2021 Rules hit Mercedes hard. Not a coincidence.

[Big Tea]

Yes, I do, and so does Toto he said in an interview yesterday on SKY.
However, I like Merc and would like to see Hamilton get a record title, but it was getting a little 'same-same' wasn't it?
I suspect a little 'encouragement' from the bookies too. They will not turn a profit for a cert every time out

Edit, it as also very interesting to be able to watch them fight their way back, because they are so open.
Cant wait for their short vids

[F1Krof]

The sport is American now, and that means the state of 'entertainment' will be maximized, even if that is to the detriment of the DNA of the sport.

Unlimited spending - being curtailed.
Differential in spending between teams - being narrowed.
Differential in CFD and wind tunnel usage - favours previously worse-performing teams.
Gimmicks and regs to improve the 'show' (DRS, sprint races, etc...).
Regulation becoming increasingly onerous.
Standardization of parts - increasing.
Races spanning most months of the year - in order to sell more subscription-based access.

My supposition is the owners of F1 don't want a situation where one team becomes so dominant for as long as Mercedes in future. The danger with tinkering is there can be unintended consequences.

I agree 100%!

[FrukostScones]

because HAM said so, LOL
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/hami ... n/5940840/

[HungarianRacer]

Judging purely from James Allison's and other team member's comments, prior to hitting the track in Bahrain, I don't think they had ANY idea whether the rule changes would hit the low rake concept equally, more, or less than the high rake concept.

I do definitely admire their confidence and willingness to face new challenges, I mean, they could've easily opposed the proposed changes and advocated a much simpler aero revision on the grounds of less cost and less unpredictable effects (like a reduced rear wing box), but (once again) they had the courage to tackle an unknow "demon".

[Just_a_fan]

because HAM said so, LOL
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/hami ... n/5940840/

And he also said

"But that's OK, we love a challenge and we don't look down on these things, we just work hard to do the best we can. And that's what we'll do."

I don't think Hamilton is that concerned, to be honest. If he takes an 8th title, great, if not then he'll not complain about having 7 titles and record numbers of wins and poles. I bet Bottas is more annoyed than Hamilton because a strong Red Bull reduces his title chances even further.

[TimW]

It strongly reminds me of 'my tires are gone' comments....

[Jambier]

I think not.
2021 is an emergency change because of COVID

2022 in another hand is « against domination » with the CFD rules, budget cap, new cars

So it is targeting Mercedes but just because they are the one dominating.

For 2021 everyone thought that high rake cars would be the one to suffer and the opposite happened

Btw, so we have a recap of why it is hurting them more?

[DChemTech]

I don't think so at all. There's some regulation changes nearly every year, and every year so far these changes actually seem to have benefitted Mercedes - the main competition ended up with stability issues every time, while Mercedes didn't. Were those regulations 'designed to hurt' Red Bull, or Ferrari, etc.? No, it just happened that they couldn't cope with the changes as well as Mercedes did; perhaps the different philosophies played a role, perhaps not. This time, it seems to be the other way around for once - RB coped better with the changes than Mercedes. Perhaps that has to do with the philosophy, perhaps not, but just as much as the previous changes were not designed to hurt Red Bull (but to increase corner speed, etc.), these changes were not designed to hurt Mercedes (but to facilitate Pirelli). In the end, you win some, you lose some. So far, Mercedes won more than they lost. What bothers me is that Mercedes themselves seem to echo the narrative that it's all designed against them. Just imagine RB did the same every time rule changes set them back the past few years.

Of course there are some rules which were deliberately aimed at one specific team - Against Ferrari's engines or against Mercedes DAS, but that was to block a technology that was questionable yet not clearly violating under existing rules.

[F1Krof]

because HAM said so, LOL
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/hami ... n/5940840/

He said the same last year when they banned qualy modes. Out of nowhere, just ban them because it's too much. Imagine how hard the team worked on improving the engine and being that competitive, and out of the blue, just because you did a fantastic job, your advantage is snapped unfairly just like that.

I'm not saying this is the case for this year 100% right away, but I cannot say it's 0% the other way around as well.

[CSavoy]

The funny thing about all of this "Mercedes was hit on purpose!!" is that other teams fans claimed the same when there were rules changes that affected then.
The facts are that basically all rule changes of the last 5 years were of more universal impact and weren't meant to privilege any team.
2017 overhaul? Everyone had to change and the new rules didn't hit Mercedes core aero strengths (you could even argue the new rules were a good thing for Mercedes, despite Ferrari getting close to them).
Limited oil burning? Ferrari was the most affected by it, and basically had an engine banned because of it.
Front wing change? All top teams were hurt by it. Midfield teams were benefited by the simplicity. One could make the argument that high rake cars took the largest hit, but I am not certain about it.
Pirelli changing their tires? Most of the times the changes worked for Mercedes or were neutral.
FRIC ban? Red Bull and Renault were also affected by it.
Quali mode ban? Yes, it hurt Mercedes, but didn't take away their dominance.
DAS was banned for 2021 even before it debuted, ironically.
This year's ruled changes weren't ment to be a big deal and everyone thought the grid would be stagnant. By surprise Red Bull nailed their concept and Mercedes messed up a little bit. Bad luck for the silver arrows, it happens.
If you want to blame anyone, blame Adrian Newey.

PS: Hamilton saying that the changes were "aimed at slowing down Mercedes" is a classic mindgame.

[toraabe]

It strongly reminds me of 'my tires are gone' comments....

Anyway. Next year is totally different. Then you have to seal the venturi tunnels in their entire length so as I can see, a low rake is the way to go.

[Big Tea]

Dont know about others, but in my case I answered the question -Rules hit Mercedes hard Not a coincidence- with the mind set that they were aimed at the leading car which happened to be Mercedes, not aimed at Mercedes which happen to be the leading car.

[PlatinumZealot]

So then the whole pandemic was a part of this master plan as well. Because if
it had not been there, we would have not seen the current cars, but the ground-effect ones. And imagine Mercedes starting to develop those cars from scratch without a budget cap which also would have not been active yet and probably earlier than anyone else like they have always done due to their domination.

It was the reason for the postponed ground effect car regs, yes. Then the opportunity to kick Merc in the nuts showed itself.

[El Scorchio]

The funny thing about all of this "Mercedes was hit on purpose!!" is that other teams fans claimed the same when there were rules changes that affected then.
The facts are that basically all rule changes of the last 5 years were of more universal impact and weren't meant to privilege any team.
2017 overhaul? Everyone had to change and the new rules didn't hit Mercedes core aero strengths (you could even argue the new rules were a good thing for Mercedes, despite Ferrari getting close to them).
Limited oil burning? Ferrari was the most affected by it, and basically had an engine banned because of it.
Front wing change? All top teams were hurt by it. Midfield teams were benefited by the simplicity. One could make the argument that high rake cars took the largest hit, but I am not certain about it.
Pirelli changing their tires? Most of the times the changes worked for Mercedes or were neutral.
FRIC ban? Red Bull and Renault were also affected by it.
Quali mode ban? Yes, it hurt Mercedes, but didn't take away their dominance.
DAS was banned for 2021 even before it debuted, ironically.
This year's ruled changes weren't ment to be a big deal and everyone thought the grid would be stagnant. By surprise Red Bull nailed their concept and Mercedes messed up a little bit. Bad luck for the silver arrows, it happens.
If you want to blame anyone, blame Adrian Newey.

PS: Hamilton saying that the changes were "aimed at slowing down Mercedes" is a classic mindgame.

To say they messed up the concept definitely isn’t fair. That concept has won them seven straight in this era. These regs for 2021, whether purposeful or otherwise have come in unexpectedly, hit low rake cars harder (which I expect they will have realised months ago) and the chances to do anything significant about it in the off-season is extremely limited due to the unprecedented limitations put on development and testing. Just a bit of a perfect storm.

It could be just that it needs more time to find an aero solution which will fix everything and actually they can come up with something even better, or it could just be that inherently a low rake car cannot be as good as a higher rake car given the parameters of what can be achieved in development and under these regs, and those running high rake have lucked into the superior concept for the season with the bonus of their competitors never having the chance to catch them.

I’d bet that if the Mercedes team had the usual development freedom for this season, then you’d see a high rake concept.

[nzjrs]

It's worth asking PZ what type or piece of evidence would be required to disprove him of his theory.