Mercedes: Team Thread

Ocon holding everyone up just shows how **** this race really is as a spectator event

 

Really took you till 2023 Monaco race to realise that lol

 

Well, didn’t see the end of the race as doing something far more rewarding.Walking up to the top of Rivington Pike.

 

Hamilton on upgrades:

Asked about the development direction Mercedes have taken, Hamilton answered: "It's those constant conversations where you're like 'what does that look like that and we look like this, have we tried that?'.

"We now have the wider sidepod more in the direction of the what the Red Bull is. It's not been my decision to go that way.

"I think it's been clear when we dropped the car back on the ground at the first test, it's basically the identical twin to last year's car, except for the bouncing, but with some of the similar characteristics of how it drives, apart from the bouncing.

"But I think we have taken note of where we are and where we have gone wrong, and now we are just slowly chipping away and trying to navigate all the way back to the front. It's just a long process unfortunately."

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I’ve acknowledged Lewis’ talent on track from the minute he stated in 2007, but what a whiny bag of bollocks he is these days.

When they stuck with the original concept- it was all “I told them it didn’t work and I know what a fast car feels like”, yet now they’ve gone down a more conventional route he STILL has to point the finger a bit.

At what point does the guy say “Actually, in hindsight, I was really lucky to have the dominant engine in F1 in 14,15 with a token system that allowed zero development race to catch Mercedes up”- or maybe look at Alonso and realise that a genius driver on LHs level lost a decade because he happened to be in the wrong places (whether partly his own fault or not).

Verstappen, Ricciardo, Norris, LeClerc, Sainz, Alonso have all had to race against a Mercedes outfit that was ahead of everyone, and now the cycle has moved on.

He is undoubtedly a terrific driver, he was very unlucky in 2021, but the whining just needs to stop.

Merc surely cannot catch up this year so it’s a case of head down, hard yards and keep improving.

 

Lewis was lucky to have a dominant car for many years and many hated it as much as others are hating a Max/Redbull domination. Although I think the dislike of Redbull is more to do with how Lewis was cheated out of the title in 2021.
I don't see his comments as whinging so much as just stating his opinion. On track he does moan somewhat but so does Max, goes with the territory. Much as I dislike Max I am enjoying the competition between the rest. Just wish no car dominated and more was driver dependent. It is what it is.

 

Lewis`s contract issue was expected to be solved over the winter break but that particular can has been kicked further and further down the road, leading to it being near the end of the summer shutdown and still no announcement. I hope that he makes up his mind real soon and resigns for at least another couple of years.

 

Just drive in Red for a bit.

 

Never seems to do anyone any good that...

 

They have to come good at some point. Maybe.. possibly... hopefully...

 

Lewis just likes to make his fans sweat a bit. Didn't sign until February in 2021, disappeared for the entire winter in 2022. Perhaps he'll one up himself and sort out the new contract 15 minutes before Friday practice in Bahrain

 

I don't mind a car dominating as long as both are allowed to race a la Lewis and Rosberg, Prost & Senna, Piquet & Mansell, but redbull have gone the Ferrari Schumacher way.

 

hamilton and russell signed up.

 

Yeah,a reported $50 million a year for Hamilton. Lewis and George both signed for another 2 years.Mercedes can`t build another non performing failure,surely!
I get the feeling that Lewis still has confidence in his team and thinks next years car will be much more to his liking and a pole and race winning challenger.

 

Glad to see Hamilton sticking around, though I must admit I was hoping for a spell in scarlet

 

https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/1...rivers-record-winning-streak-is-for-wikipedia

I have to say, as much as I don’t enjoy the RBR domination, Toto Wolff these past two seasons has been like a petulant child in the media who has really struggled to turn the ship around.

As if he wouldn’t be celebrating if Lewis had done the same. He and Sky TV would be fawning over it.

This narrative he keeps spinning about Mercedes team mates fighting is only really relevant for the Hamilton-Rosberg years.

 

To be fair, I'm not sure Verstappen really gives a **** about records either, it kinda feels like each race is it's own thing and he just deals with them as they come. He rocks up, wins and moves on.

That said, I hope we never see a streak this long in F1 again and this record lasts for eternity, because in all the eea of dominance we have had, this is the craziest.

What are we looking at? 14 races won this season. Without the random Russell win last year we could be looking at 25 straight wins, and we're over 30 wins in two seasons for RBR. This is dominance of epic proportions. We still have 8 races to go and this is looking like a clean sweep. This isn't good.

 

Whilst disappointing, it is somewhat understandable I guess, Merc had a huge margin for a long time and never got anywhere near this level of execution, so there’s bound to be some jealousy.

The reality is, that in the last couple of years, Sergio and Max have started off quite evenly matched and then Max goes to another level as the season ramps up. This year Max has his foot on the throat of the competition and hasn’t let go. It’s also worth acknowledging that you’re going to need some luck, or at least an absence of bad luck to maintain a run like this, as so many races are lost due to safety cars or weather in the wrong moment or a first corner melee.

Obviously, you get some innuendo about the team favouring Max from the onlookers, but there’s no real evidence for that, and it’s certainly not Barrichello in Austria 2002, nor “Valtteri, it’s James…”

The other question I find myself asking, is who exactly this teammate is who would provide Rosberg levels of competition and have prevented Max from securing that streak. There’s a few drivers on the grid who have Rosberg like records up until he found his way into a dominant car with a teammate and set of circumstances which gave him a chance to win a championship. Three come to mind immediately, Max has already seen off Daniel and Carlos, the other somewhat ironically is Sergio Perez.

 

That report comes across poorly .it’s not the whole interview that I saw .

The one I heard Toto said those records didn’t matter to Merc when they were in that position earlier .

He gave full credit to RBR , and also in a ref to the rule changes introduced to slow Merc down , and rumours some teams are trying to get the same done for RBR , he said if a team builds a brilliant car and other teams take a long time to catch up , then fair dues .

Here it is

From the BBC


Max Verstappen: Toto Wolff says Red Bull driver's new record for consecutive wins is 'completely irrelevant'
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff says Red Bull driver Max Verstappen's all-time record of 10 consecutive wins is "completely irrelevant".

Verstappen's victory at Monza on Sunday means he surpassed his Red Bull predecessor Sebastian Vettel's run of nine straight victories in 2013, and accomplished something Mercedes did not during their period of domination between 2014 and 2020.

Wolff said: "For me, these kinds of records are completely irrelevant. They were irrelevant in our good days at Mercedes.

"I don't know how many races we won in a row. didn't even know there was a count."

However, Wolff did admit that Verstappen's success "shows a great driver in a great car competing at an extremely high level".

In a second answer on Verstappen he added: "By the way, that record, I would think it's a good one, because it's perfection."

And he said that he expected Red Bull to go on to win every race this season, barring an error.

"I think they need to screw it up themselves in order not to win [every race] this season," Wolff said.

Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur said: "They always had mega pace - from Monza to Monaco, they were performing and this is impressive. But the most impressive for me is that Max - it's not just about the last 10 races, it's about the last two years - I would say he didn't make a single mistake in the races.

"It's easier to not make mistakes when you have a margin on the others, but even in these kind of circumstances he is able to manage a situation very well.

"To not do a single mistake over two seasons is just mega."

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said: "You have to recognise and applaud what Max is doing at the moment. It's very special. We shouldn't detract from that in any way.

"In sport, very rarely things like this happen and it's a golden moment for him and certainly a golden moment for the team."

There have been questions within F1 as to whether governing body the FIA should legislate to try to halt Red Bull's domination, as they did at the end of 2020 when a rule change for the 2021 season affected Mercedes more than other teams and led to a ferocious title battle between Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, with the Dutchman eventually coming out on top after winning the controversial season finale at Abu Dhabi.

But Wolff said: "If a team dominates in the way Max has done with Red Bull, then fair dues. This is a meritocracy.

"As long as you comply with the regulations - technical, sporting and financial - we just need to say, well done. And if it takes a long time [to catch up], then it takes a long time.

"I remember people crying foul when it was us. Entertainment follows sport, not the other way around. You can't be WWE [wrestling] - we don't want to be scripted content."

 

Toto has signed a 3 year extension of his contract that takes him to the end of 2026




Toto Wolff signs new three-year Mercedes Formula 1 deal

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Wolff's Mercedes won seven consecutive drivers' and constructors' F1 championships between 2014 and 2020

Toto Wolff has signed a three-year deal to stay on as the team principal and chief executive of Mercedes F1.

Wolff, who owns a third of Mercedes F1, told the Telegraph, external that he has extended his contract until the end of 2026.

Mercedes won eight constructors' titles in eight seasons between 2014 and 2021 and finished second behind Red Bull in 2023.

"I'm not going to try to hang on to a position that I think somebody is going to do better than me," Wolff said.

"I make sure that I have people around who can tell me otherwise. In the end the three of us decided: 'Let's do it again'."

Wolff, 52, has been with Mercedes since January 2013.

The team is equally owned by Mercedes-Benz, Austrian Wolff and a subsidiary of Ineos, which is controlled by Manchester United investor Sir Jim Ratcliffe.

Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton finished third in the drivers' championship last season but the team has won only one race since 2021.

The 2024 F1 season begins with the Bahrain Grand Prix, from 29 February-2 March.

 

Anthony Davidson (is this the same Anthony Davidson Sky F1 pundit?) has been driving the W15 Mercedes in the sim and he says it feels like Mercedes have a real F1 car at their disposal for the first time in 2 years.

Also Toto has said to "Watch this space" because they have got some new ideas to speed up pit stops with wheel locking mechanisms and axle materials.
So,it`s not just the lap times they are aiming to reduce.

Anyway the simulator is one thing,but nobody really knows how the W15 will perform until testing.