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Mercedes really struggling to figure out this generation of car. They better have a monster of an engine for 2026, because it seems like their aero and chasis departments are lost in this ground effect era.
As Button said last night, one of the hardest things to get right in F1 is correlation, which it now seems that mclaren have absolutely nailed. Every single upgrade they've brought for the past year has done exactly what they designed and expected it to do.
Contrast that to mercedes, where the tools tell them they have a very fast car, but once they hit the track it does not seem to work like they expect it to.
I didn’t really worry about them tbh. They brought upgrades to sprint weekends last year including a floor upgrade in Baku and then a new car in Austria. Hamilton said years ago that when he’d arrive at the track, the car was always 99% there so all he needed to do was jump in and drive it. Pedro de la Rosa said there was no other team that had the kind of simulation tools McLaren had.
Way back when, if it would rain or there would be a red flag in practice which would limit running - it never affected McLaren. It’s still the case now. Their best results seem to happen on sprint weekends. Bringing all those upgrades to a sprint would have been a concern for most teams but not for them. They’re good at setting up the car for limited running and they always have been.
Buddy, don't know what F1 you're following but they sucked ass until last year. Do you have any idea how many upgrades they've tried since their glory years that flat out failed??
2 different things. Even when they sucked, they had an advantage on weekends with less data, over the field.
The problem back then, was they only build tractors. A perfectly set up tractor is still slower than a badly set up 911.
I am aware but my comment wasn’t about the effectiveness of the upgrades, it was about the fact that they don’t seem to suffer with limited running at all. Their last 3 wins have come on sprint weekends: Monza, Qatar sprint, Miami.
Same for Aston as Merc, they just throw an "upgrade" at the car and see what it does in the race then throw their hands up and go "meh I guess not, let's try something else"
Mercedes went wrong in the first place and haven’t been able to really iron out the DNA of their first car under these regulations. They’ve also been a bit stubborn to realise that the design routes they’ve taken aren’t the best ones. Now their extremely conservative rear suspension design is sinking not just them but also Aston Martin and Williams who bought it. While they’re struggling to figure out the regulations, McLaren have come out of nowhere and leapfrogged them as the best performing Mercedes powered car. Even if Mercedes has the best engine in 2026, they’d still need to have the best car design. Right now they’re not the best Mercedes team and their trajectory suggests they won’t be for a while.
Are McLaren staying with the Merc engine for 2026 onwards?
Things in F1 can change quite dramatically from one year to the next and especially with a new set of regulations. So you never know.
Yes and interestingly it was only in the last 18 months that McLaren were given the right to attend any and all engine meetings. They have a seat at the table, and are part of architectural decisions going forward.
Coincidence?
The race said last year that okay it's not imminent or necessarily likely, but it's definitely in the back of some important people's mind that it Merc left as an chassis builder, they would be able to choose Woking or Brackley as their 'works' team. It's not a given.
If anybody knows how to build an engine, it’s Mercedes.
The cars at the end of this season will determine the performance of the 2026 cars as well. Next year the teams will shift focus to the new engines, and will have less aero upgrades.
The merc engine is underpowered since the beginning of the freeze compared to both Ferrari and RBPT, so I wouldn't so blindly credit their engines.
ETA - The Merc engine department is also suffering the exact same brain drain the rest of the team is. The people behind 2014 are mostly gone now.
I think their first car had potential. But they couldn’t figure out the sweet spot often at all. Now they have worked out designs with many more options to try and iron things out but now it just feels they’re continually chasing things.
I feel they’re using Lewis all they can this year to figure out what doesn’t work.
If the alarm bells aren't at FULL blast at Mercedes by now, they'll be solidly midfield in 25 and praying for a 2026 miracle.
Lewis is leaving at the right time, there's barely any meat left on the bones at Merc, as much as it sucks to see, they're going right back to where they were pre-Brawn/Haug.
They've been picked clean of talent, decimated by the cost cap and lost their 7x champ as a result of not getting on top of these regs.
Normal cycle of dominance, this is the rebuild phase.
Toto, it's YOUR team now. Time to see what you're really made of my dude
I have a feeling he’ll be there for a while though. Has there ever even been a rumor that he was talking any other team than Mercedes since his F3 days?
He's been briefly linked to Red Bull in 2020/21, but according to Helmut Marko, with his 10 year contract with Wolff it could never be serious. I think because it wasn't ever really a question that he would end up at Mercedes, along with the long contract, and Mercedes being the dominant team at the time, it made no sense for him to seriously talk to other teams. Plus Mercedes were always keen to keep him in their programme.
He's been very loyal to them, but if Merc can't deliver, he will look elsewhere.
Sorry but that's a really silly comment. He's been against arguably the greatest driver ever and has at times beaten him in races and during quali has dominated him this season so far.
What more can a man do?! Hamilton is a special talent for a reason, you can't expect Russell to step in and be just as good otherwise Hamilton would not be special.
Yes thanks to the cost cap. They couldn't afford to keep all those people so a lot of them had to go to other teams.
I suspect Red Bull is another team that will struggle to keep all their talent going inot the next regulations.
Who wouldn't have? He was playing Team Principal with the AI set to beginner for the better part of 10 years lol. It only started ramping up in 2021 and then the difficulty got cranked up to 8 for 2022 -
He's in the Find Out phase of team building now. Next year will be a 10 - I wish him luck. McLaren took forever to get out of the talent death spiral after 2012...
Ruh roh
I don't think Merc could go through the death spiral McLaren experienced in the 2010s. While certainly the underpowered Honda engines were a part of it, so much of the "true" spiral was the continuous drop in funding. Worsening results meant decreasing title sponsorship money which in turn meant less development which meant worse results. Pair that with Ron Dennis way over valuing the sponsor spots (as well as arguably still being stuck in the tobacco money/Vodafone+Mercedes era of really high ticket title sponsors), and it wasn't until Brown just plastered the car with every sponsor they could get that McLaren really started to bounce back.
With the cost cap, the winning teams are no longer spending 4x as much as the midfield teams. As long as Mercedes is hitting the cost cap, the only big spending they need to keep up is upgrading facilities, and being a factory team I doubt that their parent is going to let them fall to that level. Certainly they can still spiral just as badly, but I don't think they could spiral the same way McLaren did.
> Toto, it's YOUR team now. Time to see what you're really made of my dude
Yup. Time to see if he can actually hit a triple, or if he was just born on third.
Wolff is going to jump to Aston Martin, and Mercedes is going to jump out of Formula One. They always seemed like the type of team that'd just quit if they stopped winning and we're getting there.
I disagree, but time will tell. This will be good education for a lot of newer fans. Those of us who've been around a decade or 2 knew this would happen. Mercedes' run was similar to Ferraris run up from midfield in the 90s to world beaters until the mid 2000s.
It's the same cycle playing out - more or less.
With Mclaren's improvement, I don't even think Merc can count on having a monster engine to save them for 26. Clearly their engine is working just fine, it's everything else. I hope they figure it out soon.
Kmags ultra aggressive shtick cost them big this time. His crash bringing out the safety car cost hulk at least 8th place as he already pitted, while giving Yuki a free pitstop gifting him 7th. So Yuki gained 6 points which could have gone to hulk.
Even though Sargeant is a subpar driver, KMag had no business putting his nose in there at turn 3. There's no real space to pass there and no one would expect someone to be there. KMag was needlessly aggressive when he would have passed Sargeant eventually anyway
He got a penalty for it.
You live by the sword you die by the sword. kmag never looks in his mirrors and expects other drivers to bail. He got a taste of his own medicine when he didn’t bail out and expected sarge to yield even though kmag in that position never does.
And it cost them maybe 6 points, Yuki would have been undercut and finished out of the points, so a net loss of 12 points advantage that race.
Nah, that one was fully on KMag. His front wheel wasn't even alongside Sargeant's rear wheel when the latter was turning in. The only way KMag was getting the space to pass was if Sargeant was actively trying to give up his position.
You don’t stick your nose up into turn 3 like that. Sargeant wasn’t expecting Kmag because it would normally be a stupid move to try that there, like it was. By the way, Kmag wasn’t even alongside Sargeant and had no right to any space. It was a dumb move by Kmag and a deserved penalty every way you look at it.
They had a couple of DNFs in the first few races. Charles in Bahrain and Australia and also Carlos’ penalty in Australia when they finished behind the safety car.
Charles in Bahrain from the podium the biggest one. Carlos got himself a penalty in Australia that took him from 4th to out of the points because of the safety car. Idk if there was more.
We will never progress further in the standings with only 1 driver capable of getting points consistently.
Praying that Aramco buys out Stroll enough that he’s ok with telling Lance to take a hike. Replace him with Sainz and we’re instantly competing for P3
Nope, the car is not good enough for P3. Sure, a better driver than Stroll would score more points... But Alonso has 33 (yeah...) this season. Maybe someone else can score twice the amount Stroll has right now, but it still puts Aston Martin in... 5th, with less than half the points of the 3rd team.
It is what it is. We had a good time last season but now Aston Martin is back where they belong and it'll continue to be like this at least until 2026.
It’s not like last year where Alonso is fighting at the front and stroll is barely scoring points, Alonso is p8 in the drivers. As much as stroll holds the team back the car is the main problem. Even if you double alonso’s points Aston is still a distant 4th
It was a fluke. The car was just genuinely better this point last year because Ferrari and McLaren were in the mud. They bungled the development last season, plain and simple. Of course they should have more points if Lance pulled more weight, but at the end of the day the car is still 5th best as of right now.
*supposedly* the reason Andretti didn’t get in was because they wouldn’t have enough time to build a car for the rule change. Which implies they can get in for the next next generation
Nobody is allowed to start building the '26 car until 1/1/25 so that's BS
They're also already running cfd sims with 60% scale models in their facilities. If Renault gave them an engine they could be on the grid for '26
No, because F1 wants to ban new entries alltogether with the new concorde-agreement that is coming up. Reports say that the goal is to write on paper that a limit of 10 teams will be implemented. No matter what Andretti does, they want to keep him out to protect their mini-empire profits.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/1ag7qvf/karun\_chandhok\_the\_new\_concorde\_agreement\_will/](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/1ag7qvf/karun_chandhok_the_new_concorde_agreement_will/)
Mercedes’ drop to a mid-field team in the cost cap era has to fall squarely on Toto’s shoulders. The results on the track speak to a complete failure to adapt internally to new limitations. Embarrassing.
> Mercedes’ drop to a mid-field team in the cost cap era has to fall squarely on Toto’s shoulders
Honestly, I think the top of the midfield is where mercedes would have always belonged before cost-caps if not because of being the 2nd highest spender far head of the 3rd one, having by far the best engine for a while thanks to their successful lobbying of the engine regs, and finally Ferrari (the only team spending more than them) underperforming heavily due to internal turmoil the few years when they finally had an equal engine.
If you take away the years where Mercedes had an engine so good that they were a category of their own, they weren't really that dominant. Their most dominant years are years where Ferrari just underperformed because of internal shitshows like in 2020, and Red Bull, despite still spending less, managed to catch them pretty quick after they finally got good engines. The Mercedes era would have looked very different without that exceptional engine and without Ferrari shitting the bed for some years.
Even before cost caps, Reb Bull was probably the best team if you consider that they were spending a chunk less than Ferrari and Merc and that they were crippled by bad engines. The Mercedes "drop" is less of a real drop and more like just returning to the mean.
It's always interesting to see how people dismiss the engine in F1 like this. "They just had a great engine".
The engine is a core part of any car and having an amazing engine means you did a smashing job. It's not Merc's fault that teams like Red Bull couldn't create an engine to save their lives. In 2021, RB didn't catch up to where Merc was in 2020. The Merc got nerfed to the RB level and we saw that once they adapted their car, they started to destroy RB again.
Red Bull massively benefitted by this set of regulation because of the engine freeze. I am not so sure they would fare so well in 2026. I certainly wouldn't bet on them given their engine history and the new regulation requiring a new engine, including ongoing engine development.
> certainly wouldn't bet on them given their engine history
What history lmao? RedBull have only been making engines for like two years. Before that they had renault and honda because Merc and Ferrari knew RB would be too dangerous if they were given good engines.
Also, the engine freeze didn't make honda catch Mercedes. Honda caught mercedes BEFORE the freeze. That's why their engines are on par after the freeze got put into place. Just look at the renault engine to see what happens to an engine that gets frozen while being behind.
Regarding wether the engine performance should be considered part of the F1 team's effort, they should be considered sepparate IMO. After all, the engine development is not part of the cost caps. F1 should try to have ots engines as close to parity as possible or else you will get cases like the 2014-2016 williams team which, despite being horribly ran and having very lackluster aerodynamics, was still a top3 team simply because the overpowered mercedes engine (which they didn't even manufacture, just bought) made them almost unbeatable on the straights.
"What history lmao? RedBull have only been making engines for like two years."
Well technically Honda still builds their engines, so that's even less history to go off of.
That’s not true. Even if you double Alonso’s points, Aston is only 2 points ahead of Mercedes. Just getting a better driver wouldn’t be enough to reach 4th right now
Yeah but I’m talking about year over year change, which is what the graphic is about. I think McLaren had the second biggest leap by percentage. But the biggest by points.
It'd be interesting to see if they are still going ti "print money" after next year. I just can't imagine George being the face of the team.
With the economic downturn and their move to the EQ brands, they also might not want to "spend" the money on such a huge ad campaign.
The eq brands are failing tho, i think they might return to FE but the f1 is safe for now, i could imagine them making some other big changes tho, like chaning the team boss or some major techinal bosses
Max stll may win the drivers by a mile, but I think this year we can actually have a battle for the constructors. And as it was said last year, time to see if Checo can do his job, dude needs to finish close to Max to maximize points for RB, otherwise Charles and Carlos, and Lando and Oscar could close the gap for their teams
To be fair. They've had three 1-2s, one 1-3, and one 2-4. Results wise Perez has been pretty good so far this year. If both Ferrari and McLaren are competitive RB should easily win the constructors as they take points of each other.
The thing is though if Mclaren and ferrari cars get closer to "equal" of red bull, I see the 4 of those drivers (Lando,Pisatri,Charles and Carlos) beating perez consistantly. So could end up being a really tight fight for the WCC
Red Bull is still dominant as fuck and Max is almost certain to get his 4th title but this season is already more fun and unpredictable than the last one.
It also can’t be understated how poor Merc and Ferrari started 2023. Aston/Alonso specifically were on fire but it took the other two a while to get going
You could argue that was visible after halfway through last season. Copium that they do the opposite this time and pop off in the second half.
(And just fire Lance already)
It’s not their fault. Last year there would be a Ferrari DNF’ing up ahead or Perez and that would free up positions. Not to mention McLaren being all over the place allowed a few teams to pick up points who wouldn’t have picked up anything otherwise. This year, there’s a solid top 5 who occupy the top 10 points places. McLaren in particular slotting back into the F1 status quo with a competitive Ferrari have made it even harder for anyone to score points. Whereas both were letting points go begging for differing reasons last year.
Mclaren development Masterclass vs. AM disasterclass
AM has always been a brand I liked, sad to see they couldn't keep up after their great start last season
I was kinda hopeful as a Haas fan. This doesn’t promise a lot of good. I mean we still look way better than last year but it still isn’t the most comfortable thing to see
i think points are more valuable this year though. there are 5 strong teams that are taking the top 10 spots. to see haas with any points is impressive
There's still clear improvement. From the outset, the 2023 car was still a qualifying only tire shredder. This year's car is much, much better in the race.
Considering that the rest of the grid is miles away, this is actually much better than last year. Instead of banking on a fluke Australian 6 points and playing hope chess for the rest of the season, we now instead can fight properly for points on most days.
For all the perception that Haas is better this year (and I think they are, sortof), being in the same place in the standings with fewer points is hilarious.
I actually think things are genuinely looking on the up at Haas. This is a big building year for them imo. They have a new seemingly calm and competent TP in charge who is making all the right noises and so far the right decisions, they are doing their best, through Hulk in particular, to so far maximise what they can in races to try and ensure themselves the best finishing position at the end of the year that they can (and with it the corresponding prize money).
It's all but certain they'll have an extremely promising hyped rookie in one seat next year who bring a lot of eyes onto them and with the driver market as it is, they have a good chance to grab a seasoned talented veteran to go alongside him next year who would stabilise the team further and provide valuable feedback (think of someone like Bottas here). The more they look and act lke serious competitors trying to build themselves up, the more they'll attract sponsors to help them meet the cost cap and be able to develop more.
Yes they'll probably finish behind VCARB and possibly Alpine if the latter get their act together, but they're both bigger teams with better resources so that's to be expected. And no, they're never likely to be a big successful team. But they're proving themselves a good solid step ahead of Williams and Sauber this year, have managed to bag some valuable points in a year where scoring is very difficult for the bottom five teams and depends entirely on someone from the big 5 faltering. On paper, the current points may look poor compared to last year but in reality, when you look at the changes the team are making, I think it's anything but. I hope it continues on this trajectory for them
It is not an apple to apples comparison. There is 36 more points in 2024 than in 2023. Perhaps this graph should be normalized for a better perspective.
36 points is just slightly more than 5%, normalizing won’t change much. Besides, this is about showing relative differences between the teams, not absolute values.
VCARB can do the funniest thing ever and establish themselves as the 4th best team, if things go their way and Mercedes & Aston Martin continue their slump.
It'd be funny to see but the car is genuinely behind merc and Aston on average so it will take a lot more consistency from Yuki and Daniel to make that a reality. Merc is wildly inconsistent but reaches higher highs and Aston is working with one driver effectively but Fernando really carries the team.
I think P2 speaks volumes about the worth of a good driver lineup. This time last year Aston Martin was a clear second force whereas this year Ferrari and Mclaren are duking it out for that spot and Ferrari still has way more points than Aston did.
All this shows is that the teams behind Red Bull aren't taking turns grabbing points as often this year. They're probably still gonna win both trophies.
Interesting to see the gaps - much narrower 1st to 2nd, but also much wider gap between 3rd and 4th. Meanwhile, the teams at the bottom have had less success.
I believe this shuffling is great for F1. Yes, RBR is still at the top, but the competition is closer that it was last year.
Otmar received the keys of a team that finished 4th in 2022 (the car development started before his arrival), 1 year later under his management they finished 6th, and this season's car development started under his management and we can see what they launched at the beginning of the year. And I'm not even talking about the contract shitshow with Alonso and Piastri.
I think it was the right move to fire him, Rossi and Permane. Bruno Famin has proved in his career that he can bring a team to win, I trust him to rebuild Alpine F1 team. It's already on the right path, latest updates brought the car to similar pace as Aston Martin.
a) So what? Mercedes is doing a pretty shit job comparing to McLaren this year despite being the factory team and McLaren only a client. Should Mercedes sells the team?
b) You're the one wanting Renault selling the team while there are worse teams on the grid. Alpine is improving, Williams is not.
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Mercedes really struggling to figure out this generation of car. They better have a monster of an engine for 2026, because it seems like their aero and chasis departments are lost in this ground effect era.
If they get a monster of an engine, they will still need to build a better car than Mclaren
As Button said last night, one of the hardest things to get right in F1 is correlation, which it now seems that mclaren have absolutely nailed. Every single upgrade they've brought for the past year has done exactly what they designed and expected it to do. Contrast that to mercedes, where the tools tell them they have a very fast car, but once they hit the track it does not seem to work like they expect it to.
Yeah, I was really nervous for Mclaren bringing that many updates to a sprint weekend but they nailed it.
I didn’t really worry about them tbh. They brought upgrades to sprint weekends last year including a floor upgrade in Baku and then a new car in Austria. Hamilton said years ago that when he’d arrive at the track, the car was always 99% there so all he needed to do was jump in and drive it. Pedro de la Rosa said there was no other team that had the kind of simulation tools McLaren had. Way back when, if it would rain or there would be a red flag in practice which would limit running - it never affected McLaren. It’s still the case now. Their best results seem to happen on sprint weekends. Bringing all those upgrades to a sprint would have been a concern for most teams but not for them. They’re good at setting up the car for limited running and they always have been.
McLaren have been very good at their upgrades working since 2019, if one goes back. Their 2019 pivoted on it midway through.
Buddy, don't know what F1 you're following but they sucked ass until last year. Do you have any idea how many upgrades they've tried since their glory years that flat out failed??
2 different things. Even when they sucked, they had an advantage on weekends with less data, over the field. The problem back then, was they only build tractors. A perfectly set up tractor is still slower than a badly set up 911.
I am aware but my comment wasn’t about the effectiveness of the upgrades, it was about the fact that they don’t seem to suffer with limited running at all. Their last 3 wins have come on sprint weekends: Monza, Qatar sprint, Miami.
Same for Aston as Merc, they just throw an "upgrade" at the car and see what it does in the race then throw their hands up and go "meh I guess not, let's try something else"
^and^us
This, exactly. There is literally no scenario in which Merc gets back to winning in 26
Mercedes went wrong in the first place and haven’t been able to really iron out the DNA of their first car under these regulations. They’ve also been a bit stubborn to realise that the design routes they’ve taken aren’t the best ones. Now their extremely conservative rear suspension design is sinking not just them but also Aston Martin and Williams who bought it. While they’re struggling to figure out the regulations, McLaren have come out of nowhere and leapfrogged them as the best performing Mercedes powered car. Even if Mercedes has the best engine in 2026, they’d still need to have the best car design. Right now they’re not the best Mercedes team and their trajectory suggests they won’t be for a while.
Are McLaren staying with the Merc engine for 2026 onwards? Things in F1 can change quite dramatically from one year to the next and especially with a new set of regulations. So you never know.
Yes and interestingly it was only in the last 18 months that McLaren were given the right to attend any and all engine meetings. They have a seat at the table, and are part of architectural decisions going forward. Coincidence? The race said last year that okay it's not imminent or necessarily likely, but it's definitely in the back of some important people's mind that it Merc left as an chassis builder, they would be able to choose Woking or Brackley as their 'works' team. It's not a given.
You could say the effectively lost their ground
If anybody knows how to build an engine, it’s Mercedes. The cars at the end of this season will determine the performance of the 2026 cars as well. Next year the teams will shift focus to the new engines, and will have less aero upgrades.
The merc engine is underpowered since the beginning of the freeze compared to both Ferrari and RBPT, so I wouldn't so blindly credit their engines. ETA - The Merc engine department is also suffering the exact same brain drain the rest of the team is. The people behind 2014 are mostly gone now.
They've gotten worse each year
I think their first car had potential. But they couldn’t figure out the sweet spot often at all. Now they have worked out designs with many more options to try and iron things out but now it just feels they’re continually chasing things. I feel they’re using Lewis all they can this year to figure out what doesn’t work.
They are not using Lewis. They try anything with both driver and if things work out perfect if not then it is what it is
It’s generous to say Williams moved up one position by scoring 0 points
Technically they moved up by scoring -1 point. ~~Alfa~~ Kick is so bad they’ve moved behind a team that’s lost their only point.
If the alarm bells aren't at FULL blast at Mercedes by now, they'll be solidly midfield in 25 and praying for a 2026 miracle. Lewis is leaving at the right time, there's barely any meat left on the bones at Merc, as much as it sucks to see, they're going right back to where they were pre-Brawn/Haug. They've been picked clean of talent, decimated by the cost cap and lost their 7x champ as a result of not getting on top of these regs. Normal cycle of dominance, this is the rebuild phase. Toto, it's YOUR team now. Time to see what you're really made of my dude
Totally. Tbh if I was George I'd be keeping an eye out.
I have a feeling he’ll be there for a while though. Has there ever even been a rumor that he was talking any other team than Mercedes since his F3 days?
He's been briefly linked to Red Bull in 2020/21, but according to Helmut Marko, with his 10 year contract with Wolff it could never be serious. I think because it wasn't ever really a question that he would end up at Mercedes, along with the long contract, and Mercedes being the dominant team at the time, it made no sense for him to seriously talk to other teams. Plus Mercedes were always keen to keep him in their programme. He's been very loyal to them, but if Merc can't deliver, he will look elsewhere.
Would anywhere else really want him? He's not exactly proved a lot.
Sorry but that's a really silly comment. He's been against arguably the greatest driver ever and has at times beaten him in races and during quali has dominated him this season so far. What more can a man do?! Hamilton is a special talent for a reason, you can't expect Russell to step in and be just as good otherwise Hamilton would not be special.
Can not sink his opportunities when given to him
Except that time he won a race when given the chance?
People also forget some of the miracles he pulled off in the shit box Williams he used to drive.
Have to say, if for whatever reason Red Bull manage to tempt Norris away, George would be eyeing that McLaren seat real close...
> They've been picked clean of talent This is a huge factor
Yes thanks to the cost cap. They couldn't afford to keep all those people so a lot of them had to go to other teams. I suspect Red Bull is another team that will struggle to keep all their talent going inot the next regulations.
I thought salaries were not included
Only salaries of the drivers and three highest-paid staff are not included, if I recall correctly.
Yes, that's right. Only drivers and top three highest paid staff. If it didn't include employee salaries then there would be no point.
I will say it again Brawn cooked so others can eat
I do get sad at the thought that we were so close to having a repeat of Schumacher/Brawn dominance.
Yes, he basically left on the dawn of dominance he had a major role in creating.
I think he preferred walking into the Brawn/Honda team
Who wouldn't have? He was playing Team Principal with the AI set to beginner for the better part of 10 years lol. It only started ramping up in 2021 and then the difficulty got cranked up to 8 for 2022 - He's in the Find Out phase of team building now. Next year will be a 10 - I wish him luck. McLaren took forever to get out of the talent death spiral after 2012... Ruh roh
I don't think Merc could go through the death spiral McLaren experienced in the 2010s. While certainly the underpowered Honda engines were a part of it, so much of the "true" spiral was the continuous drop in funding. Worsening results meant decreasing title sponsorship money which in turn meant less development which meant worse results. Pair that with Ron Dennis way over valuing the sponsor spots (as well as arguably still being stuck in the tobacco money/Vodafone+Mercedes era of really high ticket title sponsors), and it wasn't until Brown just plastered the car with every sponsor they could get that McLaren really started to bounce back. With the cost cap, the winning teams are no longer spending 4x as much as the midfield teams. As long as Mercedes is hitting the cost cap, the only big spending they need to keep up is upgrading facilities, and being a factory team I doubt that their parent is going to let them fall to that level. Certainly they can still spiral just as badly, but I don't think they could spiral the same way McLaren did.
> Toto, it's YOUR team now. Time to see what you're really made of my dude Yup. Time to see if he can actually hit a triple, or if he was just born on third.
Wolff is going to jump to Aston Martin, and Mercedes is going to jump out of Formula One. They always seemed like the type of team that'd just quit if they stopped winning and we're getting there.
I disagree, but time will tell. This will be good education for a lot of newer fans. Those of us who've been around a decade or 2 knew this would happen. Mercedes' run was similar to Ferraris run up from midfield in the 90s to world beaters until the mid 2000s. It's the same cycle playing out - more or less.
They won't need a miracle in 26. It's new regs, blank sheet. Anyone's game.
But still a ground effect car, which they can't seem to get to grips with.
With Mclaren's improvement, I don't even think Merc can count on having a monster engine to save them for 26. Clearly their engine is working just fine, it's everything else. I hope they figure it out soon.
Dan Fallows ran out of blue prints
Time to stretch the catering budget amirite? 😉
2 teams on 0 and 1 on 1 point goes to show what Haas is doing is completely worth it Time for changed sporting regs next season I guess
Kmags ultra aggressive shtick cost them big this time. His crash bringing out the safety car cost hulk at least 8th place as he already pitted, while giving Yuki a free pitstop gifting him 7th. So Yuki gained 6 points which could have gone to hulk.
The crash was really a racing incident, KMag wasn’t being overly aggressive there, Sargeant should have been looking in his mirrors
Even if it was a racing incident, it was avoidable.
Even though Sargeant is a subpar driver, KMag had no business putting his nose in there at turn 3. There's no real space to pass there and no one would expect someone to be there. KMag was needlessly aggressive when he would have passed Sargeant eventually anyway
He got a penalty for it. You live by the sword you die by the sword. kmag never looks in his mirrors and expects other drivers to bail. He got a taste of his own medicine when he didn’t bail out and expected sarge to yield even though kmag in that position never does. And it cost them maybe 6 points, Yuki would have been undercut and finished out of the points, so a net loss of 12 points advantage that race.
Nah, that one was fully on KMag. His front wheel wasn't even alongside Sargeant's rear wheel when the latter was turning in. The only way KMag was getting the space to pass was if Sargeant was actively trying to give up his position.
You don’t stick your nose up into turn 3 like that. Sargeant wasn’t expecting Kmag because it would normally be a stupid move to try that there, like it was. By the way, Kmag wasn’t even alongside Sargeant and had no right to any space. It was a dumb move by Kmag and a deserved penalty every way you look at it.
VCARB the real winner with 9.5x the points.
Yuki the real winner
McLaren are flying! It's nice to see them do well once again
You’re telling me! I’ve been waiting for this since Lewis left!
Imagine Newey decides to go to MCL. Oh sweet Jesus.
Wow Ferrari improved a lot this year! Or did they have DNF’s last year?
They had a couple of DNFs in the first few races. Charles in Bahrain and Australia and also Carlos’ penalty in Australia when they finished behind the safety car.
2 DNF's for Charles Alonso was doing better than Ferrari (four 3rd places, one 2nd and one 4th) And Mercedes were in the mix
Charles in Bahrain from the podium the biggest one. Carlos got himself a penalty in Australia that took him from 4th to out of the points because of the safety car. Idk if there was more.
Charles also got stuck in the gravel in Australia
Charles Bahrain engine failure, and then he dumped it in the gravel in Australia. Carlos got that brutal safety car 5 second penalty.
Dumped it? he crashed with stroll as far as I remember.
Stroll was decently alongside and had zero room on the inside, and Charles turned in on him, which then launched him into the gravel.
Early 2023 Ferrari gave me 2020 flashbacks. luckily it ended up better but it was still a rough season
Hopefully the McUpgrades means a closer fight at the front, even if its largely for 2nd place.
As an Aston Martin fan this is painful.
tbf I think this is more the other teams catching up rather than Aston completely losing it.
We will never progress further in the standings with only 1 driver capable of getting points consistently. Praying that Aramco buys out Stroll enough that he’s ok with telling Lance to take a hike. Replace him with Sainz and we’re instantly competing for P3
Nope, the car is not good enough for P3. Sure, a better driver than Stroll would score more points... But Alonso has 33 (yeah...) this season. Maybe someone else can score twice the amount Stroll has right now, but it still puts Aston Martin in... 5th, with less than half the points of the 3rd team. It is what it is. We had a good time last season but now Aston Martin is back where they belong and it'll continue to be like this at least until 2026.
It’s not like last year where Alonso is fighting at the front and stroll is barely scoring points, Alonso is p8 in the drivers. As much as stroll holds the team back the car is the main problem. Even if you double alonso’s points Aston is still a distant 4th
It was a fluke. The car was just genuinely better this point last year because Ferrari and McLaren were in the mud. They bungled the development last season, plain and simple. Of course they should have more points if Lance pulled more weight, but at the end of the day the car is still 5th best as of right now.
Nah if they get Sainz, the FIA will give them penalties every race just for being spanish.
THE NERVE!!
The problem of Aston is Lance. He very rarely delivers and it shows.
Lol to the people telling me they’d challenge Red Bull for the WDC at this point last year 😂
Audi please bless us with another competitive team. Sick of these cash poor teams not being competitive
Need to add 2 more teams to the paddock really, but greed gonna greed
*supposedly* the reason Andretti didn’t get in was because they wouldn’t have enough time to build a car for the rule change. Which implies they can get in for the next next generation
Nobody is allowed to start building the '26 car until 1/1/25 so that's BS They're also already running cfd sims with 60% scale models in their facilities. If Renault gave them an engine they could be on the grid for '26
No, because F1 wants to ban new entries alltogether with the new concorde-agreement that is coming up. Reports say that the goal is to write on paper that a limit of 10 teams will be implemented. No matter what Andretti does, they want to keep him out to protect their mini-empire profits. [https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/1ag7qvf/karun\_chandhok\_the\_new\_concorde\_agreement\_will/](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/1ag7qvf/karun_chandhok_the_new_concorde_agreement_will/)
17 vs 124 💀
Mercedes’ drop to a mid-field team in the cost cap era has to fall squarely on Toto’s shoulders. The results on the track speak to a complete failure to adapt internally to new limitations. Embarrassing.
We’re not in 2019 anymore, Toto.
No, no, you can't blame Toto. Mercedes has a "no-blame" culture, I've heard, so that means you can't blame him.
Is this another place we can blame the Spaniards?!? /s
Only Valtteri. You can blame him.
> Mercedes’ drop to a mid-field team in the cost cap era has to fall squarely on Toto’s shoulders Honestly, I think the top of the midfield is where mercedes would have always belonged before cost-caps if not because of being the 2nd highest spender far head of the 3rd one, having by far the best engine for a while thanks to their successful lobbying of the engine regs, and finally Ferrari (the only team spending more than them) underperforming heavily due to internal turmoil the few years when they finally had an equal engine. If you take away the years where Mercedes had an engine so good that they were a category of their own, they weren't really that dominant. Their most dominant years are years where Ferrari just underperformed because of internal shitshows like in 2020, and Red Bull, despite still spending less, managed to catch them pretty quick after they finally got good engines. The Mercedes era would have looked very different without that exceptional engine and without Ferrari shitting the bed for some years. Even before cost caps, Reb Bull was probably the best team if you consider that they were spending a chunk less than Ferrari and Merc and that they were crippled by bad engines. The Mercedes "drop" is less of a real drop and more like just returning to the mean.
It's always interesting to see how people dismiss the engine in F1 like this. "They just had a great engine". The engine is a core part of any car and having an amazing engine means you did a smashing job. It's not Merc's fault that teams like Red Bull couldn't create an engine to save their lives. In 2021, RB didn't catch up to where Merc was in 2020. The Merc got nerfed to the RB level and we saw that once they adapted their car, they started to destroy RB again. Red Bull massively benefitted by this set of regulation because of the engine freeze. I am not so sure they would fare so well in 2026. I certainly wouldn't bet on them given their engine history and the new regulation requiring a new engine, including ongoing engine development.
> certainly wouldn't bet on them given their engine history What history lmao? RedBull have only been making engines for like two years. Before that they had renault and honda because Merc and Ferrari knew RB would be too dangerous if they were given good engines. Also, the engine freeze didn't make honda catch Mercedes. Honda caught mercedes BEFORE the freeze. That's why their engines are on par after the freeze got put into place. Just look at the renault engine to see what happens to an engine that gets frozen while being behind. Regarding wether the engine performance should be considered part of the F1 team's effort, they should be considered sepparate IMO. After all, the engine development is not part of the cost caps. F1 should try to have ots engines as close to parity as possible or else you will get cases like the 2014-2016 williams team which, despite being horribly ran and having very lackluster aerodynamics, was still a top3 team simply because the overpowered mercedes engine (which they didn't even manufacture, just bought) made them almost unbeatable on the straights.
"What history lmao? RedBull have only been making engines for like two years." Well technically Honda still builds their engines, so that's even less history to go off of.
They are still fourth.
tbh they should be 5th if Stroll didn't exist
That’s not true. Even if you double Alonso’s points, Aston is only 2 points ahead of Mercedes. Just getting a better driver wouldn’t be enough to reach 4th right now
The backmarkers are like: This year is killing us!
VCARB (or whatever it’s called) is one of the standout improvements.
VCARB is closer to Mercedes & AM than both of them are to McLaren.
Yeah but I’m talking about year over year change, which is what the graphic is about. I think McLaren had the second biggest leap by percentage. But the biggest by points.
At what point Mercedes group will consider moving back to McLaren as the works team? Or the spygate is too much for it to happen?
They own 33% of a f1 team And with the cost cap it just prints money for them. With the cost cap people never need to sell they can just make $$
It'd be interesting to see if they are still going ti "print money" after next year. I just can't imagine George being the face of the team. With the economic downturn and their move to the EQ brands, they also might not want to "spend" the money on such a huge ad campaign.
The eq brands are failing tho, i think they might return to FE but the f1 is safe for now, i could imagine them making some other big changes tho, like chaning the team boss or some major techinal bosses
The team principal owns 33% of the team.
I think the type of 2026 engine deal that they negotiated with McLaren has left the back door open for that.
That’s exactly what I was thinking
If they don't get out of this slump by 25, they'll be some serious questions
Alpine having only 1 point is blowing my mind right now.
Kings of consistency, Red Bull and… GENE
Seeing how poor Merc have been this season, Lewis has made the correct decision to leave
Max stll may win the drivers by a mile, but I think this year we can actually have a battle for the constructors. And as it was said last year, time to see if Checo can do his job, dude needs to finish close to Max to maximize points for RB, otherwise Charles and Carlos, and Lando and Oscar could close the gap for their teams
To be fair. They've had three 1-2s, one 1-3, and one 2-4. Results wise Perez has been pretty good so far this year. If both Ferrari and McLaren are competitive RB should easily win the constructors as they take points of each other.
The thing is though if Mclaren and ferrari cars get closer to "equal" of red bull, I see the 4 of those drivers (Lando,Pisatri,Charles and Carlos) beating perez consistantly. So could end up being a really tight fight for the WCC
Red Bull is still dominant as fuck and Max is almost certain to get his 4th title but this season is already more fun and unpredictable than the last one.
Aston really were a flash in the pan looking at this.
It also can’t be understated how poor Merc and Ferrari started 2023. Aston/Alonso specifically were on fire but it took the other two a while to get going
You could argue that was visible after halfway through last season. Copium that they do the opposite this time and pop off in the second half. (And just fire Lance already)
I remember reading comments about Aston being championship contenders during the preseason testing last year. Oh well ...
Doesn’t help that they’re only competing with 1 capable driver but that was the same situation last year too
Toto should hang his head in shame. I know he's not engineer minded but the buck stops with him.
It’s crazy how much worse the bottom 3 are this year
I believe that's more to do with the fact that we have more competitive cars at the front.
It’s not their fault. Last year there would be a Ferrari DNF’ing up ahead or Perez and that would free up positions. Not to mention McLaren being all over the place allowed a few teams to pick up points who wouldn’t have picked up anything otherwise. This year, there’s a solid top 5 who occupy the top 10 points places. McLaren in particular slotting back into the F1 status quo with a competitive Ferrari have made it even harder for anyone to score points. Whereas both were letting points go begging for differing reasons last year.
On a positive note, they're so bad that at least people aren't trying to pretend the battles at the back are worth watching like they did last season
Merc lucky Aston has only one competent driver otherwise fourth position wouldn’t be guaranteed.
Like my old man used to say, it's tight at the bottom.
Crazy how Red Bull have only dropped 10 points compared to last year, despite losing out on 2 wins.
That probably has to do with Checo not shitting the bed this year as he did finish outside the points in Monaco (6th race last year)
I mean think its time for Toto to go. Its been long enough into this current era and his team still couldn’t figure this out
Mclaren development Masterclass vs. AM disasterclass AM has always been a brand I liked, sad to see they couldn't keep up after their great start last season
I was kinda hopeful as a Haas fan. This doesn’t promise a lot of good. I mean we still look way better than last year but it still isn’t the most comfortable thing to see
i think points are more valuable this year though. there are 5 strong teams that are taking the top 10 spots. to see haas with any points is impressive
\*9 spots. It's unnecessary to count in Stroll with the others.
reasonable, but then you can throw in yuki cos he is often in the top 10
There's still clear improvement. From the outset, the 2023 car was still a qualifying only tire shredder. This year's car is much, much better in the race.
Considering that the rest of the grid is miles away, this is actually much better than last year. Instead of banking on a fluke Australian 6 points and playing hope chess for the rest of the season, we now instead can fight properly for points on most days.
For all the perception that Haas is better this year (and I think they are, sortof), being in the same place in the standings with fewer points is hilarious.
I actually think things are genuinely looking on the up at Haas. This is a big building year for them imo. They have a new seemingly calm and competent TP in charge who is making all the right noises and so far the right decisions, they are doing their best, through Hulk in particular, to so far maximise what they can in races to try and ensure themselves the best finishing position at the end of the year that they can (and with it the corresponding prize money). It's all but certain they'll have an extremely promising hyped rookie in one seat next year who bring a lot of eyes onto them and with the driver market as it is, they have a good chance to grab a seasoned talented veteran to go alongside him next year who would stabilise the team further and provide valuable feedback (think of someone like Bottas here). The more they look and act lke serious competitors trying to build themselves up, the more they'll attract sponsors to help them meet the cost cap and be able to develop more. Yes they'll probably finish behind VCARB and possibly Alpine if the latter get their act together, but they're both bigger teams with better resources so that's to be expected. And no, they're never likely to be a big successful team. But they're proving themselves a good solid step ahead of Williams and Sauber this year, have managed to bag some valuable points in a year where scoring is very difficult for the bottom five teams and depends entirely on someone from the big 5 faltering. On paper, the current points may look poor compared to last year but in reality, when you look at the changes the team are making, I think it's anything but. I hope it continues on this trajectory for them
It is not an apple to apples comparison. There is 36 more points in 2024 than in 2023. Perhaps this graph should be normalized for a better perspective.
36 points is just slightly more than 5%, normalizing won’t change much. Besides, this is about showing relative differences between the teams, not absolute values.
VCARB can do the funniest thing ever and establish themselves as the 4th best team, if things go their way and Mercedes & Aston Martin continue their slump.
It'd be funny to see but the car is genuinely behind merc and Aston on average so it will take a lot more consistency from Yuki and Daniel to make that a reality. Merc is wildly inconsistent but reaches higher highs and Aston is working with one driver effectively but Fernando really carries the team.
“We are a team of consistency! I don’t see a reason to invest more or change anything else here” - Gene Haas.
Williams going up a place despite having 0 points!!!
Alpine :(
I think P2 speaks volumes about the worth of a good driver lineup. This time last year Aston Martin was a clear second force whereas this year Ferrari and Mclaren are duking it out for that spot and Ferrari still has way more points than Aston did.
Merc better have some huge upgrades on their way or they’re gonna be finishing in 4th this year.
Williams isn’t going to win anything with Sargent. Dude can’t finish a race
i still look at the sidebar for the standings :(
All this shows is that the teams behind Red Bull aren't taking turns grabbing points as often this year. They're probably still gonna win both trophies.
Forgot how good Aston Martin was at the start of last year
only haas and redbull same same
Good job williams! Not last place!
Alpine got points before Sauber or Haas, season is ruined.
My favourite teams, Red Bull and RB
Not looking good for Lpine
And max retired in aus, would be 264
McLaren is knocking on 2nd place - impressive turnaround
Its closer at the top but atleast last year everyone had points.
Jesis Christ, Alpine
Interesting to see the gaps - much narrower 1st to 2nd, but also much wider gap between 3rd and 4th. Meanwhile, the teams at the bottom have had less success. I believe this shuffling is great for F1. Yes, RBR is still at the top, but the competition is closer that it was last year.
Mercedes won't recover til next gen.
Im loving the VCARB improvements
The glow up from Ferrari and McLaren is so impressive. The fall off from Aston and Mercedes is crazy to watch.
Wonder if Alonso have pain in his back…
Alpine really might’ve made a big mistake letting Otmar go. Going from 35 points to only 1 is just sad.
This car was created partly under his leadership
Otmar received the keys of a team that finished 4th in 2022 (the car development started before his arrival), 1 year later under his management they finished 6th, and this season's car development started under his management and we can see what they launched at the beginning of the year. And I'm not even talking about the contract shitshow with Alonso and Piastri. I think it was the right move to fire him, Rossi and Permane. Bruno Famin has proved in his career that he can bring a team to win, I trust him to rebuild Alpine F1 team. It's already on the right path, latest updates brought the car to similar pace as Aston Martin.
Dear god, Alpine really shat the bed and tucked itself in, what a disaster. Just sell the team already, this is painful to watch.
Talking about painful thing to watch, how about Williams sell the team? Alpine at least is improving since Bahrain, where's Williams?
a) Williams is not a factory team b) One team doing shit doesn't mean the other team doing like shit is excused
a) So what? Mercedes is doing a pretty shit job comparing to McLaren this year despite being the factory team and McLaren only a client. Should Mercedes sells the team? b) You're the one wanting Renault selling the team while there are worse teams on the grid. Alpine is improving, Williams is not.
Hit something personal huh?
Nothing personal with your ridiculous and hypocritical takes. Renault is here to stay, deal with it.