2019 Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team

[Just_a_fan]

Love the reference to finding curry houses to help performance.

[cirrusflyer]

That fastest lap from Australia keeps Valtieri 1 point infront of Hamilton.
It paid off to push!

[GPR-A]

So, Lewis has decided to test on Tuesday in Bahrain! He said so on the Paddock Pass (at 5m53s). As the car seems to be lagging behind, he doesn't want anyone else to test the new parts that are planned and hence, he is taking it to himself to test and provide feedback to develop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Oes14mRDFo

[zibby43]

So, Lewis has decided to test on Tuesday in Bahrain! He said so on the Paddock Pass (at 5m53s). As the car seems to be lagging behind, he doesn't want anyone else to test the new parts that are planned and hence, he is taking it to himself to test and provide feedback to develop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Oes14mRDFo

Yep and Andrew Shovlin also referenced the fact that Mercedes have some go-faster parts coming that will supposedly help them become even quicker in the corners. They're planning on running them on Tuesday.

Must be fairly substantial if Hamilton is excited to test them. Hopefully we get some good photos from the test.

[KiLLu12258]

So, Lewis has decided to test on Tuesday in Bahrain! He said so on the Paddock Pass (at 5m53s). As the car seems to be lagging behind, he doesn't want anyone else to test the new parts that are planned and hence, he is taking it to himself to test and provide feedback to develop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Oes14mRDFo

Yep and Andrew Shovlin also referenced the fact that Mercedes have some go-faster parts coming that will supposedly help them become even quicker in the corners. They're planning on running them on Tuesday.

Must be fairly substantial if Hamilton is excited to test them. Hopefully we get some good photos from the test.

there must be a reason when hamilton is hyped to test for sure

[dodds_turbo]

Am I correct in thinking Hamilton often passes up the opportunity to do in-season testing? Perhaps he sees the benefit now that Bottas has shown a strong start to his 2019. Hamilton also seeing that Ferrari and a very real threat this year?

[Shakeman]

Lewis had a bit of a Freudian slip, he said '...the decisions we're taking steer it in the way I, correcting himself, we need it..'

The last thing he needs is the first upgrade taking the car off in a direction that doesn't suit his driving style which is why he's testing rather than being overly hyped for the parts.

It's critical the car develops in the right direction for the faster driver to get the most from it.

[astracrazy]

Am I correct in thinking Hamilton often passes up the opportunity to do in-season testing? Perhaps he sees the benefit now that Bottas has shown a strong start to his 2019. Hamilton also seeing that Ferrari and a very real threat this year?

He used to, for a number of years he didn't take part in mid-season testing, which I used to find strange because he was always considered good at giving feedback to develop the car (there have been a number of public examples of this). I don't know if it is Bottas because I think he took part last year (or maybe it is because unlike Rosberg he clearly is more of the number 1), but I tend to think as he has gotten older he has become more of a leader in the team and this is part of it. An older head maybe sees the benefits now of taking part vs not.

[GPR-A]

Lewis had a bit of a Freudian slip, he said '...the decisions we're taking steer it in the way I, correcting himself, we need it..'

The last thing he needs is the first upgrade taking the car off in a direction that doesn't suit his driving style which is why he's testing rather than being overly hyped for the parts.

It's critical the car develops in the right direction for the faster driver to get the most from it.

Along with Alonso, Hamilton is someone who can drive the crap out of any car and deliver the best. He need not have to worry about the car being developed for anyone else. What he is realizing now is, IF the upgrades that the team is bringing, is really addressing the problem he feels with the car or not. In the past, he let that opportunity go due to his mental block for testing. In the past couple of years, he is working more and more closely with the team and understands that, there is so much more he can contribute to the development of car. With Ferrari having displayed such speed this past race, he would like to have a bigger say IF the problems are in fact being cured in the right way or not. He can do that, when he tests these upgrades himself and correlate with his own feel for the car, which no one else can do it for him. That's part of growing for him as a driver.

[dans79]

Along with Alonso, Hamilton is someone who can drive the crap out of any car and deliver the best. He need not have to worry about the car being developed for anyone else. What he is realizing now is, IF the upgrades that the team is bringing, is really addressing the problem he feels with the car or not. In the past, he let that opportunity go due to his mental block for testing. In the past couple of years, he is working more and more closely with the team and understands that, there is so much more he can contribute to the development of car. With Ferrari having displayed such speed this past race, he would like to have a bigger say IF the problems are in fact being cured in the right way or not. He can do that, when he tests these upgrades himself and correlate with his own feel for the car, which no one else can do it for him. That's part of growing for him as a driver.

If he and the team can find a way of getting the car balanced the way he likes without sacrificing tire life, that alone should be worth a tenth or two. I don't think the team fully understands the tires yet either, when they do then can probably gain another tenth or two.

Most importantly, I think he can smell blood, The ferrari might be fast, but it looks fragile. They have already made tactical blunders, and Vettel is already under pressure from the press. The Best thing Hamilton & Mercedes, can do right now, is put pressure on Ferrari, and nurture strife between Vettel & Leclerc.

[GPR-A]

Most importantly, I think he can smell blood, The ferrari might be fast, but it looks fragile. They have already made tactical blunders, and Vettel is already under pressure from the press. The Best thing Hamilton & Mercedes, can do right now, is put pressure on Ferrari, and nurture strife between Vettel & Leclerc.

I have a feeling that, in all things equal situation, Hamilton has got the measure of Vettel with his brilliant attacks. Whether it was last year at Monza, Russia or this time in Bahrain. There is absolute precision in spatial awareness and giving just enough room and then leave it for other guy to make a mistake. The move that Hamilton did on Vettel was something Sainz couldn't pull off on Max and closed the door a little too much and got damage to his own car.

Yesterday, Hamilton did a 2014 like move on Bottas when Bottas held the inside line in turn 4 and went a little deeper, Hamilton waited behind and then quickly moved to outside line, which then gave him inside line for the next sequence. That was again something which Vettel couldn't manage when he got attacked by Hamilton in the same corner. So, that's two different moves on two different drivers in the same corner. One from inside and from outside.

[GPR-A]

An interesting study on the comparison of PU performance across all manufacturers. Data from Bahrain qualifying and race.

Link -> Power unit 2019 from 990 horses: Ferrari and Mercedes are even, Honda and Renault detached

During the qualifications of the Bahrain GP, ​​two institutes carried out phonometric surveys to detect the power units that fell compared to last year. Honda pays a gap of 38 horses from Ferrari and Mercedes and Renault is just below.

The Ferrari 064 and Mercedes-AMG F1 M10 EQ Power + even power units are. Two institutes for recording phonometric data presented themselves with their state-of-the-art tools in Sakhir to gather very interesting information on the 2019 engine power.

The major controls of the FIA, therefore, have made impossible a practice to the limit, if not beyond. The surveys, in fact, read a peak of 990 horses in Q3 when Ferrari and Mercedes used the most extreme engine maps.

Some would have pointed out that the Ferrari power unit would be able to make better use of the electric power of the MGU-H, while the Mercedes would have a small advantage in the endothermic engine. The fact is that, according to phonometric data, the two engines are practically the same and if the W10s in Bahrain had been slower than the speed trap in qualifying it was only because they were more loaded with wings.

There was overtaking on the Renault in terms of pure power, so it is justified that the Red Bull men praise the work done by the Japanese that offered a more compact engine than the Renault thanks to a manic packaging and with a delta of horses that are measurable, but the gap between Mercedes and Ferrari remains very large: there is talk of 38 horses!

In short, it's a lot of stuff, which puts the Milton Keynes team back in the natural role of a third wheel, but certainly not a challenger for the world title. In the face of who was playing a sheet music out of tune, claiming that the Honda power unit had arrived at only 10 horses from the new Mercedes engine. Too bad they were so convincing in shooting her big that Lewis Hamilton had believed it too.

And the Renault, then? It has sunk to the bottom of the list of the four Builders, with 7 horses less than the Honda. Little stuff, one might say, and it explains why Carlos Sainz came in with the McLaren MCL34-Renault only one tenth from Max Verstappen's RB15 in Q3.

I had said that, Red Bull was not going to be a championship contender and Honda was too far behind to close the gap to Mercedes and Ferrari on PU. This was before the Australian GP.

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=27823&p=820803&hil ... ip#p820803

Red Bull is not in the championship hunt. No matter how anyone puts it, Honda doesn't have it in them to build a PU that could compete with Merc and Ferrari. They are just too far behind. Except for 2011, Red Bull is yet to start a season with a strong car. Their development is generally is more aggressive in the second part of the season, where both Merc and Ferrari would start thinking about next year's car and start planning resource reallocation.

Some people are looking at their winter testing race pace and thinking they can win races. But if they always start the race behind Merc and Ferrari, there is no way they can win races if things go normal for both. Just to give a scale of understanding, Toro Rosso, using a new Honda PU in abu dhabi last year, were 9 tenths behind Merc in Sector 2 alone in qualifying, which is all about power. Considering STR had way less downforce than Merc, if that was how poor they were, imagine Merc level of downforce on that STR and they could have been closer to 2 seconds in that sector. Whereas Hulkenberg's Renault was around half a second behind in that sector. Red Bull was 3 tenth behind Mercedes in that Sector. Theoretically, If Red Bull was running that Honda PU in that event, they would have been around 6 to 7 tenths down on Merc in Sector 2 (just a guess). That was the Spec 3 Honda PU, which had gained half a second over the course of the season. Merc and Ferrari's Spec 3 came in Spa. You can imagine the development that these two would have completed from August last year to February this year.

Honda has a mountain to climb in terms of being on par with Merc and Ferrari, which I don't think is going to happen anytime sooner. The amount of bragging RB and Honda are on about themselves, is what any new couple would do. Nothing new about that.

Funnily, I had got two down votes for that post.

[Bill]

This is just April fools nonsense and haters gouging themselves in a feeding frenzy

[zibby43]

An interesting study on the comparison of PU performance across all manufacturers. Data from Bahrain qualifying and race.

Link -> Power unit 2019 from 990 horses: Ferrari and Mercedes are even, Honda and Renault detached

Very interesting indeed.

That contradicts Toto’s post-race narrative that Ferrari’s straights advantage came down to sheer power instead of Merc’s stronger wing levels.

Toto is a master at motivating his team.

[atanatizante]

An interesting study on the comparison of PU performance across all manufacturers. Data from Bahrain qualifying and race.

Link -> Power unit 2019 from 990 horses: Ferrari and Mercedes are even, Honda and Renault detached

Very interesting indeed.

That contradicts Toto’s post-race narrative that Ferrari’s straights advantage came down to sheer power instead of Merc’s stronger wing levels.

Toto is a master at motivating his team.

I think here at Bahrein Merc was the team on the back foot regarding the car`s setup.
Their strategy for this race was to set the car for one stop like they did last year.

So they went for higher than usual levels of DF in order to give them a stable rear and good traction out of the slow corners heading towards the long straights, even though their race simulations told them it`s not the fastest way around here. So having a higher RW AoA means lower top speed on the straights and here you go where the delta speed comes from Ferrari ...

Or another hypothesis says they went for this high DF setup in order to bring the car into the tyres sweet spot considering both the compounds and most of all for the fact that there were lower track temps than Melbourne ... something that GPR-A could elaborate more about this matter ...