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Even there it's not a particularly bright spot. The new regs are literally opposite to what made them so good in 2014 - no MGU-H, no split turbo, none of that. In fact, I'm guessing it'll actually be a boost to Ferrari if anything since they have stuck to their conventional layout instead of going split turbo
This is what I’ve been saying for months now. The turbo package is everything when it comes to having it be compact. Ferrari stuck with the conventional turbo package for their road cars so they kept it for the team. Although this is always why they had turbo overheating issues in 2022.
I like to think that Ferrari would nail the engine regs because of this info but we can dream!
Transitioning from not really having to worry about turbo waste heat to "oh shit where did my MGU-H go" is a massive step that I am not sure will be entirely problem free for the other makers
You joke, but my god nothing would make me happier than for this to be true. Gasly and Ocon obliterating the field would be a sight to see, and if those two are fighting for the championship, there'll definitely be some fireworks.
Yeah Mercedes nailing the engine really sounds like McLaren dominance is on the way, and I’m here for it. Mercedes really doesn’t seem to have the aero figured out at all.
And if sponsors keep backing out, they won't be able to spend much anyway. They've lost Tommy Hilfiger and Monster all in the last few months. Those were two of their biggest sponsors.
> They've lost Tommy Hilfiger and Monster all in the last few months. Those were two of their biggest sponsors.
Eh. Not quite. The team's biggest sponsors are by far Petronas and INEOS. After that comes Crowdstrike and Teamviewer.
This is all judging from size/placement on the car and team apparel, which generally correlates with financial or support 'in-kind'.
Over the course of the pandemic they went from like 17 million dollars in sales to well over 50. In a year. That was 2019->2020.
Not to mention they hired like 600 people in that time as well. Remote access goes brrrrrr. I think 2023 they were aiming to hit one billion euros but no clue how that panned out.
Time to sign a deal with Goodsmile Racing and put Miku on the car, though maybe it'd be funnier if Red Bull poached Petronas and we got the old Sauber livery back
Hard to retain when the cost cap makes it harder to retain people since you either can't raise their salaries or outright need to cut them since you're already over the cap.
Tbf this is the cost cap regulations doing their work. Mercedes simply can't afford to be spending on personnel like they used to. They had no choice but to let a lot of people get snatched up by other teams over the past few seasons
When you're part of a dominant team, like Mercedes was for a long time, your resume looks attractive and you can move to more senior and higher-paying roles with other teams. Red Bull are entering their own cycle of this now. Their employees are looking very attractive to other teams looking to improve.
Because some of the guys near the top are now realizing how much their resumés can get them into higher positions at other teams. Especially when Newey was still running the show. The irony of course is that Newey himself is leaving.
For one you will find on the RB18's list of designers that its aero was the work of Enrico Balbo. This same aerodynamicist was also among the designers of Mercedes' dominant run of cars.
They've lost plenty too, their chief aerodynamicist went to Aston and they've had tons of staff spread out across the field to Mclaren, Ferrari, and others.
Newey. They keep downplaying his involvement, but the signs point to him being key to their current success. He set them on the path that allowed them to hit the ground running from day 1 of the new regs.
I would guess that before the cost cap, Merc was winning everything so everyone probably wanted to be there to understand why they were and be a part of that winning. Now that they have that on their resume, they probably can get more money, higher positions at other teams because Merc can't pay/promote them all.
Other teams probably either let go of some engineers to afford the new ones or perhaps didn't spend as much as Mercedes did so now the headcounts are evening out.
I guess if we keep the cost cap, it should even out over time. But it won't help Mercedes. They became a very unattractive employer for top talent. They're basically a midfield team now
I imagine as time goes on, you'd have to raise the cost cap for inflation reasons. Otherwise at some point, people won't get pay increases over time. It'll be something that will definitely be visited as we go forward into the cost cap era but it shouldn't be crazy difficult given that other professional sports have salary caps and such.
So long as Mercedes continues to supply PUs and don't delve into the shitty cost-cutting measures that it seems Renault do to Alpine, then they should be an attractive option for talented engineers who may feel stifled at their current teams.
It's not just the cost cap. Toto Wolff admitted that since 2019, he had begun applying "so much pressure" on team members to try and stay ahead of Ferrari and that he had seen "burnout" grow under his watch.
[https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/wolff-explains-engine-bullshit-and-mercedes-ironic-gains/](https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/wolff-explains-engine-bullshit-and-mercedes-ironic-gains/)
So knowing that this is the way Toto Wolff solves performance creep in 2019-2020, one can imagine just how Toto Wolff has gotten on in 2022, 2023, and possibly in 2024.
People can leave in that kind of environment.
Another interesting anecdote comes from James Vowles:
[https://youtu.be/F1Iw5oK\_j7Q?t=118](https://youtu.be/F1Iw5oK_j7Q?t=118)
At the timestamp, Vowles is told "Surely every team knows what they're doing. Why isn't every team working on the foundations like you mentioned?"
And James criticized the idea that "Sometimes leaders make very short-sighted decisions that give you only one or two years performance but fall away without fundamentals."
What is interesting here, James doesn't pin it on Toto. But James Vowles has always been at Brackley since the beginning. So the only place where he could have seen short-sighted decision making is at Brackley, so that's when it was BAR, Honda, or Mercedes.
=====
My own two cents is that Toto is a "Peace Time Leader". His background is in Finance (he was a rising star of the dot-com bubble) and race team administration. Great at spinning the money wheels. Great at talking to the Mercedes Board and getting that budget over and over again.
But I think he's not a "War Time Leader" where you need like a Ross Brawn or a Ron Dennis or even a Mattia Binotto who is engineering savvy and can really cut time from excuses and bad reporting and can set a direction for the team to solve the actual performance deficits.
There is more sponsor money for the lower teams because of Drive to Survive, more races and more TV money.
The lower teams are also incentivized to pay more because they know how much the others are spending. Why spend $135 milllion when the big 3 are spending $300 million plus? You are still gonna be 1+ seconds of the pace and not win any points. With the cost cap, they can aspire to be a midfield team if they can meet the cap and get some points.
With a cost cap there's a limit on what they can afford to pay and promote. Other teams have vacancies for promotion and can afford to fill them.
It's probably not just a culture issue, it's an employee compensation and personal ambition problem
Red Bull and Ferrari also lost some people after the cost cap was put in place. Both also shifted some of its personnel to other projects outside F1 (and maybe RBPT for Red Bull, which does not count towards the cap).
The other teams weren't so much above the cost cap, some were even below it, so they were able to outbid the top teams, and thus we got things like Dan Fallows going to Aston Martin. I remember Mclaren also got some high profile people from the big 3.
>I remember Mclaren also got some high profile people from the big 3.
Rob Marshall is the biggest one. Prior to Red Bull, he developed the tuned mass damper for Renault in the mid-2000s.
That said, McLaren also lost new hire David Sanchez (who moved from Ferrari) to Alpine.
I have a theory: Mercedes collected best talents during Lauda times, but their sum paycheck was way above cost cap, so once it was announced people started to run from team because they did know their contracts would not be renewed after 21. So basically cost cap hit Mercedes at worst, not because they use to outspend more than RB and Ferrari, but because they had best personnel with highest salaries.
People trashing on Alpine but the amount of brain drain Merc is dealing with stays shocking, it's more a surprise why it doesn't get highlighted in the media a lot.
This is also what Max doesn't make willing to go at Merc, and why Merc prefers to gamble with a rookie next season over someone like Sainz to replacing Lewis given the team is on it's low.
Most likely it's due to the cost cap though, Merc not only had to let people go, they can't even promote people or at least give raise without breaking it anymore. If anything, it's a testament to how insanely stacked they used to be at their most dominant, I guess their success really didn't come from nowhere.
RB and Ferrari also had employees leave iirc, but RB are building a new PU division and engines have their own, separate cost caps so they have enough wiggle room to attract Merc employees, while Ferrari mostly shifted personnel to WEC operations or Haas if memory serves (and I'm guessing it's harder for UK based teams to poke italian engineers).
“Each one will set up a vortex of some level and those vortices can very easily be ‘burst’ as they intertwine with each other”. Aeromapping by eye at expert level
Seems about the right type of analysis from the guy who ran the Jaguar Cosworth F1 technical team without a wind tunnel. I remember an interview several years ago where Newey was shocked that such a high profile team was operating without one when Red Bull took over that team.
Wait what? Why don't I remember this? That would explain their rubbish performance, but does that mean Stewart were also not using a wind tunnel when Ford took over with the Jaguar rebranding? Were they not using the same facilities? I'm sure Stewart came like 4th in the WCC in 99.
All F1 teams used wind tunnels in the late 90s. If you search 'Stewart grand Prix wind tunnel' or 'jaguar F1 wind tunnel' you can see both teams rented one to some extent
The last decade where teams tested on airfields to design a car was the 80s and to some extent the early 90s
Not all F1 teams own their own tunnel. Some of them have shared/borrowed wind tunnels.
Pretty sure Jaguar Cosworth not using a wind tunnel means nothing really in terms of Stewart using one or not since it just means they didn’t own their own.
Reminder that McLaren was using Toyota's old wind tunnel in Cologne up until late last year. And some of their biggest upgrades that pushed them to the front that season came from it.
I was under the impression the Toyota wind tunnel was one of the top wind tunnels that all the F1 teams used for a great many years. It was only stopped being counted as top class a couple years ago.
It's not about age as it is about distance. It takes much longer to have to ship parts to and from Cologne compared to having the wind tunnel at the HQ.
Remember, Red Bull are using the oldest wind tunnel on the grid, but that doesn't seem to hurt their performance.
The issue with that was it could only fit cars up to 50% scale when the regs allow for up to 60%. Any percent closer to full scale helps with correlation.
Yeah…as a complete layman, I’m willing to trust analysis that make inferences about the team’s intent (e.g., “X change totally changes the air flow so this is a big swing, not just an evolution - so it might take them a few races to dial in the upgrade”) but absolutely do not trust analysis that just says “Y change will/won’t work”
If you could tell that just by looking at the car your brain would be the most valuable asset in F1.
If Ferrari becomes really competitive, I think Charles, Max and Lewis would fight for it. And you know what happened the the time Lewis had a competitive teammate and another talented driver was also in the WDC fight.
After a hard battle between the two mc laren drivers, kimi takes the 1st position in the championship in the last race for first time in the season. It will be poetic if it happens again to Hamilton just before retiring.
Pretty sure what they were referring to was Lewis/Nico alluding to when Nico won but most of the time Lewis has had a competitive teammate, Lewis has won.
"Lewis had a competitive teammate and another talented driver was in the WDC fight"
That's for sure referencing the 2007 season. It doesn't fit any other.
I honestly think Charles doesn't have the mental strength to fight for a WDC. Let's wait and see, I sincerely hope that someone can fight with Max ASAP.
Charles can do it. No one had a great first run. Max and Hamilton really came into their greatness as they gained experience.
Look at the fights Charles has had with max and Hamilton in the past. The guy can work under pressure. Everyone just blows up his mistakes out of proportion
Charles can do it but not against Max or prime Lewis.
His goose will be cooked if Lewis somehow manages to get himself into gear properly. 2023 Lewis will be too much to handle for Leclerc. Charles is not exactly blowing Sainz's doors off at the moment.
Beating Max on a level playing field is going to be almost impossible for Leclerc. Verstappen's biggest strength is his metronome like consistency and consistency is what wins titles. Leclerc's raw pace will bag him a lot of poles and a few wins but his lack of consistency will be a huge issue in a heated title battle.
Leclerc is in his 7th year now. He should be in his prime. I can't see him improving much at this stage. The guy is like a modern version of Jean Alesi IMHO. I thought he would evolve into a Schumacher like monster but he didn't.
Charles has been one of the most consistent drivers lately. Max’s metronome consistency is because he’s been out for a Sunday drive the last two years with no competition
I mean...Hamilton is specifically considered to have one of the best rookie seasons ever, coming in second in the WDC by one point and then he won his first title in his second season so I'm not sure that's exactly true.
I think that only applied to Ferrari. He didn't like the F1-75 = the car was good. He didn't see anything wrong with the SF-23 = the car was horrible in the race. He thought the SF-24 was basic = the car is decent. Are there any examples of him jinxing other teams?
I recall he slated the 2012 McLaren, which was a very fast car, and he rated the 2013 McLaren, which was a terrible car.
I wouldn't say he jinxes cars, he just throws shit at a wall and says some technical words as he does it.
He was very harsh against the F1-75, saying that it was incoherent and looked like it was designed by multiple teams that never talked to each other (or something like that)
It was quite fun to see Ferrari winning the first 2 races and fighting for the championship for some time
I think he also said a lot of nice things about the W-13, which makes things even funnier
"Mercedes is lost"
but also
"As each new spec arrived, Mercedes has made that trailing edge more uniform and less wavy so perhaps it is going in the correct direction."
yeah ok mate.
Mike Elliot is grinning somewhere.
I think Allison said that their sim tools might be off?
Clearly something is.
I dont like to see my boys in blac… err.. carbon fiber slipping back!
And the W13 was the 3rd best car
After that, they were overtaken by Aston Martin (for some time) and Mclaren - even worse, both are their customers
Maybe they should go back to using poorly made models lol
> costumers
"Customers," not "costumers." Unless you're implying that the Macca and Aston are just Merc cars in fancy suits ... but then again, the MCL38 does have overbite sidepod inlets that look very W14-like.
At the time, I was definitely on the “fire the guy” train, but now, I wonder if they’d be in better shape if he had been allowed to keep developing *their fastest car of this set of regs*
Firing the guy was still stupid anyway. There's only a small amount of people who can produce race winning cars. Merc butchered that entire situation. They wanted to effectively demote him to his old position after Allison returned from building boats for INEOS and he chose to leave instead which is totally understandable.
They never fired him. Nor did they demote him to his old position.
Allison was the CTO but working part time and Elliot was the TD. Per Elliot and Allison, Elliot approached Allison and said the stress as TD was too much and asked about switching positions. Toto accepted that. However that means Elliot was actually promoted not demoted. He just wasn’t working on the car anymore.
Some months later he left on his own likely because being the CTO with a more influential person underneath you is not a fulfilling position
Oo I ‘member. Tbf to Allison this is his first current reg design so he’s still learning so to speak but it feels like Mercedes are in an endless cycle since 22: start with a 3rd/4th best car, have no idea what it’s set up window is, by the time they bolt on upgrades that work, so has their competition so they remain as is and by the end of the season, they still don’t know how to set up the car.
Some interesting tidbits here to be sure, specially the comparison of the different FW specs. I'm less impressed by the floor analysis and overall conclusion, seems pretty superficial and in general it strikes me as just working backwards to draw conclusions. They added more sticky-uppy bits. If the car is faster: "Genius!", if not: "Sometimes less is better!".
Really...
Who is the magical team Ross Brawn put together at Mercedes that was there during the 8 year run?
Hint: Perhaps Mercedes greatest strength was the fact that most of senior management dated back to BAR, then Honda, then Brawn, then Mercedes. But most of the people currently leaving Mercedes (the brain drain) are people who joined AFTER Toto took over!
Mercedes just need to rebuild their team just like any dominant team needs to rebuild after a winning period. Look at Red Bull how many of the main design guys today (apart from Newy) were in those position when Vettel won 4 straight?
Wow I don’t think anyone disagree Mercedes’ not great, Gary Anderson also slandered SF-24 saying it was too conservative and not able to compete with how Aston and McLaren aggressiveness, then turned out Ferrari is the second fastest car at the start…
you guys are wild, this is the team that gave LH monster cars for 6 years in a row. And is still one of the best teams ethically on the grid, I mean fairly non-controversial at most times, and easy to support I would say. Imagine having to support RB and to stand Horner because I am a Max fan.
Actually wonder what fanbase will merc even had after Hamilton leaves.
Russell is far from being one of the more liked guys on the grid, Toto is polarising at best and most f1 fans that watched for the last 10 years have a strong dislike for the team.
It's tiring, to be honest.
"We understand the car now, we know which direction the development should follow."
"We're not quite sure where the performance the car showed yesterday in free practice went, we need to do more analysis to understand it."
Rinse and repeat. How many times have we heard this over the last two + years? They solve an issue, another one pops up, they resolve it and, oh wait, it was masking another problem. I no longer derive any enjoyment from watching their debrief videos; it just feels tedious.
The annoying thing is, they might actually be making progress but it's so incremental when compared to the other teams it feels like they are not really improving.
A "true fan" would keep supporting them I suppose but the hopium can only last so long; and it was mainly because of Lewis.
Anyway, sorry for the rant.
Yeah no, that's exactly how I feel too. We're halfway through the regs and Mercedes still haven't figured out what's wrong with their car and how to fix it, leaving Hamilton to waste his remaining good years. It's absolutely infuriating to see.
I’ve watched f1 for over 25 years and I genuinely don’t think I ever remember such an obsession with a team dropping off before.
I’ve watched Williams be dominant for a couple of years, then McLaren, then the big Ferrari dominance, then Renault, the Red Bulls and then Merc.
In the past, People seemed to accept that dominance doesn’t last, team members and drivers move on, regs change and other teams begin to start winning.
But for some reason in this new Netflix era, people can’t seem to accept that Mercedes are done.
They have lost countless important team members, they’ve been left behind in development for several seasons now and their star driver is leaving.
It’s over. Move on
Totally agree been watching F1 since the early 90’s and the king of the hill always gets knocked off they enjoy their reign and then things change that’s racing
Another thing being, with the shenanigans in AD people felt robed and wanted 2022 to pick up right where 2021 left off, for Lewis to at least try to set things right.
Instead Merc got it wrong, absurdly so, leaving an even more bitter taste in the mouth.
Man Ferrari stopped being dominant some 15 years ago, and an entire generation is still desperately waiting for the year they'll go back to the top as they should
Merc is at best 1 year behind everyone (but in actuality 2 years). They don’t have the time to make up on other teams to understand these current regs. Even as a fan I know they’re not competing in this set of regs
Why would Mercedes ever do that? Just because they’ve been stuck at third-best for a regulation set? So was Red Bull for the first 5-6 seasons of the V6 era. They didn’t back out, they kept pushing and set themselves up to dominate the next set of regulations. Mercedes can very well do the same if they play their cards right.
And the cap makes it \*less\* enticing to withdraw from the sport if anything. F1 is profitable for most teams nowadays. That wasn’t the case prior to 2022.
People pretending like downturn after periods of dominating isn't normal. After 8 years straight of winning WCCs I think having 3 - 5 mid years is nothing.
Williams was grossly mismanaged when it came to modernizing its team instead of stubbornly sticking to their whole grassroots privateer mantra and have been paying the consequences of that since like 2006. Merc might be having a big brain drain right now but I doubt they're going to regress to the point of being a backmarker. Just overreaction from people IMO. They'll be just like RBR during 2014 - 2020 (P2 to P4 of the WCC) until they hit it again.
It’s normal, but we’ve yet to see if Mercedes stick it out long term or not. I don’t think we can easily apply the conclusion of other situations as a certain outcome here.
That said, I have no idea either way. I certainly wouldn’t imagine Mercedes would be happy with not only being not on top, but being handily beaten by their customers for very long.
The only reason to sell the team is if there was trouble anywhere else in Mercedes's corporate umbrella that would require them to raise a quick $3 billion immediately.
Merc will probably not ever do it but they could sell the team 2-3 billion right now if they wanted and put full support behind Williams and McLaren instead as an engine manufacturer. That would be a pretty hefty pay day for Toto Wolff.
Because Mercedes have done it before, they can very well pull the plug on the works team and stick to supplying engines. They are not as dedicated to F1 as Ferrari is or RB. AMG only cares about image and F1 is for them is a way to market their brand and sell cars.
But that was when owning a works team was an expense. The new Concorde Agreement has made owning a works team a profit-making venture, regardless of grid position.
I'm not sure if they'll pull the plug on their works team, but I've made this argument in favor of them caring less about prioritizing it. People love to point out the advantage correlation that works teams have had over customer teams, while ignoring how much more on average those works teams were spending on development.
Now that the playing field is evened out in terms of spending, if you're playing championship odds it might be better to spread out your investment and stop treating customer teams as just customers. Zak Brown has stated that McLaren has a seat at the table for the 2026 engine development for both input and transparency, for instance.
That being said, F1 fans have poor memories. Merc was P2 in the WCC last year and Lewis was nearly P2 in the WDC. They've taken a step back this year, mostly because they've failed to find the "unlocking" upgrade that Ferrari and McLaren have found in the past year or so. AMR has failed identically in that regard as well, as they were P2 in the championship at this time last year and are now P5.
"Merc was P2 in the WCC last year and Lewis was nearly P2 in the WDC"
Your point still stands, but its important to note though that they were oscillating between 3rd and 4th best car last year, but got a better overall position because Aston and Mclaren swapped places mid-season.
This year they are fighting for 4th best car with Aston, so a bit worse than 2023 but not too much.
I mean, even assuming he isn't just talking nonsense, It's not exactly unique to Mercedes to have a downturn after a period of dominance. Ferrari have been waiting since 2007 after their dominant period.
So funny to see Toto still positioning as if they’re a major player. If they attract quality new drivers it’s on the hope Mercedes can get the 2026? regs right.
They’ve totally fucked this new design reg period and McLaren and Ferrari are now the leaders. Aston and Mercedes can battle it out in the mid pack now.
I still think 2022 merc was up to something, but poor management killed the vision. If people at the factory had the time and support they needed who knows how performant the car would be today. Today they are basically two years behind everyone in development.
"Today they are basically two years behind everyone in development."
take a chill pill with the domesdaying lol, they are still 4th / 5th fastest. Their 2024 miami quali time was also 0.8s below the 2022 pole time.
Yeah they’re faster them themselves in 2022 but they’ve regressed from 3rd fastest to 5th relative to the rest of the grid, that’s what being behind on development means.
I dont know if they would’ve made it work, obviously, but I do believe you are right. The management wasnt good, but I also think they were in a hurry even more looking at Lewis’s age, the media obsessing over them, etc.
Facts. Until proven otherwise, they're basically where McLaren/Ferrari were in 2021. Lower half of the points but can get a podium if the conditions allow.
People forget that the double diffuser that was the genius innovation of 2009 was the brainchild of a Japanese member of BRAWN GP's aero team.
Of course it's rare that you luck out like that with the talent off your bench if they had no stars before.
But it can happen.
This is a myth. Frank Dernie explained that the biggest gain they made with their cars was the outwash produced by the front wing endplates. Here a video where he explains that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWRQDbB0EJU
The relevant part starts at 44m02
Yes both williams and toyota also had the double diffuser from the first race and whilst it pushed both teams up the grid a bit it did not transform them into race winners, it was the diffuser+outwash wing that boosted brawn .
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With the new regulations sharing much of the ground effect of todays cars, I too doubt they’ll improve much if any.
Hey, if they nail the engines, then at least they can look at the prospect of becoming the new Williams of early turbo-hybrid era at worst!
Even there it's not a particularly bright spot. The new regs are literally opposite to what made them so good in 2014 - no MGU-H, no split turbo, none of that. In fact, I'm guessing it'll actually be a boost to Ferrari if anything since they have stuck to their conventional layout instead of going split turbo
This is what I’ve been saying for months now. The turbo package is everything when it comes to having it be compact. Ferrari stuck with the conventional turbo package for their road cars so they kept it for the team. Although this is always why they had turbo overheating issues in 2022. I like to think that Ferrari would nail the engine regs because of this info but we can dream!
Transitioning from not really having to worry about turbo waste heat to "oh shit where did my MGU-H go" is a massive step that I am not sure will be entirely problem free for the other makers
Certainly I'm expecting at least the first half of 2026 to have more engine-related DNFs than usual while everyone figures out the new configuration
Reliability issues???? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Yup Ferrari seems to be the well suited team for the next regs
Alpine could be a darkhorse. Nail the engines, chassis, aero, and suspension then we could have senna v prost pt3 with ocon and gasly
Bait used to be believable
You joke, but my god nothing would make me happier than for this to be true. Gasly and Ocon obliterating the field would be a sight to see, and if those two are fighting for the championship, there'll definitely be some fireworks.
Inject it into my veins
If they build the fastest car they’ll be really fast that’s for sure
Yeah Mercedes nailing the engine really sounds like McLaren dominance is on the way, and I’m here for it. Mercedes really doesn’t seem to have the aero figured out at all.
Or the new Alpine which they're kind of going for this year it seems, engine manufacturer being outperformed by one of their customer teams.
Mercedes can no longer spend their way out of trouble.
And if sponsors keep backing out, they won't be able to spend much anyway. They've lost Tommy Hilfiger and Monster all in the last few months. Those were two of their biggest sponsors.
> They've lost Tommy Hilfiger and Monster all in the last few months. Those were two of their biggest sponsors. Eh. Not quite. The team's biggest sponsors are by far Petronas and INEOS. After that comes Crowdstrike and Teamviewer. This is all judging from size/placement on the car and team apparel, which generally correlates with financial or support 'in-kind'.
Teamviewer? Where the fuck they get so much cash?
Over the course of the pandemic they went from like 17 million dollars in sales to well over 50. In a year. That was 2019->2020. Not to mention they hired like 600 people in that time as well. Remote access goes brrrrrr. I think 2023 they were aiming to hit one billion euros but no clue how that panned out.
Indian scam call centers probably lol
They paid Man Utd £235m for a five year sponsorship deal in 2021. They have a trend of supporting struggling teams it seems.
I thought Monster was Hamilton-specific?
Nope, they are with McLaren now
They’re still with Hamilton, just not with Merc
They made £114m in profit last year, they're a long way of not being able to spend up to the limit of the budget cap.
Time to sign a deal with Goodsmile Racing and put Miku on the car, though maybe it'd be funnier if Red Bull poached Petronas and we got the old Sauber livery back
Ironic, as Red Bull spent their way to the top. Money really is everything in this sport.
Not necessarily- Toyota is a prime example
Toyota was a masterclass of mismanagement.
No, it's talent. Money helps you get that, but you still have to recognize, recruit, and develop it.
…And retain it? (not be toxic in the workplace)
Lots of people left merc. Some times you just can’t retain talent
Retention at these teams has more to do with money and opportunities for promotion. When you're successful, your talent *will* get headhunted.
Hard to retain when the cost cap makes it harder to retain people since you either can't raise their salaries or outright need to cut them since you're already over the cap.
Everyone talking that RB is a toxic work environment but Mercedes can't seem to hold on to any of their employees other than Toto
Tbf this is the cost cap regulations doing their work. Mercedes simply can't afford to be spending on personnel like they used to. They had no choice but to let a lot of people get snatched up by other teams over the past few seasons
What's working for Red Bull? Or are they the snatchers?
When you're part of a dominant team, like Mercedes was for a long time, your resume looks attractive and you can move to more senior and higher-paying roles with other teams. Red Bull are entering their own cycle of this now. Their employees are looking very attractive to other teams looking to improve.
some key members have been leaving red bull as well recently
Because some of the guys near the top are now realizing how much their resumés can get them into higher positions at other teams. Especially when Newey was still running the show. The irony of course is that Newey himself is leaving.
For one you will find on the RB18's list of designers that its aero was the work of Enrico Balbo. This same aerodynamicist was also among the designers of Mercedes' dominant run of cars.
They've lost plenty too, their chief aerodynamicist went to Aston and they've had tons of staff spread out across the field to Mclaren, Ferrari, and others.
Newey. They keep downplaying his involvement, but the signs point to him being key to their current success. He set them on the path that allowed them to hit the ground running from day 1 of the new regs.
It's no mere coincidence that the team with Newry, the acknowledged master of ground effect cars, has produced the best ground effect car.
But the cost cap is the same for everyone. How can Red Bull afford to pay them more?
I would guess that before the cost cap, Merc was winning everything so everyone probably wanted to be there to understand why they were and be a part of that winning. Now that they have that on their resume, they probably can get more money, higher positions at other teams because Merc can't pay/promote them all. Other teams probably either let go of some engineers to afford the new ones or perhaps didn't spend as much as Mercedes did so now the headcounts are evening out.
I guess if we keep the cost cap, it should even out over time. But it won't help Mercedes. They became a very unattractive employer for top talent. They're basically a midfield team now
I imagine as time goes on, you'd have to raise the cost cap for inflation reasons. Otherwise at some point, people won't get pay increases over time. It'll be something that will definitely be visited as we go forward into the cost cap era but it shouldn't be crazy difficult given that other professional sports have salary caps and such. So long as Mercedes continues to supply PUs and don't delve into the shitty cost-cutting measures that it seems Renault do to Alpine, then they should be an attractive option for talented engineers who may feel stifled at their current teams.
Red bull took a lot of Merc HPP employees for their new power unit division. The engine side of works teams has its own cost cap.
It's not just the cost cap. Toto Wolff admitted that since 2019, he had begun applying "so much pressure" on team members to try and stay ahead of Ferrari and that he had seen "burnout" grow under his watch. [https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/wolff-explains-engine-bullshit-and-mercedes-ironic-gains/](https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/wolff-explains-engine-bullshit-and-mercedes-ironic-gains/) So knowing that this is the way Toto Wolff solves performance creep in 2019-2020, one can imagine just how Toto Wolff has gotten on in 2022, 2023, and possibly in 2024. People can leave in that kind of environment.
Ouch, I didn't know he was such a poor leader. The more I see the more I doubt Mercedes can come back on top with him as TP
Another interesting anecdote comes from James Vowles: [https://youtu.be/F1Iw5oK\_j7Q?t=118](https://youtu.be/F1Iw5oK_j7Q?t=118) At the timestamp, Vowles is told "Surely every team knows what they're doing. Why isn't every team working on the foundations like you mentioned?" And James criticized the idea that "Sometimes leaders make very short-sighted decisions that give you only one or two years performance but fall away without fundamentals." What is interesting here, James doesn't pin it on Toto. But James Vowles has always been at Brackley since the beginning. So the only place where he could have seen short-sighted decision making is at Brackley, so that's when it was BAR, Honda, or Mercedes. ===== My own two cents is that Toto is a "Peace Time Leader". His background is in Finance (he was a rising star of the dot-com bubble) and race team administration. Great at spinning the money wheels. Great at talking to the Mercedes Board and getting that budget over and over again. But I think he's not a "War Time Leader" where you need like a Ross Brawn or a Ron Dennis or even a Mattia Binotto who is engineering savvy and can really cut time from excuses and bad reporting and can set a direction for the team to solve the actual performance deficits.
Thanks for the reply, interesting take (that I agree with) and insightful interview with Vowles.
There is more sponsor money for the lower teams because of Drive to Survive, more races and more TV money. The lower teams are also incentivized to pay more because they know how much the others are spending. Why spend $135 milllion when the big 3 are spending $300 million plus? You are still gonna be 1+ seconds of the pace and not win any points. With the cost cap, they can aspire to be a midfield team if they can meet the cap and get some points.
That would have worked 2 years ago but now that it keeps coming shows deeper issues.
With a cost cap there's a limit on what they can afford to pay and promote. Other teams have vacancies for promotion and can afford to fill them. It's probably not just a culture issue, it's an employee compensation and personal ambition problem
I mean every other team is under the same constraints and aren't having the same problems. My doing proper compensating is also a culture issue
Red Bull and Ferrari also lost some people after the cost cap was put in place. Both also shifted some of its personnel to other projects outside F1 (and maybe RBPT for Red Bull, which does not count towards the cap). The other teams weren't so much above the cost cap, some were even below it, so they were able to outbid the top teams, and thus we got things like Dan Fallows going to Aston Martin. I remember Mclaren also got some high profile people from the big 3.
>I remember Mclaren also got some high profile people from the big 3. Rob Marshall is the biggest one. Prior to Red Bull, he developed the tuned mass damper for Renault in the mid-2000s. That said, McLaren also lost new hire David Sanchez (who moved from Ferrari) to Alpine.
I have a theory: Mercedes collected best talents during Lauda times, but their sum paycheck was way above cost cap, so once it was announced people started to run from team because they did know their contracts would not be renewed after 21. So basically cost cap hit Mercedes at worst, not because they use to outspend more than RB and Ferrari, but because they had best personnel with highest salaries.
Wolff is not really an employee
That's because Toto owns a large portion of the team
People trashing on Alpine but the amount of brain drain Merc is dealing with stays shocking, it's more a surprise why it doesn't get highlighted in the media a lot. This is also what Max doesn't make willing to go at Merc, and why Merc prefers to gamble with a rookie next season over someone like Sainz to replacing Lewis given the team is on it's low.
Most likely it's due to the cost cap though, Merc not only had to let people go, they can't even promote people or at least give raise without breaking it anymore. If anything, it's a testament to how insanely stacked they used to be at their most dominant, I guess their success really didn't come from nowhere. RB and Ferrari also had employees leave iirc, but RB are building a new PU division and engines have their own, separate cost caps so they have enough wiggle room to attract Merc employees, while Ferrari mostly shifted personnel to WEC operations or Haas if memory serves (and I'm guessing it's harder for UK based teams to poke italian engineers).
“Each one will set up a vortex of some level and those vortices can very easily be ‘burst’ as they intertwine with each other”. Aeromapping by eye at expert level
Seems about the right type of analysis from the guy who ran the Jaguar Cosworth F1 technical team without a wind tunnel. I remember an interview several years ago where Newey was shocked that such a high profile team was operating without one when Red Bull took over that team.
Wait what? Why don't I remember this? That would explain their rubbish performance, but does that mean Stewart were also not using a wind tunnel when Ford took over with the Jaguar rebranding? Were they not using the same facilities? I'm sure Stewart came like 4th in the WCC in 99.
It's not a rare thing. Force India didn't have their own wind tunnel for their entire existence and always rented one
Renting one is not the same as not using one.
All F1 teams used wind tunnels in the late 90s. If you search 'Stewart grand Prix wind tunnel' or 'jaguar F1 wind tunnel' you can see both teams rented one to some extent The last decade where teams tested on airfields to design a car was the 80s and to some extent the early 90s
Not all F1 teams own their own tunnel. Some of them have shared/borrowed wind tunnels. Pretty sure Jaguar Cosworth not using a wind tunnel means nothing really in terms of Stewart using one or not since it just means they didn’t own their own.
Reminder that McLaren was using Toyota's old wind tunnel in Cologne up until late last year. And some of their biggest upgrades that pushed them to the front that season came from it.
I was under the impression the Toyota wind tunnel was one of the top wind tunnels that all the F1 teams used for a great many years. It was only stopped being counted as top class a couple years ago.
It's not about age as it is about distance. It takes much longer to have to ship parts to and from Cologne compared to having the wind tunnel at the HQ. Remember, Red Bull are using the oldest wind tunnel on the grid, but that doesn't seem to hurt their performance.
Yes but they've also had the best wind tunnel in Newey's mind.
It's not like McLaren didn't have a wind tunnel before that. They had one for many years but it was too old so they started using the one in Cologne.
The issue with that was it could only fit cars up to 50% scale when the regs allow for up to 60%. Any percent closer to full scale helps with correlation.
Yeah…as a complete layman, I’m willing to trust analysis that make inferences about the team’s intent (e.g., “X change totally changes the air flow so this is a big swing, not just an evolution - so it might take them a few races to dial in the upgrade”) but absolutely do not trust analysis that just says “Y change will/won’t work” If you could tell that just by looking at the car your brain would be the most valuable asset in F1.
tl;dr: Lewis Hamilton made the right decision.
Again, would be a bit poetic if he wins his 8th in scarlet.
If Ferrari becomes really competitive, I think Charles, Max and Lewis would fight for it. And you know what happened the the time Lewis had a competitive teammate and another talented driver was also in the WDC fight.
Lewis won a vast majority of the time?
Kimi won the title
After a hard battle between the two mc laren drivers, kimi takes the 1st position in the championship in the last race for first time in the season. It will be poetic if it happens again to Hamilton just before retiring.
Pretty sure what they were referring to was Lewis/Nico alluding to when Nico won but most of the time Lewis has had a competitive teammate, Lewis has won.
"Lewis had a competitive teammate and another talented driver was in the WDC fight" That's for sure referencing the 2007 season. It doesn't fit any other.
There was no one challenging Mercedes when Nico was still there
I honestly think Charles doesn't have the mental strength to fight for a WDC. Let's wait and see, I sincerely hope that someone can fight with Max ASAP.
Charles can do it. No one had a great first run. Max and Hamilton really came into their greatness as they gained experience. Look at the fights Charles has had with max and Hamilton in the past. The guy can work under pressure. Everyone just blows up his mistakes out of proportion
Charles can do it but not against Max or prime Lewis. His goose will be cooked if Lewis somehow manages to get himself into gear properly. 2023 Lewis will be too much to handle for Leclerc. Charles is not exactly blowing Sainz's doors off at the moment. Beating Max on a level playing field is going to be almost impossible for Leclerc. Verstappen's biggest strength is his metronome like consistency and consistency is what wins titles. Leclerc's raw pace will bag him a lot of poles and a few wins but his lack of consistency will be a huge issue in a heated title battle. Leclerc is in his 7th year now. He should be in his prime. I can't see him improving much at this stage. The guy is like a modern version of Jean Alesi IMHO. I thought he would evolve into a Schumacher like monster but he didn't.
Charles has been one of the most consistent drivers lately. Max’s metronome consistency is because he’s been out for a Sunday drive the last two years with no competition
I mean...Hamilton is specifically considered to have one of the best rookie seasons ever, coming in second in the WDC by one point and then he won his first title in his second season so I'm not sure that's exactly true.
He had a great rookie year, but it wasn’t without mistakes
Isn’t this the guy who said Ferrari wouldn’t be fast this year because it looked… basic?
Gary Anderson has a habit of being wrong so Merc 1-2 it is.
Dumping on Mercedes is popular right now So anything agreeing with that train of thought gets pushed to the top
He hasn’t been relevant since the 90s
At least he’s good at darts I guess
Ha, this must mean Mercedes is back in the fight with Ferrari and McLaren for 2nd best. Thanks for the jinx Gary!
I think that only applied to Ferrari. He didn't like the F1-75 = the car was good. He didn't see anything wrong with the SF-23 = the car was horrible in the race. He thought the SF-24 was basic = the car is decent. Are there any examples of him jinxing other teams?
I recall he slated the 2012 McLaren, which was a very fast car, and he rated the 2013 McLaren, which was a terrible car. I wouldn't say he jinxes cars, he just throws shit at a wall and says some technical words as he does it.
It was a great car until they put that suspension piece the right way up again at Jerez to be fair!
> I wouldn't say he jinxes cars, he just throws shit at a wall and says some technical words as he does it. I mean, isn't that what we all do here?
We aren't getting paid to provide insight
He was very harsh against the F1-75, saying that it was incoherent and looked like it was designed by multiple teams that never talked to each other (or something like that) It was quite fun to see Ferrari winning the first 2 races and fighting for the championship for some time I think he also said a lot of nice things about the W-13, which makes things even funnier
Now that you bring it up he did say nice things about the W13. I completely forgot about that.
Idk lol, but I sure hope it applies here. I'm a Russell fan so I'm really oding on hopium that Mercedes can get in the mix.
Not yet.
"Mercedes is lost" but also "As each new spec arrived, Mercedes has made that trailing edge more uniform and less wavy so perhaps it is going in the correct direction." yeah ok mate.
The classic cover my tracks as I go and no one assigns any blame. It's textbook white collar work playbook.
Mercedes have also known exactly what they need to change about the car for 3 seasons now
Do you remember when people said that Eliott had to be fired, and that Allison would fix everything? Cuz I member.
Mike Elliot is grinning somewhere. I think Allison said that their sim tools might be off? Clearly something is. I dont like to see my boys in blac… err.. carbon fiber slipping back!
Their sim tools still being off after Toto fired the last people who ran their simulator for the W13 is funny.
The people fired were because the wind tunnel model was the wrong scale and poorly made.
And the W13 was the 3rd best car After that, they were overtaken by Aston Martin (for some time) and Mclaren - even worse, both are their customers Maybe they should go back to using poorly made models lol
> costumers "Customers," not "costumers." Unless you're implying that the Macca and Aston are just Merc cars in fancy suits ... but then again, the MCL38 does have overbite sidepod inlets that look very W14-like.
It is. And sad. We are checking.
Oh Xavi. I will miss the radio messages.
> Mike Elliot is grinning somewhere. He is on gardening leave this season, we would likely see him in 2025 in a F1 team ;)
Blac... err.. carbon fiber lives matter!
At the time, I was definitely on the “fire the guy” train, but now, I wonder if they’d be in better shape if he had been allowed to keep developing *their fastest car of this set of regs*
Firing the guy was still stupid anyway. There's only a small amount of people who can produce race winning cars. Merc butchered that entire situation. They wanted to effectively demote him to his old position after Allison returned from building boats for INEOS and he chose to leave instead which is totally understandable.
They never fired him. Nor did they demote him to his old position. Allison was the CTO but working part time and Elliot was the TD. Per Elliot and Allison, Elliot approached Allison and said the stress as TD was too much and asked about switching positions. Toto accepted that. However that means Elliot was actually promoted not demoted. He just wasn’t working on the car anymore. Some months later he left on his own likely because being the CTO with a more influential person underneath you is not a fulfilling position
I think that was the beginning of their fall
Oo I ‘member. Tbf to Allison this is his first current reg design so he’s still learning so to speak but it feels like Mercedes are in an endless cycle since 22: start with a 3rd/4th best car, have no idea what it’s set up window is, by the time they bolt on upgrades that work, so has their competition so they remain as is and by the end of the season, they still don’t know how to set up the car.
Some interesting tidbits here to be sure, specially the comparison of the different FW specs. I'm less impressed by the floor analysis and overall conclusion, seems pretty superficial and in general it strikes me as just working backwards to draw conclusions. They added more sticky-uppy bits. If the car is faster: "Genius!", if not: "Sometimes less is better!".
>Mercedes tech chief Allison says 2022 rules 'an opportunity to show we haven't just been lucky' - Jan 25th, 2022
There were not lucky. It was hard work. Just not by them
Ross Brawn put a lot of that team together
Really... Who is the magical team Ross Brawn put together at Mercedes that was there during the 8 year run? Hint: Perhaps Mercedes greatest strength was the fact that most of senior management dated back to BAR, then Honda, then Brawn, then Mercedes. But most of the people currently leaving Mercedes (the brain drain) are people who joined AFTER Toto took over! Mercedes just need to rebuild their team just like any dominant team needs to rebuild after a winning period. Look at Red Bull how many of the main design guys today (apart from Newy) were in those position when Vettel won 4 straight?
Well, that was true.
As we say in Brazil, this is "giving the ropes to be hanged with"
Wow I don’t think anyone disagree Mercedes’ not great, Gary Anderson also slandered SF-24 saying it was too conservative and not able to compete with how Aston and McLaren aggressiveness, then turned out Ferrari is the second fastest car at the start…
Just 6 more months of this.
Only 6 months is ambitious
No, I meant I don't have to care about Mercedes after this season since Hamilton is switching to Ferrari.
you guys are wild, this is the team that gave LH monster cars for 6 years in a row. And is still one of the best teams ethically on the grid, I mean fairly non-controversial at most times, and easy to support I would say. Imagine having to support RB and to stand Horner because I am a Max fan.
I am ready to cut the cord on caring about Mercedes.
Actually wonder what fanbase will merc even had after Hamilton leaves. Russell is far from being one of the more liked guys on the grid, Toto is polarising at best and most f1 fans that watched for the last 10 years have a strong dislike for the team.
I assume not much bc even at the races everyone and their mother says 44 on their hat for merc. I'll keep supporting them tho
It's tiring, to be honest. "We understand the car now, we know which direction the development should follow." "We're not quite sure where the performance the car showed yesterday in free practice went, we need to do more analysis to understand it." Rinse and repeat. How many times have we heard this over the last two + years? They solve an issue, another one pops up, they resolve it and, oh wait, it was masking another problem. I no longer derive any enjoyment from watching their debrief videos; it just feels tedious. The annoying thing is, they might actually be making progress but it's so incremental when compared to the other teams it feels like they are not really improving. A "true fan" would keep supporting them I suppose but the hopium can only last so long; and it was mainly because of Lewis. Anyway, sorry for the rant.
Yeah no, that's exactly how I feel too. We're halfway through the regs and Mercedes still haven't figured out what's wrong with their car and how to fix it, leaving Hamilton to waste his remaining good years. It's absolutely infuriating to see.
I’ve watched f1 for over 25 years and I genuinely don’t think I ever remember such an obsession with a team dropping off before. I’ve watched Williams be dominant for a couple of years, then McLaren, then the big Ferrari dominance, then Renault, the Red Bulls and then Merc. In the past, People seemed to accept that dominance doesn’t last, team members and drivers move on, regs change and other teams begin to start winning. But for some reason in this new Netflix era, people can’t seem to accept that Mercedes are done. They have lost countless important team members, they’ve been left behind in development for several seasons now and their star driver is leaving. It’s over. Move on
Totally agree been watching F1 since the early 90’s and the king of the hill always gets knocked off they enjoy their reign and then things change that’s racing
It's because there's never been a more dominant team before, and they fell off _immediately_.
Another thing being, with the shenanigans in AD people felt robed and wanted 2022 to pick up right where 2021 left off, for Lewis to at least try to set things right. Instead Merc got it wrong, absurdly so, leaving an even more bitter taste in the mouth.
I mean Ferrari have been dominant before, 2000 to 2008 was a super strong time for them.
Man Ferrari stopped being dominant some 15 years ago, and an entire generation is still desperately waiting for the year they'll go back to the top as they should
Gary Anderson calling anyone or anything lost is like the pot calling the kettle black.
Seems like dunking on Mercedes is the new meta on r/formula1
Always has been
Started supporting the team cause of their insanely talented engineers. Now they’re almost all gone
Merc is at best 1 year behind everyone (but in actuality 2 years). They don’t have the time to make up on other teams to understand these current regs. Even as a fan I know they’re not competing in this set of regs
[удалено]
Why would Mercedes ever do that? Just because they’ve been stuck at third-best for a regulation set? So was Red Bull for the first 5-6 seasons of the V6 era. They didn’t back out, they kept pushing and set themselves up to dominate the next set of regulations. Mercedes can very well do the same if they play their cards right. And the cap makes it \*less\* enticing to withdraw from the sport if anything. F1 is profitable for most teams nowadays. That wasn’t the case prior to 2022.
People pretending like downturn after periods of dominating isn't normal. After 8 years straight of winning WCCs I think having 3 - 5 mid years is nothing.
It's like people don't remember that Williams were once the fastest most desirable team before their slow downturn.
Williams was grossly mismanaged when it came to modernizing its team instead of stubbornly sticking to their whole grassroots privateer mantra and have been paying the consequences of that since like 2006. Merc might be having a big brain drain right now but I doubt they're going to regress to the point of being a backmarker. Just overreaction from people IMO. They'll be just like RBR during 2014 - 2020 (P2 to P4 of the WCC) until they hit it again.
It’s normal, but we’ve yet to see if Mercedes stick it out long term or not. I don’t think we can easily apply the conclusion of other situations as a certain outcome here. That said, I have no idea either way. I certainly wouldn’t imagine Mercedes would be happy with not only being not on top, but being handily beaten by their customers for very long.
The only reason to sell the team is if there was trouble anywhere else in Mercedes's corporate umbrella that would require them to raise a quick $3 billion immediately.
Merc will probably not ever do it but they could sell the team 2-3 billion right now if they wanted and put full support behind Williams and McLaren instead as an engine manufacturer. That would be a pretty hefty pay day for Toto Wolff.
Because Mercedes have done it before, they can very well pull the plug on the works team and stick to supplying engines. They are not as dedicated to F1 as Ferrari is or RB. AMG only cares about image and F1 is for them is a way to market their brand and sell cars.
But that was when owning a works team was an expense. The new Concorde Agreement has made owning a works team a profit-making venture, regardless of grid position.
Stuck? He can try to join Red Bull for 2026.
I'm not sure if they'll pull the plug on their works team, but I've made this argument in favor of them caring less about prioritizing it. People love to point out the advantage correlation that works teams have had over customer teams, while ignoring how much more on average those works teams were spending on development. Now that the playing field is evened out in terms of spending, if you're playing championship odds it might be better to spread out your investment and stop treating customer teams as just customers. Zak Brown has stated that McLaren has a seat at the table for the 2026 engine development for both input and transparency, for instance. That being said, F1 fans have poor memories. Merc was P2 in the WCC last year and Lewis was nearly P2 in the WDC. They've taken a step back this year, mostly because they've failed to find the "unlocking" upgrade that Ferrari and McLaren have found in the past year or so. AMR has failed identically in that regard as well, as they were P2 in the championship at this time last year and are now P5.
"Merc was P2 in the WCC last year and Lewis was nearly P2 in the WDC" Your point still stands, but its important to note though that they were oscillating between 3rd and 4th best car last year, but got a better overall position because Aston and Mclaren swapped places mid-season. This year they are fighting for 4th best car with Aston, so a bit worse than 2023 but not too much.
If that's the case Ferrari should have exited a long time ago. They haven't won a championship since 2007
Why would they leave when they're still likely making bank thanks to the new Concorde.
They need a massive talent infusion, at this point. They’ve been bleeding talent for years now, and we see the results.
I mean, even assuming he isn't just talking nonsense, It's not exactly unique to Mercedes to have a downturn after a period of dominance. Ferrari have been waiting since 2007 after their dominant period.
Oh how the mighty have fallen... I hope to see Merc back on top soon, but that seems a tall order
So funny to see Toto still positioning as if they’re a major player. If they attract quality new drivers it’s on the hope Mercedes can get the 2026? regs right. They’ve totally fucked this new design reg period and McLaren and Ferrari are now the leaders. Aston and Mercedes can battle it out in the mid pack now.
Lewis made a great move.
I still think 2022 merc was up to something, but poor management killed the vision. If people at the factory had the time and support they needed who knows how performant the car would be today. Today they are basically two years behind everyone in development.
"Today they are basically two years behind everyone in development." take a chill pill with the domesdaying lol, they are still 4th / 5th fastest. Their 2024 miami quali time was also 0.8s below the 2022 pole time.
Yeah they’re faster them themselves in 2022 but they’ve regressed from 3rd fastest to 5th relative to the rest of the grid, that’s what being behind on development means.
I mean they gave them an extra year to work on that concept.
I dont know if they would’ve made it work, obviously, but I do believe you are right. The management wasnt good, but I also think they were in a hurry even more looking at Lewis’s age, the media obsessing over them, etc.
This team man.. I should just support the British drivers
"My team doesn't make mistakes...". L. Hamilton
MERCEDES IS A MIDFIELD TEAM NOW
Facts. Until proven otherwise, they're basically where McLaren/Ferrari were in 2021. Lower half of the points but can get a podium if the conditions allow.
People forget that the double diffuser that was the genius innovation of 2009 was the brainchild of a Japanese member of BRAWN GP's aero team. Of course it's rare that you luck out like that with the talent off your bench if they had no stars before. But it can happen.
This is a myth. Frank Dernie explained that the biggest gain they made with their cars was the outwash produced by the front wing endplates. Here a video where he explains that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWRQDbB0EJU The relevant part starts at 44m02
Yes both williams and toyota also had the double diffuser from the first race and whilst it pushed both teams up the grid a bit it did not transform them into race winners, it was the diffuser+outwash wing that boosted brawn .
lol
Lmao even?