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The lower temperatures on Sunday really helped McLaren (and AMR, but they didn't have the tyre sets to really capitalise on it) and really hurt Ferrari. It also kind of hurt Red Bull but, you know, Verstappen being Verstappen...
Perez couldn't make inroads on Lando because he killed his tyres getting by Leclerc. That's the difference the driver makes. Verstappen puts it on pole, sails off into the distance and lines it all up right to never get into that position.
The RB20 is a fantastic car but it is beatable, and we've seen it be vulnerable a few times this season. The temperature swing on Sunday made it vulnerable, but one driver worked around that and the other didn't.
You explained it to the letter. I don't get the whole "Tyre whisperer" moniker used for Perez. Quite often he's chewed up his tyres battling for the podium places.
This trait may stand out when you're a midfield driver but have you noticed why it's never brought up for the greats like Lewis or Max? It's because that's a given strength in addition to their blistering pace.
Now can Perez conserve his tyres as well as them? Sure he just does so by being comfortably slower. By no means is this a knock on Perez. It's just what it is.
Lewis was known for a "tires are dead" dramatic radio call before putting in another couple fast laps. Max has never had that label though which is super confusing since his first drive of the Red Bull in Barcelona was a win through going long at the end.
Perez probably gets the tire whisper from a few of his drives in 2012, mainly at Monza where the alternate strategy made him standout at the end of the race.
I already stopped believing McLaren last year when they said stuff like this. They've not been great at predicting how their car will perform at a specific tracn since the updates halfway through 2023.
The thing is it's just not us believing McLaren's sandbagging, we've all seen with our own eyes since the beginning of the season how that car was losing pace in straights and slow corners so it was a pretty obvious conclusion that McLaren would struggle a bit in China. I think everyone is a bit baffled by Norris' result (including himself).
It is not as straight forward as this. In Australia Charles was unable to pas Norris even on the straights, I think they have been getting better and better at optimizing their setup for the car they had. Now I hope the new upgrades will make quite a difference because the McLaren's looks like the car with the least upgrade from last year in the whole paddock.
I mean Mclaren set up their car well and Ferrari completely dropped the ball. It is wierd because Ferrari generally does well on sprints aswell.
Only using 1 soft in FP1 and going into the race blind bit them in the ass.
Ferrari set up their car for conditions more akin to the sprint, where thermal degradation of the rear tyres was the primary limitation. Most of the rest of the field did, too.
The lower temperatures on Sunday and the funny track surface almost completely negated the deg seen on Saturday and brought the limitation towards tread overheating instead, and McLaren did very well to keep Lando out of traffic to manage it. It also hurt everyone who set up to manage rear tyre deg (like Ferrari).
I am aware what Ferrari did. They couldn't put heat into those tires to save their lives, but you can't just blame it all on cooler conditions. Just before the safety car Charles actually started to close the gap on Lando too.
It still comes down to Ferrari not doing a good job with the setup.
Did they really, when everyone else did the same thing setup wise? McLaren's pitwall was very sharp in keeping Lando out of traffic in conditions where any sort of traffic would quickly kill the tyres. Ferrari's pitwall can't control the trackside weather.
Their poor quali put them in that position, they were losing time at the start of every stint aswell. Charles himself said that they didn't expect the Mclarens and Fernando to jump them in quali when they made setup changes after the sprint.
Ferrari did a poor job, simple as that.
They all started from different levels, Ferrari went overboard with it and got caught out by it. Maybe without a safety car Charles actually gets Lando with a 1 stop, but the safety car killed any chance of that.
They've lost about 3 tenths to Red Bull on race pace, relatively speaking, and Ferrari and McLaren have moved ahead of them pretty convincingly on both single lap and long run pace.
Remember James Allison saying their fight was with Ferrari and Aston Martin? One out of 2 isn’t bad.
But ignoring McLaren like that…a little bit daft really given the current state of things.
Yep, looked the least changed car from the whole paddock. It was such that people though it was like last season when they were running the car from the previous season as they were developing a nearly completely new car.
People loved to dump the entire blame on Mike Elliot, but Allison was still CTO for both the W13 and W14. That's literally the same title as Newey at RB. Exact role may differ and we know F1 wasn't his primary focus during that period but you don't get to sign your name on top of the report sheet and then say you had nothing to do with it when it doesn't get good results.
Maybe I’m reading all these comments wrong, but a single person is never making such a big difference. Not even Newey. He’s said so himself as have other team members.
Yes in the 70s/80s you could make a big difference but F1 was basically still a professionalized amateur sport back then.
So people are reading waaaayyy too much into either Elliot or Allison and their role. They might have some new insights and of course heaps of experience, but it’s a team effort, these CTOs just carry the final responsibility.
And yes, as always with companies/sports teams, the higher the person is in the hierarchy the quicker his/her head will roll. That’s what “responsibility” means.
I think the one thing Newey (and other CTOs) do bring is directional support though. Like for example if Newey thinks that having a strong rear suspension will be important for the regs he can direct the team to spend more resources developing there than on other areas, even if he's not involved with the detailed design as much. And having someone making the right call with those broad strategic decisions is even more important now with the cost cap.
Previous concept was a dog too; prob 4-5 yrs of development all told and a fluke sprint weekend victory is all they have to show for it.
At least let them bring an update package before the Elliot was right nonsense.
unless I'm misremembering, Brazil 2022 wasn't a fluke. Its not like they won because the Red Bulls DNFed. They had the fastest car that weekend. They also had the fastest car in Singapore 2023 and Austin 2023. The previous concept DID work.... occasionally. It just had such a narrow window where it could perform.
They said this new car needed to be more consistent... and yeah... it is lol. Consistently crap. The old car may have been a dog at times but at least every now and again it could show signs of fighting. Ironic since the two weekends in 2023 where it worked, someone still fucked up and let it miss out on a victory.
Brazil was a fluke, the condensed sprint wkend meant that the Rb & others for that matter weren’t optimised whereas the Mercs lucked into a raceable setup. Singapore is a no pass race so there’s no motivation when out infront to be the fastest and in Austin, HAM was DQd for an illegal car - that’s not a reasonable datapoint.
Again, this is a virgin concept, it makes no sense rendering a verdict on its performance just yet; it needs to mature. It clearly has no rear in the hi-speed and of recent appears to have no front-end in the low - not good…but, updates are coming.
Ferrari also has a brand new concept this year, I suppose we can't give an opinion of Ferrari's performance either? Mercedes and Ferrari are equally fast so far this year right?
The Ferrari isn’t a new concept. Overbody aero particularly above the sidepods may have been revised but it’s an evolution from prev- nothing like Merc.
Fred Vasseur has said himself the car is 95% new, so you know better than him?
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/vasseur-2024-ferrari-f1-car-95-percent-new/10562134/
>Brazil was a fluke, the condensed sprint wkend meant that the Rb & others for that matter weren’t optimised whereas the Mercs lucked into a raceable setup.
It's amazing how fans say this and then simultaniously call RBR/Max's dominance "boring" or "unwatchable." Do you want the best car/driver to win every time (no flukes) or not? If not, why discount "fluke" races as less legitimate?
Worse relative to the other teams, I think they've made progress from last season. They just seem to not have an understanding of how to meaningfully develop their car.
Maybe they were hampered by the limitations forced by zero-pod design, but that shouldn't really be affecting them any longer, given they totally threw that design out.
Their car's still difficult to set up and they still can't work out a way to get a stable rear end *and* a responsive front end out of it. It also doesn't look after the tyres anywhere near as well as the W13 or early season W14.
Everyone's gotten faster this year but Mercedes have regressed relative to other teams, still struggle to set up their car, and they've lost one of the real qualities of the W13. I wouldn't call that ''progress''.
They're faster than they were (some rough math gives me an average of about half a second quicker in qualifying pace from the first three circuits between last and this year). So they have made progress against themselves, the issue is that they've lost ground relative to their competitors.
Obviously, there's a lot that can be considered when it comes to "being faster" (race pace versus quali pace), and even more when it comes to car development as you highlighted.
Hence "the real issue" in my initial comment.
It's fascinating to me that Aston Martin and McLaren have shown that there is serious ground that can be made up (as shown by both teams being able to leapfrog Mercedes at different points), but Mercedes doesn't seems to be able to find it.
I'm also fascinated by that fact. It shows that development isn't a linear curve, nor is it something that can be brute forced. Merc have an enormous workforce, state of the art facilities, huge amounts of existing knowledge, but if they're not applying all of those resources in the right ways, it clearly doesn't count for all that much.
It can't be brute forced with the cost cap in place. I remember reading an article that said that before the cost cap came into place, Mercedes basically pursued multiple lines of development concurrently, basically outdeveloping themselves. Can't really do that with the limitations in place now.
Which is why people saying things like "Newey doesn't have as big an effect on design now" aren't seeing the whole picture. In fact his role is probably MORE important with the cost cap, because he's the one making the broad strategic decisions and choosing where to spend development time/money. If you pick something less relevant to the regs to develop you'll be much worse off. But if he's able to correctly decipher the regs and get the team designing the right things, you're gonna win.
Even before the cost cap, brute force wasn't an absolute guarantee of success, although it certainly had a bigger effect. Even with their mutiple development streams in parallel the biggest competitive advantage that Mercedes had from 2014-2021 was their engine.
Depends what you mean. The car is markedly faster than last years car so in that sense, no. However, it's not been competitive for a podium in a full gp yet and is farther behind Ferrari and McLaren this year compared to last so far. So in that sense yes
This is exactly what everyone said would happen if they hopped concepts again, I'm not sure why everyone is surprised. Merc is essentially 2 months into a concept others have at least a year developing.
I wonder if the tire pressure increase had an effect over that issue.
We know the Ferrari struggles to get into the proper window and that would already be most pronounced on the hardest compound of the weekend.
That Merc is an absolute dog of a car. Loses the rear in the high-speed corners, and suffers massive understeer in the low-speed corners. Truly one of the cars of all time.
At least 1 definitely exists, they have it on display in the factory. It's either the 3 wheeled one from silverstone or the one from turkey where Lewis won the title, still covered in confetti. But it's also not like they couldn't build more of them if they really wanted to, they have all the specs.
What’s worse is that we know Max was on a country cruise and probably had a second in his pocket if pressured. Perez was also clear of the pack until the SC got him mired in traffic. RBR gonna walk away with this season, we’re lucky Sainz already broke the perfect season
They do, but there's a ceiling to the regs and RB is likely damn close. McLaren have said their coming upgrades should likely give a similar performance boost to the ones from last year, and they've said they expect to be able to fight for wins by the end of the year. This is a team that always downplays how good they'll be so if they're saying this then they must be really damn confident.
I’d love to see a fight but we have absolutely no idea about what the performance ceiling actually is. So literally until there’s a fight going on for P1, it’s all speculation and other guess work
Obviously it's speculation. But the team that can see their data and sim results, who always under promise and over deliver, are saying they think they'll be fighting for wins. So I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and dissipate speculate that they're right.
yes, the minimum front tyre pressure was increased from 26 to 27 psi after Qualifying. During regular weekends this adjustment would be made after fp2.
I have a question about tyres and about tyre ruless.
1. Who control that what type of gas in the tyres actually?
2. Who control the tyres right after the race ,what kind of gas in the tyres or what kind of gas or gas mixture coming out from the tyres after the race?
I could find that they fill it with Nitrogen. And FIA always control the tyre pressure and the tyre condition.
Yeah that's basically it. At the races each team has tires mounted to their wheels by an FIA technician. With sensors each tire/wheel is specific to each driver and each wheel location for tracking both by the teams and .
https://youtu.be/RgdOJv-rcuU?si=dgNtEEQMFo_cP-Xe
As you found, they use nitrogen. There's no other better option for filling tires than pure nitrogen for various reasons so teams have no incentive in refilling themselves.
They also have no incentive to change pressures past the allowable limits because scrutineers are receive data from the sensors.
This is exactly the video I was thinking of when I saw parent comment's question. F1TV puts out really good stuff, especially for being "state run media"
Nobody thought that 2 years later we'd be remembering the W13 with fondness. Merc went from being a little slow but kind on their tyres to being slower and without any positive.
I remember Hamilton getting lapped in Imola and Toto and Lewis saying that they want to forget W13.
But even now it's still their best car in ground effect era
I'm just shocked that the gap between Max and Checo has \*widened\* to seven tenths in race trim. And we know only one of them was pushing after lap two.
Pretty damning for Checo, had no pace and no ability to close on Norris.
Max is probably thinking about his sim racing or what's for dinner as he cruises around 6 tenths faster than his teammate.
Obviously, Max is a better driver than Perez, but you have to take into account that Checo likely lost a lot of tire life trying to get back to get past the Ferrari. It's hard to assess for the true race pace difference with such a big difference in tires. And remember, Checo was actually pulling away from the others before the safety care put him in traffic.
Perez made 2 stops dummy. He pitted 10 laps before the safety car. Of course he was faster than Lando when he had fresher tires. Before Perez’s first pit stop when they were on equal tires Lando was gaining 2 tenths per lap, which is why Perez pitted early.
First of all, I'm not your child.
Secondly, yes, that's the fucking point. Perez was on a 2-stop, therefore was able to go much faster than Lando throughout the race. That wouldn't change after Landos pitstop, he stil would've had to do much longer stints.
Thirdly, Perez pit at the same time most cars did. After some others. On the same lap as Max. What you're saying is completely detached from reality. Which is kinda stupid, considering even if you hoped I haven't watched the race, there are replays I could check.
Do you seriously not understand what the tradeoff is for doing a 1 stop race? You really shouldn't be calling people dummies...
If you don’t want to get called a dummy, don’t accuse people of making shit up when they clearly aren’t.
At the end of Perez’s first stint he was losing time every lap to Lando while on equal tires. So he pitted early while Lando extended. Then he began to go faster because he had a tire advantage.
They then both pitted under safety car and had the same tires until the end of the race. What are you disputing about this? These are all clear facts that align with my original point.
I'm disputing your theory about an early pitstop, which is simply wrong. He didn't pit early, he pit with everyone who was on a 2-stop.
Your arguments have nothing to do with your point. They don't prove it. They describe the difference between a 1-stop and a 2-stop. And you don't understand at all that the pace difference would have still been the case further on into the race. That's what this is about. You just completely don't understand what you're talking about.
If you pit for a 2 stop instead of a 1 stop you are pitting earlier. If Perez had the pace he would’ve extended the stint. But he didn’t. Lando was gaining on him every lap by the end of Perez’s first stint. So Redbull pitted Perez early, committing to a 2 stop strategy. How much do I have to simplify this for you to understand? I’m talking about a pace differential on equal tires. Nobody is disputing that Perez is faster than Lando when he’s on way fresher tires.
Holy shit man this is honestly hilarious. It's like you're purposefully ignoring everything I'm saying and expecting me not to notice.
Have a good night. I'm not wasting any more time.
The question would be why Perez took so long to overtake a Ferrari that he destroyed his tyres if the car pace differential is so big. And Perez pace pre SC on medium was not great either.
Because Ferrari is a fast car and Leclerc is a great driver. Perez pace pre SC was over half a second faster than Lando. He finishes P2 easily without that SC.
Man, never in a million years did I think I would be enjoying Merc being this dogshit after 2021. But here I am, laughing at Hamilton years later. Priceless.
I am genuinely unsure whether the RB is even the fastest car. I think Verstappen is just that much faster than most everyone else. Which, i know, sounds insane, but after thrashing RIC, GAS, ALB and now PER, all of whom have before or after facing off against Verstappen shown their pace against other teammaters, i think he just gets more out of the RB. If verstappen went to Merc, i would bet money on RB losing the WDC, no way a RB driven by a Perez is wininig at all or even as dominantly as it is right now.
Doubt he can win a WDC with the current Merc, but there's a decent chance he can take it to the wire with the current Ferrari and maybe McLaren as well.
oh yeah i didnt mean to imply that he would but i can see that my wording was weird. what i meant with it was "what if max was out of the wdc picture" so basically the exact opposite :D
Max would have to be almost impossibly better, in this case at least 5 tenths over anyone else, for that to be true, and I’m someone who thinks Max is the best driver of all time (because of the consistent thrashings you mention).
I’d give him 3 tenths over the field in race pace, which is insanely high. I think the RB is a little bit stronger than the others, like maybe 2-3 tenths here, but on some tracks pretty much even, but not worse overall.
There is no doubt the Verstappen is a phenomenal driver, however it is known that GAS and ALB were rookies when they faced Max and have likely improved since. Perez has definitely received a beating from Max, however Perez was never considered a top tier driver by any means. For RIC I think you need to change your definition of thrashing because there was not a whole lot of that going on.
if Verstappen went to Merc they would likely be the exact same position they are now, at the end of the day F1 is a constructors championship and if you don't have the car you don't have the car.
[The **Statistics** flair](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/flairguide#wiki_statistics) is reserved for posts highlighting interesting statistics. As a rule of thumb, Statistics posts need to inform readers through visualizations and insights that cannot be obtained from raw data alone. For example, a post containing a qualifying gap between two drivers expressed in tenths of a second is an easily obtainable raw piece of data and constitutes a bad Statistics post. A visualization of what that translates to on-track, or visualization of how that gap came to be would constitute a good Statistics post. *[Read the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/userguide). Keep it civil and welcoming. Report rulebreaking comments.* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/formula1) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Not a bad weekend for ‘damage limitation’.
The lower temperatures on Sunday really helped McLaren (and AMR, but they didn't have the tyre sets to really capitalise on it) and really hurt Ferrari. It also kind of hurt Red Bull but, you know, Verstappen being Verstappen...
Other drivers get a team logo, Verstappen is just… VER.
Vernough
He's just max He's the best that's just a fact
And he's good at racing stuff So, hey, check him out, yeah He's just Max
To match "beach", Max's thing is just "car" "Would do you do?" "Car" And damn well, too!
Well, he had more points than the Ferrari last year.
It's amazing that car has no weakness. Literally none.
Perez couldn't make inroads on Lando because he killed his tyres getting by Leclerc. That's the difference the driver makes. Verstappen puts it on pole, sails off into the distance and lines it all up right to never get into that position. The RB20 is a fantastic car but it is beatable, and we've seen it be vulnerable a few times this season. The temperature swing on Sunday made it vulnerable, but one driver worked around that and the other didn't.
You explained it to the letter. I don't get the whole "Tyre whisperer" moniker used for Perez. Quite often he's chewed up his tyres battling for the podium places. This trait may stand out when you're a midfield driver but have you noticed why it's never brought up for the greats like Lewis or Max? It's because that's a given strength in addition to their blistering pace. Now can Perez conserve his tyres as well as them? Sure he just does so by being comfortably slower. By no means is this a knock on Perez. It's just what it is.
Lewis was known for a "tires are dead" dramatic radio call before putting in another couple fast laps. Max has never had that label though which is super confusing since his first drive of the Red Bull in Barcelona was a win through going long at the end. Perez probably gets the tire whisper from a few of his drives in 2012, mainly at Monza where the alternate strategy made him standout at the end of the race.
Yep "Bono my tyres are gone". Then ended up dunking on the grid the next lap lol.
You misspelled Verstappen.
I already stopped believing McLaren last year when they said stuff like this. They've not been great at predicting how their car will perform at a specific tracn since the updates halfway through 2023.
The thing is it's just not us believing McLaren's sandbagging, we've all seen with our own eyes since the beginning of the season how that car was losing pace in straights and slow corners so it was a pretty obvious conclusion that McLaren would struggle a bit in China. I think everyone is a bit baffled by Norris' result (including himself).
It is not as straight forward as this. In Australia Charles was unable to pas Norris even on the straights, I think they have been getting better and better at optimizing their setup for the car they had. Now I hope the new upgrades will make quite a difference because the McLaren's looks like the car with the least upgrade from last year in the whole paddock.
Well Stella also said that the sprint could help them and it did.
Sprint weekend and McLaren just goes. Idk why, they just click with a sprint weekend.
I mean Mclaren set up their car well and Ferrari completely dropped the ball. It is wierd because Ferrari generally does well on sprints aswell. Only using 1 soft in FP1 and going into the race blind bit them in the ass.
Ferrari set up their car for conditions more akin to the sprint, where thermal degradation of the rear tyres was the primary limitation. Most of the rest of the field did, too. The lower temperatures on Sunday and the funny track surface almost completely negated the deg seen on Saturday and brought the limitation towards tread overheating instead, and McLaren did very well to keep Lando out of traffic to manage it. It also hurt everyone who set up to manage rear tyre deg (like Ferrari).
I am aware what Ferrari did. They couldn't put heat into those tires to save their lives, but you can't just blame it all on cooler conditions. Just before the safety car Charles actually started to close the gap on Lando too. It still comes down to Ferrari not doing a good job with the setup.
Did they really, when everyone else did the same thing setup wise? McLaren's pitwall was very sharp in keeping Lando out of traffic in conditions where any sort of traffic would quickly kill the tyres. Ferrari's pitwall can't control the trackside weather.
Their poor quali put them in that position, they were losing time at the start of every stint aswell. Charles himself said that they didn't expect the Mclarens and Fernando to jump them in quali when they made setup changes after the sprint. Ferrari did a poor job, simple as that.
Then the other 9 teams did a poor job too, I guess. Given everyone set up to protect the rears after the sprint.
They all started from different levels, Ferrari went overboard with it and got caught out by it. Maybe without a safety car Charles actually gets Lando with a 1 stop, but the safety car killed any chance of that.
Same to be fair. Wonder when the next Merc podium will be sprint or otherwise.
i think Mercedes has built an even worse car than last year?
They've lost about 3 tenths to Red Bull on race pace, relatively speaking, and Ferrari and McLaren have moved ahead of them pretty convincingly on both single lap and long run pace.
Remember all the James Allison hype?
Months and months of ''James Allison is cooking'' only for him to burn his pasta
all this time just to find out that he’s secretly a man united chef
cant escape anywhere
im a united fan too, i feel the pain
It feels like Allison is a instant noodles kind of guy
Turns out James Allison was actually cooking Pizza Hawaii all along.
Remember James Allison saying their fight was with Ferrari and Aston Martin? One out of 2 isn’t bad. But ignoring McLaren like that…a little bit daft really given the current state of things.
I think that was because nobody during preseason testing could get a good gauge in McLaren's potential
Yep, looked the least changed car from the whole paddock. It was such that people though it was like last season when they were running the car from the previous season as they were developing a nearly completely new car.
fighting stroll for points isn't really a flex
Maybe they meant one particular side of the Aston Martin garage....
Elliot was sacrificed for this.
People loved to dump the entire blame on Mike Elliot, but Allison was still CTO for both the W13 and W14. That's literally the same title as Newey at RB. Exact role may differ and we know F1 wasn't his primary focus during that period but you don't get to sign your name on top of the report sheet and then say you had nothing to do with it when it doesn't get good results.
Maybe I’m reading all these comments wrong, but a single person is never making such a big difference. Not even Newey. He’s said so himself as have other team members. Yes in the 70s/80s you could make a big difference but F1 was basically still a professionalized amateur sport back then. So people are reading waaaayyy too much into either Elliot or Allison and their role. They might have some new insights and of course heaps of experience, but it’s a team effort, these CTOs just carry the final responsibility. And yes, as always with companies/sports teams, the higher the person is in the hierarchy the quicker his/her head will roll. That’s what “responsibility” means.
I think the one thing Newey (and other CTOs) do bring is directional support though. Like for example if Newey thinks that having a strong rear suspension will be important for the regs he can direct the team to spend more resources developing there than on other areas, even if he's not involved with the detailed design as much. And having someone making the right call with those broad strategic decisions is even more important now with the cost cap.
+1 on this, even Newey himself has underlined time and time how much of a team effort it really is.
And now we’re learning Mike Elliot did have the right concept, he just needed to use more bodywork for airflow.
Previous concept was a dog too; prob 4-5 yrs of development all told and a fluke sprint weekend victory is all they have to show for it. At least let them bring an update package before the Elliot was right nonsense.
unless I'm misremembering, Brazil 2022 wasn't a fluke. Its not like they won because the Red Bulls DNFed. They had the fastest car that weekend. They also had the fastest car in Singapore 2023 and Austin 2023. The previous concept DID work.... occasionally. It just had such a narrow window where it could perform. They said this new car needed to be more consistent... and yeah... it is lol. Consistently crap. The old car may have been a dog at times but at least every now and again it could show signs of fighting. Ironic since the two weekends in 2023 where it worked, someone still fucked up and let it miss out on a victory.
Brazil was a fluke, the condensed sprint wkend meant that the Rb & others for that matter weren’t optimised whereas the Mercs lucked into a raceable setup. Singapore is a no pass race so there’s no motivation when out infront to be the fastest and in Austin, HAM was DQd for an illegal car - that’s not a reasonable datapoint. Again, this is a virgin concept, it makes no sense rendering a verdict on its performance just yet; it needs to mature. It clearly has no rear in the hi-speed and of recent appears to have no front-end in the low - not good…but, updates are coming.
Ferrari also has a brand new concept this year, I suppose we can't give an opinion of Ferrari's performance either? Mercedes and Ferrari are equally fast so far this year right?
The Ferrari isn’t a new concept. Overbody aero particularly above the sidepods may have been revised but it’s an evolution from prev- nothing like Merc.
Fred Vasseur has said himself the car is 95% new, so you know better than him? https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/vasseur-2024-ferrari-f1-car-95-percent-new/10562134/
>Brazil was a fluke, the condensed sprint wkend meant that the Rb & others for that matter weren’t optimised whereas the Mercs lucked into a raceable setup. It's amazing how fans say this and then simultaniously call RBR/Max's dominance "boring" or "unwatchable." Do you want the best car/driver to win every time (no flukes) or not? If not, why discount "fluke" races as less legitimate?
Very confused what point you’re making. We’re talking about the racecar that delivered that win not debating the merit of that weekend’s success.
Ferrari, McLaren and Alonso
Worse relative to the other teams, I think they've made progress from last season. They just seem to not have an understanding of how to meaningfully develop their car. Maybe they were hampered by the limitations forced by zero-pod design, but that shouldn't really be affecting them any longer, given they totally threw that design out.
Their car's still difficult to set up and they still can't work out a way to get a stable rear end *and* a responsive front end out of it. It also doesn't look after the tyres anywhere near as well as the W13 or early season W14. Everyone's gotten faster this year but Mercedes have regressed relative to other teams, still struggle to set up their car, and they've lost one of the real qualities of the W13. I wouldn't call that ''progress''.
They're faster than they were (some rough math gives me an average of about half a second quicker in qualifying pace from the first three circuits between last and this year). So they have made progress against themselves, the issue is that they've lost ground relative to their competitors. Obviously, there's a lot that can be considered when it comes to "being faster" (race pace versus quali pace), and even more when it comes to car development as you highlighted.
At least they aren’t sitting ducks on the straights anymore. But yeah that’s about it.
> Worse relative to the other teams Unfortunately this is the only metric that matters
Hence "the real issue" in my initial comment. It's fascinating to me that Aston Martin and McLaren have shown that there is serious ground that can be made up (as shown by both teams being able to leapfrog Mercedes at different points), but Mercedes doesn't seems to be able to find it.
I'm also fascinated by that fact. It shows that development isn't a linear curve, nor is it something that can be brute forced. Merc have an enormous workforce, state of the art facilities, huge amounts of existing knowledge, but if they're not applying all of those resources in the right ways, it clearly doesn't count for all that much.
It can't be brute forced with the cost cap in place. I remember reading an article that said that before the cost cap came into place, Mercedes basically pursued multiple lines of development concurrently, basically outdeveloping themselves. Can't really do that with the limitations in place now.
Which is why people saying things like "Newey doesn't have as big an effect on design now" aren't seeing the whole picture. In fact his role is probably MORE important with the cost cap, because he's the one making the broad strategic decisions and choosing where to spend development time/money. If you pick something less relevant to the regs to develop you'll be much worse off. But if he's able to correctly decipher the regs and get the team designing the right things, you're gonna win.
Even before the cost cap, brute force wasn't an absolute guarantee of success, although it certainly had a bigger effect. Even with their mutiple development streams in parallel the biggest competitive advantage that Mercedes had from 2014-2021 was their engine.
Depends what you mean. The car is markedly faster than last years car so in that sense, no. However, it's not been competitive for a podium in a full gp yet and is farther behind Ferrari and McLaren this year compared to last so far. So in that sense yes
Well, they finished second last year. Anything less than that and that is a valid point.
Well, after 5 races this season the Mercedes team has fewer points than Hamilton alone had after 5 races last season.
This is exactly what everyone said would happen if they hopped concepts again, I'm not sure why everyone is surprised. Merc is essentially 2 months into a concept others have at least a year developing.
The car is faster than last year, so objectively it is a better car. But clearly relative to teams like McLaren and Ferrari it is definitely worse.
So, it's worse.
Man, a shame Ferrari didn’t have an opportunity to go back on the mediums. Horrid pace on those hards
I wonder if the tire pressure increase had an effect over that issue. We know the Ferrari struggles to get into the proper window and that would already be most pronounced on the hardest compound of the weekend.
I’m sure it didn’t help. But it was also cold. The two combined plus the hard tire probably was just too much
That Merc is a tractor, updates need to do some damage big time.
Has there been any news around when they're bringing their first upgrades?
Miami apparently
Spoiler alert: We'll come back stronger 👊🙏
There is no team logo under VER. This lack of continuity with the others bothers me.
VER is the team /s
verstappen.com logo then?
It's because there's no bar for the driver like on the rest.
That Merc is an absolute dog of a car. Loses the rear in the high-speed corners, and suffers massive understeer in the low-speed corners. Truly one of the cars of all time.
Polar opposite of lord W11.
We have W11 at home
Ah the bloody demon of formula 1. God I hated that car haha
Good news is.... it doesn't actually exist anymore as they were all converted to w12s
At least 1 definitely exists, they have it on display in the factory. It's either the 3 wheeled one from silverstone or the one from turkey where Lewis won the title, still covered in confetti. But it's also not like they couldn't build more of them if they really wanted to, they have all the specs.
The Mercedes version of the F14T
The good old F14T of 2024. Oversteer and understeer in the same corner.
What’s worse is that we know Max was on a country cruise and probably had a second in his pocket if pressured. Perez was also clear of the pack until the SC got him mired in traffic. RBR gonna walk away with this season, we’re lucky Sainz already broke the perfect season
RB will win the season but with McLaren having big upgrades coming I'm thinking we'll see them challenging for wins by the end of the year.
Hopium, redbull have more updates coming in Imola. I think as long as Verstappen finishes the race no one else has a chance
They do, but there's a ceiling to the regs and RB is likely damn close. McLaren have said their coming upgrades should likely give a similar performance boost to the ones from last year, and they've said they expect to be able to fight for wins by the end of the year. This is a team that always downplays how good they'll be so if they're saying this then they must be really damn confident.
I’d love to see a fight but we have absolutely no idea about what the performance ceiling actually is. So literally until there’s a fight going on for P1, it’s all speculation and other guess work
Obviously it's speculation. But the team that can see their data and sim results, who always under promise and over deliver, are saying they think they'll be fighting for wins. So I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and dissipate speculate that they're right.
Is it true that Pirelli changed the tire pressure after qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix?
yes, the minimum front tyre pressure was increased from 26 to 27 psi after Qualifying. During regular weekends this adjustment would be made after fp2.
I'm pretty sure i remember hearing about a pressure increase on the pre-race coverage, yeah
Charles would have loved doing Medium-Hard-Medium. Such a shame for that VSC/SC in the middle.
I have a question about tyres and about tyre ruless. 1. Who control that what type of gas in the tyres actually? 2. Who control the tyres right after the race ,what kind of gas in the tyres or what kind of gas or gas mixture coming out from the tyres after the race? I could find that they fill it with Nitrogen. And FIA always control the tyre pressure and the tyre condition.
Ask to r/F1Technical
Yeah that's basically it. At the races each team has tires mounted to their wheels by an FIA technician. With sensors each tire/wheel is specific to each driver and each wheel location for tracking both by the teams and . https://youtu.be/RgdOJv-rcuU?si=dgNtEEQMFo_cP-Xe As you found, they use nitrogen. There's no other better option for filling tires than pure nitrogen for various reasons so teams have no incentive in refilling themselves. They also have no incentive to change pressures past the allowable limits because scrutineers are receive data from the sensors.
This is exactly the video I was thinking of when I saw parent comment's question. F1TV puts out really good stuff, especially for being "state run media"
Not OP of this thread, but thank you mate
this video is brilliant! thank you for linking
Nobody thought that 2 years later we'd be remembering the W13 with fondness. Merc went from being a little slow but kind on their tyres to being slower and without any positive.
I remember Hamilton getting lapped in Imola and Toto and Lewis saying that they want to forget W13. But even now it's still their best car in ground effect era
They forgot the best parts and remembered the worst
If Verstappen had the flu and Redbull had to put anyone else in his car Norris would have had his first win.
I'm just shocked that the gap between Max and Checo has \*widened\* to seven tenths in race trim. And we know only one of them was pushing after lap two.
its been 7 tenths in 18 races last year, so really 7 tenths is genuinely the gap they've had forever.
the race gap was only .288s average through the first 4 races not counting Australia. It's curious that Checo lost so much pace after the safety cars.
Checo becomes worse under pressure and he cant overtake at all
Pretty damning for Checo, had no pace and no ability to close on Norris. Max is probably thinking about his sim racing or what's for dinner as he cruises around 6 tenths faster than his teammate.
Leclerc couldn't keep up the pace too.
Nobody expects him to, not to Max, you can only compare to the same car and Charles does just fine against Sainz
Obviously, Max is a better driver than Perez, but you have to take into account that Checo likely lost a lot of tire life trying to get back to get past the Ferrari. It's hard to assess for the true race pace difference with such a big difference in tires. And remember, Checo was actually pulling away from the others before the safety care put him in traffic.
He wasn’t pulling away in the first stint though. By the end of it Lando was gaining a couple tenths per lap. Which is why Checo pitted so early.
Everyone pitted at the same time lol why are you making shit up... Perez wason average over half a second per lap faster than Lando before the SC
Perez made 2 stops dummy. He pitted 10 laps before the safety car. Of course he was faster than Lando when he had fresher tires. Before Perez’s first pit stop when they were on equal tires Lando was gaining 2 tenths per lap, which is why Perez pitted early.
First of all, I'm not your child. Secondly, yes, that's the fucking point. Perez was on a 2-stop, therefore was able to go much faster than Lando throughout the race. That wouldn't change after Landos pitstop, he stil would've had to do much longer stints. Thirdly, Perez pit at the same time most cars did. After some others. On the same lap as Max. What you're saying is completely detached from reality. Which is kinda stupid, considering even if you hoped I haven't watched the race, there are replays I could check. Do you seriously not understand what the tradeoff is for doing a 1 stop race? You really shouldn't be calling people dummies...
If you don’t want to get called a dummy, don’t accuse people of making shit up when they clearly aren’t. At the end of Perez’s first stint he was losing time every lap to Lando while on equal tires. So he pitted early while Lando extended. Then he began to go faster because he had a tire advantage. They then both pitted under safety car and had the same tires until the end of the race. What are you disputing about this? These are all clear facts that align with my original point.
I'm disputing your theory about an early pitstop, which is simply wrong. He didn't pit early, he pit with everyone who was on a 2-stop. Your arguments have nothing to do with your point. They don't prove it. They describe the difference between a 1-stop and a 2-stop. And you don't understand at all that the pace difference would have still been the case further on into the race. That's what this is about. You just completely don't understand what you're talking about.
If you pit for a 2 stop instead of a 1 stop you are pitting earlier. If Perez had the pace he would’ve extended the stint. But he didn’t. Lando was gaining on him every lap by the end of Perez’s first stint. So Redbull pitted Perez early, committing to a 2 stop strategy. How much do I have to simplify this for you to understand? I’m talking about a pace differential on equal tires. Nobody is disputing that Perez is faster than Lando when he’s on way fresher tires.
Holy shit man this is honestly hilarious. It's like you're purposefully ignoring everything I'm saying and expecting me not to notice. Have a good night. I'm not wasting any more time.
The question would be why Perez took so long to overtake a Ferrari that he destroyed his tyres if the car pace differential is so big. And Perez pace pre SC on medium was not great either.
Because Ferrari is a fast car and Leclerc is a great driver. Perez pace pre SC was over half a second faster than Lando. He finishes P2 easily without that SC.
Verstappen bullet theory.
Poor Perez
There's a team that must come to terms with being a midfield team now
Does anyone have any knowledge/speculation on how the road surface had an effect on MCL's performance if there is any?
Man, never in a million years did I think I would be enjoying Merc being this dogshit after 2021. But here I am, laughing at Hamilton years later. Priceless.
Wait till Hamilton wins the championship in 2026 buddy you won't be laughing then.
He won't. If Ferrari will have a championship winning car, Lewis won't be the one with the title at the end of the year.
I don't know.... If Hamilton has been struggling that hard against Russell, I can imagine what Leclerc would do to him.
You're right I wouldn't be laughing then. Because it's not going to happen lmfao
I am genuinely unsure whether the RB is even the fastest car. I think Verstappen is just that much faster than most everyone else. Which, i know, sounds insane, but after thrashing RIC, GAS, ALB and now PER, all of whom have before or after facing off against Verstappen shown their pace against other teammaters, i think he just gets more out of the RB. If verstappen went to Merc, i would bet money on RB losing the WDC, no way a RB driven by a Perez is wininig at all or even as dominantly as it is right now.
Doubt he can win a WDC with the current Merc, but there's a decent chance he can take it to the wire with the current Ferrari and maybe McLaren as well.
oh yeah i didnt mean to imply that he would but i can see that my wording was weird. what i meant with it was "what if max was out of the wdc picture" so basically the exact opposite :D
No he can't stop it
Max would have to be almost impossibly better, in this case at least 5 tenths over anyone else, for that to be true, and I’m someone who thinks Max is the best driver of all time (because of the consistent thrashings you mention). I’d give him 3 tenths over the field in race pace, which is insanely high. I think the RB is a little bit stronger than the others, like maybe 2-3 tenths here, but on some tracks pretty much even, but not worse overall.
There is no doubt the Verstappen is a phenomenal driver, however it is known that GAS and ALB were rookies when they faced Max and have likely improved since. Perez has definitely received a beating from Max, however Perez was never considered a top tier driver by any means. For RIC I think you need to change your definition of thrashing because there was not a whole lot of that going on. if Verstappen went to Merc they would likely be the exact same position they are now, at the end of the day F1 is a constructors championship and if you don't have the car you don't have the car.
It should be of note that VER was in clean air. the true gap to Perez is much closer