2019 Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team

[Capharol]

Ok, thanks for that update. Must say i don't take Todt that serious though, but will see.

normally i would agree with you concerning Todt, but this is a statement made as head of the FIA, so if he lies about this no one would believe him anymore ...

[dans79]

https://www.grandprix.com/news/mercedes ... uzuka.html

When asked if the Mercedes will have new parts at Suzuka, boss Wolff said: "Yes, we are working on them now.

"We are trying to allocate resources on the one hand to continuing to fight this season, and on the other preparing for the next one."

Wolff said the upgrade will not be big as Ferrari's in Singapore.

"No, we are talking about small improvements," he said.

"You can expect that we will continue to make progress, but it will be at a slower rate compared to the summer."

So It looks like Merc has moved the majority of the staff over to working on the 2020 car.

[Big Tea]

Really difficult to even have a good guess as the tyres are so inconsistent. Even without making changes to the pressures limits they see to react differently in identical sets of circumstances.

Ferrari have defiantly found a boost from somewhere, but Merc and RBR also seem to either have stagnated ore even lost out.

Fastest lap was slightly quicker ( 1:35.861 (18) 1:35.761 (19)) but the second half of the season there seems very little gain overall.

[dans79]

Really difficult to even have a good guess as the tyres are so inconsistent. Even without making changes to the pressures limits they see to react differently in identical sets of circumstances.

Ferrari have defiantly found a boost from somewhere, but Merc and RBR also seem to either have stagnated ore even lost out.

Fastest lap was slightly quicker ( 1:35.861 (18) 1:35.761 (19)) but the second half of the season there seems very little gain overall.

If you question Pirelli, their default response is always "we are providing the tires we where asked to to!"

[Big Tea]

Really difficult to even have a good guess as the tyres are so inconsistent. Even without making changes to the pressures limits they see to react differently in identical sets of circumstances.

Ferrari have defiantly found a boost from somewhere, but Merc and RBR also seem to either have stagnated ore even lost out.

Fastest lap was slightly quicker ( 1:35.861 (18) 1:35.761 (19)) but the second half of the season there seems very little gain overall.

If you question Pirelli, their default response is always "we are providing the tires we where asked to to!"

I agree with them, but they seem to vary from race to race. Even those of apparently the same hardness etc and when they do not change the minimum pressures.

I do sympathize with Pirelli though they get a lot of stick instead of being told just turn up with good rubber.

[dans79]

I agree with them, but they seem to vary from race to race. Even those of apparently the same hardness etc and when they do not change the minimum pressures.

These are essentially as close to hand made tires as you can get, so it wouldn't sunrise me at all if the quality control is only so so.

[Jambier]

https://www.grandprix.com/news/mercedes ... uzuka.html

When asked if the Mercedes will have new parts at Suzuka, boss Wolff said: "Yes, we are working on them now.

"We are trying to allocate resources on the one hand to continuing to fight this season, and on the other preparing for the next one."

Wolff said the upgrade will not be big as Ferrari's in Singapore.

"No, we are talking about small improvements," he said.

"You can expect that we will continue to make progress, but it will be at a slower rate compared to the summer."

So It looks like Merc has moved the majority of the staff over to working on the 2020 car.

Now that both title are virtually won, it makes totally sense to switch to 2020

[ENGINE TUNER]

Really difficult to even have a good guess as the tyres are so inconsistent. Even without making changes to the pressures limits they see to react differently in identical sets of circumstances.

Ferrari have defiantly found a boost from somewhere, but Merc and RBR also seem to either have stagnated ore even lost out.

Fastest lap was slightly quicker ( 1:35.861 (18) 1:35.761 (19)) but the second half of the season there seems very little gain overall.

If you question Pirelli, their default response is always "we are providing the tires we where asked to to!"

I agree with them, but they seem to vary from race to race. Even those of apparently the same hardness etc and when they do not change the minimum pressures.

I do sympathize with Pirelli though they get a lot of stick instead of being told just turn up with good rubber.

Pirelli were specifically tasked with providing tire that would require 2 or more stops per race, they have not done that. Nobody ever told them not to turn up with good rubber. Pirelli and nobody else is at fault for the poor prudent that they provide to F1. Nobody asked for these rediculously high tire pressures.

[ENGINE TUNER]

I agree with them, but they seem to vary from race to race. Even those of apparently the same hardness etc and when they do not change the minimum pressures.

These are essentially as close to hand made tires as you can get, so it wouldn't sunrise me at all if the quality control is only so so.

Are you sure they are hand made? Which parts? Mark Hughes has stated that they aren't and that is why they have the poor characteristics that they do.

[dans79]

I agree with them, but they seem to vary from race to race. Even those of apparently the same hardness etc and when they do not change the minimum pressures.

These are essentially as close to hand made tires as you can get, so it wouldn't sunrise me at all if the quality control is only so so.

Are you sure they are hand made? Which parts? Mark Hughes has stated that they aren't and that is why they have the poor characteristics that they do.

This is an old video, but i don't think they have changed the process. Towards the end of the video you will see people manually cutting bead wires and applying the plies to the mold etc.

[ENGINE TUNER]

This is an old video, but i don't think they have changed the process. Towards the end of the video you will see people manually cutting bead wires and applying the plies to the mold etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcQ3fB8fZ4E

Ah yes, I remember this vid, but that was from 2011, Hughes seemed to allude to them having more recently automated their process of late.

[Morteza]

[GPR-A]

Does anyone else think the W10 has become slower with their German GP package? It seems like that package has added more drag, but hasn't significantly enhanced the cornering performance. They are also struggling to set it up fluently like it used to be in the early part. Up until then Bottas was flying and with the introduction of German GP package, he is almost nowhere! Drivers like Bottas and Kimis perform well when the car is in the right zone and when it is not, they fade away.

Their pace deficit on straight line compared to Ferrari, I guess has more to do with Mercedes carrying lot more drag for what it is worth in terms of downforce. In Sochi, they were slower than Red Bull on straight line on one lap pace! Their race pace is more lively when the compounds get harder, which is primarily due to the level of downforce they have compared to others that works the tyres harder, but equally, the drag penalty is punishing in one lap pace. May be I am wrong, but that's how it feels, especially considering Bottas as a reference.

Merc is pretty darn good at correlation and they were very adamant that the upgrade delivered the downforce points they were expecting. I thought they finally got on top of the package in Spa and Monza. They were seriously quick there, on Ferrari's turf (nabbed 4 out of the 6 podium positions and with one more lap at Spa and no "warning" for LEC at Monza, Hamilton would've won both).

Singapore was kind of a bizarre aberration (kind of like how Merc bagged pole there last year), but Merc have struggled there historically.

Red Bull have been struggling a bit relative to both Mercedes and Ferrari lately. Red Bull didn't have much race pace in Sochi (and that is usually their strong point). I thought Merc's race pace in Sochi was very solid, and in the post-race Paddock Pass, LEC suggested that Merc had better race pace.

4 things have happened for sure:

1) Ferrari have dumped tons of money and resources into their Singapore upgrades, and they definitely delivered a few tenths, but more importantly, the Ferrari is much easier to set up; they can get the tires working over a single lap now (which has been the goal with this car all season: to be a monster qualifier and then control the pace at the front)

2) Ferrari have had time to better understand the tires.

3) Merc have introduced virtually no upgrades since Germany (that is very, very unlike them; they're usually constantly bringing incremental gains between big packages).

4) Merc introduced the first component to their new front suspension (the remainder of which will be brought in Suzuka, along with Merc's final upgrade push of the season). I don't think they were able to get on top of it and Singapore, and I think they ended up getting surprised by Ferrari's pace there.

Thoughts?

Not sure if anyone has paid attention to these stats. But I found this interesting. This is an article from Autosport, where Gary Anderson has compared Mercedes and Ferrari's performance between 2018 and 2019 qualifying in Sochi.

"Line" here is basically the start line.



It's incredible that, Mercedes has lost half a second in Sector 1, compared to last year and another 2 tenths in Sector 2. Sector 3 pretty much remains the same. Whereas Ferrari remains almost same as last year!

Gary also mentions this.

Sochi was actually the worst Mercedes qualifying performance of the season with a deficit of 0.439% to the front. Austria was its second-worst at 0.411%, again to Ferrari. Compared to Sochi 2018, Mercedes has simply lost a lot of performance in sector one and less, but still a loss, in sector two.

As I said earlier, perhaps it simply deploys the electrically-harnessed energy more efficiently, but Mercedes really does need to look at the overall efficiency of its aerodynamic package. It also needs to get on with the job and improve its performance on new tyres for that critical one lap in qualifying.

Make the car less nervous and it will give the drivers more confidence to carry more speed into the corner. Since the German GP upgrade package, it seems to have become a harder car to get the best out of in qualifying.

Well the W10 seems to be an extremely draggy car for the kind of downforce it has. Toto had mentioned that their philosophy was "Downforce at all costs", which could be why they are losing so much of performance in straight line, despite multiple upgrades to the PU in the last 12 months.

On the other hand, either Ferrari has more refined and efficient downforce and NOT SO MUCH of a powerful PU than Mercedes, which makes them faster in straight line; OR, they have similar drag to that of Mercedes, but a way more powerful PU (to the tune of 50 hp more), which doesn't seem to be true because of speed trap figures; Traction could be another factor, but Mercedes' PU is not a slouch on traction, so that isn't going to be such a big factor either. May be their German GP upgrade package is extremely draggy upgrade, which has made that impact in Sochi.

So, that leaves me with the belief that, there is too much drag W10 has and Mercedes should be trying to make more efficient aero as their primary target.

[Bill]

The current generation rear wing produces more drag than last year due to regulations change

[MtthsMlw]

The current generation rear wing produces more drag than last year due to regulations change

Well that didn't hurt Ferrari in S1