2nd? or Why could the Ferrari not be so fast as testing showed?,

Make sense.
Why would RB not end 2nd? - Once again, Red Bull would have ended up paying for First Class and gotten Economy.
Why could the Ferrari not be so fast as testing showed? Most likely, Toto went for shopping at MoansAlot.com!

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[DiogoBrand]

I'm not saying Mercedes will win, but in my mind they're still favourites. I just don't get why so many people seem to think Ferrari are clear favourites this season, there's not a single evidence of that so far.

Horner stated it and Toto admitted it! Isn't that enough?

Oh, of course. Because never in the last 5 years has anyone at Mercedes downplayed their own advantage. Every winter they say they aren't the fastest, and every time it's a lie.

[PlatinumZealot]

Vettel has what he needs. A fast car out of reach of anyone. When he is at the front he is devastating. I don't think Lewis can make up for such a car defeficit (0.5 seconds). Leclerc will be interesting but while he has the speed he doesnt have the experience to contend with Vettel in the race and in the Team.

It is clear from testing that Mercedes handling troubles have truly caught up them. I can't see them recovering this one when the Ferrari is looking so strong carrying forward their 2018 concepts.

Pretty bold prediction.

Ferrari are in a good spot now, but I'm not ready to call the title in favor of anyone after 4 days of testing in unrepresentative conditions.

If the actual gap is 0.5s, that's easy for Mercedes to close up with development. Ferrari's inability to develop their car last year is what cost them the title. By the time they reverted to the older spec parts, the championship was lost.

On a side note, what do you mean by handling troubles?

Drivers have been complainong about the handling. Yes they have a new front wing now but normally even with a basic wing you should be able to balance out the front and rear to feel the handling of the car. This new front wing may not be the cure. We will see.

[Phil]

Oh, of course. Because never in the last 5 years has anyone at Mercedes downplayed their own advantage. Every winter they say they aren't the fastest, and every time it's a lie.

Except they weren't fastest last year. Once you look past the Melbourne QF anomaly last year, you'll see that Ferrari was the better performing car bar a few races in the first half of the season.

One could also point to the year before, when Ferrari was overall stronger in many races, but Mercedes had that edge in qualifying that allowed them to put their car ahead of the Ferraris in qualifying and have an advantage during the race.

[DiogoBrand]

Oh, of course. Because never in the last 5 years has anyone at Mercedes downplayed their own advantage. Every winter they say they aren't the fastest, and every time it's a lie.

Except they weren't fastest last year. Once you look past the Melbourne QF anomaly last year, you'll see that Ferrari was the better performing car bar a few races in the first half of the season.

One could also point to the year before, when Ferrari was overall stronger in many races, but Mercedes had that edge in qualifying that allowed them to put their car ahead of the Ferraris in qualifying and have an advantage during the race.

Yes, but what I mean is: Even when they seemed way slower than Mercedes for testing last year, they were pretty much on par with Ferrari at Melbourne, and even though Ferrari did start the year with a faster car, Vettel ended up 88 points behind, both because they weren't as efficient in development, but also because when the pressure rised, Hamilton showed what I already knew: He is a far better driver than Vettel.

So I really don't get the fuss. Mercedes are known for sandbagging in testing, and even when they did have the slower car they ended up winning both championships with a clear margin.

[Phil]

IMO mixing team performance with car performance are two completely separate things. A car can be quick, but the team/driver can still shoot themselves in the foot. In order to win a world championship and maximize points, naturally you need both. You need a fast car and you need the team/strategic decisions/driver to pull it off too. One will unlikely succeed without the other.

Point being, talking strictly on car performance/potential, Ferrari had the package to beat last year for the majority of races. They failed as a team on some strategic errors and updates and that ultimately cost them the championship. That however doesn't change the fact that the car was the fastest.

No one is disputing that Mercedes does not have a great team and that they did not maximize their chances in the last 2 years. They did. But we are talking strictly car potential/performance here.

[munudeges]

It would have been obvious to most teams that the primary way of clawing back downforce from the front wing would have been to get the front wing closer to the ground whenever possible, and to do that you need to run with a certain degree of rake.

The modifications Mercedes have made look like band-aid solutions around the problem, but, they must have known about this for some time because they weren't brought in overnight. There would have been a lead-time to them.

[zibby43]

Vettel has what he needs. A fast car out of reach of anyone. When he is at the front he is devastating. I don't think Lewis can make up for such a car defeficit (0.5 seconds). Leclerc will be interesting but while he has the speed he doesnt have the experience to contend with Vettel in the race and in the Team.

It is clear from testing that Mercedes handling troubles have truly caught up them. I can't see them recovering this one when the Ferrari is looking so strong carrying forward their 2018 concepts.

Pretty bold prediction.

Ferrari are in a good spot now, but I'm not ready to call the title in favor of anyone after 4 days of testing in unrepresentative conditions.

If the actual gap is 0.5s, that's easy for Mercedes to close up with development. Ferrari's inability to develop their car last year is what cost them the title. By the time they reverted to the older spec parts, the championship was lost.

On a side note, what do you mean by handling troubles?

Drivers have been complainong about the handling. Yes they have a new front wing now but normally even with a basic wing you should be able to balance out the front and rear to feel the handling of the car. This new front wing may not be the cure. We will see.

They have a new car.

[roon]

As far as the power unit goes, Merc were at an advantage leading into 2014. Compared to Ferrari, Renault, and Honda, Mercedes would have had significantly more in-house expertise. For decades prior they had been researching and manufacturing turbocharged engines, DI tech, high compression tech, turbodiesels. To a degree farther than any of the other engine suppliers.

This massive manufacturing and intelligence database will have only strengthened during the previous five years. Realistically, what advances might Merc HPP be unaware of? That other suppliers might still find independently.

[Cannonballer]

In F1, winning more yhan two titles back-to-back is rare. Winning more than three is rarer, more than 4 is rarer still, more than 5 has only happened once since 1958. So the fact Mercedes have 5 on the bounce is not much of a guarantee that they'll get number 6.

Winning the five previous championships does not reduce the odds that they will win the sixth championship in the future, regardless of how rare it is. If one were playing roulette and it came up black five times in a row, the odds of it coming up black the next time do not change.

[Just_a_fan]

In F1, winning more yhan two titles back-to-back is rare. Winning more than three is rarer, more than 4 is rarer still, more than 5 has only happened once since 1958. So the fact Mercedes have 5 on the bounce is not much of a guarantee that they'll get number 6.

Winning the five previous championships does not reduce the odds that they will win the sixth championship in the future, regardless of how rare it is. If one were playing roulette and it came up black five times in a row, the odds of it coming up black the next time do not change.

If it was purely a game of chance, you'd be right. But we're talking about humans and they make mistakes, get complacent etc. This means that past performance can affect future performance. It's one of the reasons that multiple titles are rare, especially amongst drivers.

[GrandAxe]

In F1, winning more yhan two titles back-to-back is rare. Winning more than three is rarer, more than 4 is rarer still, more than 5 has only happened once since 1958. So the fact Mercedes have 5 on the bounce is not much of a guarantee that they'll get number 6.

Winning the five previous championships does not reduce the odds that they will win the sixth championship in the future, regardless of how rare it is. If one were playing roulette and it came up black five times in a row, the odds of it coming up black the next time do not change.

... But F1 isn't roulette.

[dans79]

You completely missed the point of his comment!

... But F1 isn't roulette.

[GrandAxe]

You completely missed the point of his comment!

... But F1 isn't roulette.

No, the fact that they've won 5 times on the trot shows that they are statistically better.

It reduces the odds that they can win a sixth. What it doesn't do though, is make it a dead certainty that they'll get the sixth.