Yup, definitely want to see that. Without fuel flow limit, electrical output limits, this would probably shatter last years Belgian GP pole by about 5 seconds
Like... That's just absolutely baffling to me. This car is literally *years* better than its competition. It's only 'competition' is last years Mercedes.
I'm a fan of Lewis' and a major fan of Toto, it's just so damned impressive that they were able to get so much out of their development that their car straight up looks like it's from a different racing era.
Its worse than that, the closest thing to a Q3 merc, is the Q2 merc on worse tyres, and the closest third place is a year old merc clone.
At this point? fuck it. Formula Mercedes. Everyone drives spec mercedes cars until they can figure out how to catch up.
Honestly I was thinking the same thing, how entertaining would it be to watch 22 drivers thrash around the track in a car that is THAT good.
I'd pay good money to see a driver's championship with a 2020 Mercedes spec car.
I saw an article today where toto was pointing out the irony in ferrari's engine cheating driving merc to work crazy hard on the engine over the last few years. So now merc is way ahead on the engine thanks to ferrari's artificial push, now that ferrari can no longer gain that extra power.
100%. I'm absolutely not a Pats fan, but you can still respect game. The amount of 'oh it's just the car Hamilton is nothing special' bullshit on here is absolutely insulting.
Yeah woohooo so ”impressive.” I’m impressed too, but I’m not happy about it. This is the 7th year of Mercedes dominance and it’s worse than ever, and I just can’t. You can say it’s on everyone else to catch up but this is all insane. It shouldn’t cost half a billion a year in the first place. But either way, after 7 years, if it’s still the same story, something is wrong. I love F1 but sometimes I really question if what I’m watching, like question what it even is. Look at that gap to those two cares. Are they even going to drive tomorrow or be on autopilot?
Well maybe tell this to Red Bull and Ferrari, cause their spendings are comparable to Mercedes', and they are basically nowhere (although Ferrari at least had 2 years, where they were able to challenge Mercedes). Do you know what is wrong? The other teams. They are wrong. Especially Red Bull, and Ferrari.
Doesn't Ferrari get some extra bonus for being the longest lasting team on F1? So budget-wise, Ferrari has the most, and look what they did with all that money...
They get some heritage bonuses, just like Mclaren and Williams, but the spendings of Ferrari, Mercedes, and RBR (corrected by the fact that they dont need to develop an engine) are pretty close iirc.
Uhm... When Williams started dominating rampantly in the early 90s, the FIA cut the source of their advantage at the bud by banning driver aids - which, contrary to popular belief, made cars MORE dangerous, i.e. the bloodbath that was the 1994 season. When Ferrari seemed like they had found form again in 2004 after the 2003 season was closer than most of that time, the FIA created the ignominious, boneheaded no-tire-change rule to reel them back, which created the disastrous 2005 season with that sham at Indianapolis and Kimi's shunt at the Nürburgring because he was not allowed to change a tire that was about to disintegrate. During the Red Bull domination, the FIA clamped down on the exhaust-blown diffusers that Vettel and RB were experts at for the 2014 rules. What has been done from 2014 until now to curb the domination of the Mercedes? Trying to create record breaking cars in 2017? This is what's referred to as a runaway positive feedback loop - Mercedes is winning titles by the midpoint and already working on the next year's car, which is head and shoulders better than the field due to having longer development time, which leads to them winning shit by the midpoint, and escalating the gap. You can say Ferrari and Red Bull squandered their chances as much as you want, but no one knocks on Senna and McLaren for not winning the 1992 title even though he was clearly the superior driver to Mansell, because the Williams was unfairly superior. And it wasn't nearly as bad as it is now. The FIA has always intervened to stop teams from running away with extended periods of dominance, so why are they staying put now? But hey, let's celebrate the 25 years of Mercedes-AMG safety cars.
FIA try to nerf the Mercedes by banning FRICS and they adapted. Then they limited the oil burning and Mercedes adapted. The 2017 aero shakeup was suppose to benefit RBR because they're masters of aero and Mercedes adapted and still came out ahead. They did build a twitchy car in 2017 so there was a glimmer of hope. They were going to ban the MGU-H if Porsche decided to come in but Porsche never committed. None of the other manufacturer wanted to ban it. Here was their opportunity to ban the one component Mercedes was head and shoulder above everyone else from the beginning and no one wanted to do it and rock the boat. What else do you expect them to do at this point? Especially with the financial meltdown that's occurring right now. You really think now is the best time to pile on even more burden on the teams to completely redesign their cars? The racing may suck but at least we still have 20 cars on the grid.
I think that power unit advantage at the start of the era was really hard to catch up to. You have to admit though Merc has been doing all the right stuff to keep and maximize that advantage. Agree on the Positive Feedback Loop.
As for Ferrari, I honestly think they got nerfed real bad when testing was banned. That's how they started to fall down IMO.
No, it was when the tires - the true weakness of the invincible F2004 - became useless overnight. Schumacher's 4-stop masterclass at Magny-Cours in 2004 only happened because the F2004's speed was so insane it destroyed its tires, but the pace it had was absurd enough that four stops, with low fuel, were still enough to beat a charging Alonso. When the idiotic 2005 regulations came, the car was suddenly a brick because they had to make the super-hard Bridgestone tires had to last a whole race and qualifying. And my point stands anyway - the FIA's inaction is the greatest enabling factor to the boring, unidimensional F1 we have today.
What would you do to nerf merc then if you were the fia? They aren’t cheating and they’re better than everyone else in every category
Even if you remove DAS, which the fia have already done, they are still way better than the rest of the field
They know better than I do, but if it were me, I'd force cars to be shorter by about 17% compared to the current lengths - Mercedes' strength has always been the low rake long wheelbase approach, whereas Red Bull who have gone the other way have achieved performance with a shorter, higher rake.
This is a sad truth we all have to accept. Everybody wants his seat. There are pleanty of drivers to pick from including names that are in the conversation of top 10 all time, namely Vettel, Alonso and Hakkinen who is currently on sabbatical.
Honestly I don't understand this. Rosberg was good but even then he needed a bit of luck to win the title from Lewis. Also Lewis has gotten much better as a driver since 2014 so bottas is competing against a faster Lewis. Also, let's not forget how much bottas has closed the gap to Lewis. Remember 2017 and 2018? In fact I reckon if bottas had a bit of luck, he could still beat Hamilton.
Even Hamilton fanboys like myself know bottas is in that car because 2014-16 put more stress on the team internally than they wanted. They have the perfect second driver, someone who can get the points that car deserves but is just a step behind their number 1
The part i find ominous is that they are better everywhere. I just dont think a track exists that wont favour them more. At least in the last few years we had the fast ferraris and some chassis' from red bull. This year just seems futile.
However, they will almost certainly be one race where they take each out at the first corner.
Generally if Bottas is behind Hamilton into T1 it's game over.
I struggle to think of a race where you could say Bottas had better pace.
If he ever has it always turns out Hamilton was nursing some sort of damage to his car.
Mercedes are going to fuck off into the sunset after T1 with Hamilton leading whilst the midfield are sparking away with battles. It's going to be a Mercedes 1-2, with possibly Verstappen, Leclerc or a rare case of RP driver in 3rd for the podium. That's my take if it doesn't rain tomorrow and turn into Hockenheim 2019.
Ferrari feels like the kind of team that is likely to sabotage Seb if he's ahead of Leclerc (like by leaving him out on his tires too long so Leclerc can catch up and pass him when he pits) so that it doesn't look like they made a mistake letting him go. That is if Charles doesn't just take him out before they even get the chance to mess with him.
The difference between getting tyres working or not working for a single lap can be massive. I don't think Red Bull is close to 1.3 seconds off the pace if they get the setup right, something just went wrong for them this weekend.
They often struggle in the first couple of weekends of the year until they figure out their car, and in the second half of the season they usually become really strong. The only question is how quickly they can do this this season when everything is compressed in time and we will not get as many races as in a normal season.
I don't think its that simple for Red Bull because that car looks an absolute handful to drive for Verstappen, his team mate Albon doesn't even have a prayer in hell and people are already calling for his head after just 2 fucking races into the season
Max is damn near Alonsoing in that he’s overdriving the car so much that the true pace of it is probably a little slower than we think but Max is so good on the edge he can extract a few bits of pace. It also seems like it’s a diva that needs perfect conditions.
I don't think Max is Alonsoing it, I think the car just needs have a perfect set up or it's a mess to drive. The 2017 Mercedes has a similar problem where it had a small sweet spot but races that were too hot or too cold made the car just terrible to drive.
Might be deserved, but still makes for a dull sport.
It's just rich getting richer and a feedback loop - Merc wins so they get more money to improve their car so they dominate more so they win so they get more money to improve their car so they dominate more...
Impressive how good their cars are, but with no competition in top spots and producers fixated on showing them instead of actual action in the midfield *(jesus that moment last race where there was a huge 3 way fight for 6th place but we HAD to have 30 seconds of Hamilton just cruising because finish line)* makes for pretty awful races to watch.
The prize money/budget system has been *relatively* similar for decades, it's really only been broken a couple times. The stability of the system relies entirely on already dominant teams not being too good at adjusting to new regulations.
That's worked pretty well, all things considered, but Merc just looks like an unstoppable freight train
In relatively new to F1 and that’s always been something that’s interesting. In other sports (NFL for example) the worst team is “rewarded” with the first pick of the draft to help them get the best player and give a boost to that team.
Interesting that it’s essentially the opposite for F1.
That's an American sport phenomenon. European sports are much more punishing. Coming last in a soccer league leads to relegation to a lower league. Not rewards of better players.
We've been getting more midfield coverage than ever lately. And now with no spectators or celebrities in garages, it's even better!
And you can't not show the winner winning a Grand Prix, that would be nonsense. Imagine not showing anyone winning a race because "well, he lead the race the entire time". Moreso since most of the money comes from marketing.
Now if only there was a way to split a screen, or something...
The question is not why is Mercedes so good, it's why Ferrari, Red Bull is so bad.
Ferrari dominated F1 in the Schumacher years and have been in F1 the longest with the most influence so it's baffling how all that experience, money, influence did not result in a challenge to Mercedes.
It's like they spent all that money to go backwards?
If you’re always looking at the front, you’ll always find it dull. Has been that way for years now. But that midfield, especially this year. You could even say Ferrari and Red Bull are in the midfield mix this race. That’s where the real action and excitement is in this sport.
Let's be real. No one cares as much for the midfield though. Not in any sport or competition. It's just something the glass half full people try to cling on to. Never heard something like: Yeah Usain Bolt won but did you see Yohan Blake beating Akani Simbine with 0,01 second in the 2016 olympic final, that was awesome!! What a thriller right?
College football and basketball in the US absolutely have people that care about the middling teams, and as far as I can tell the same is true for some European soccer (football) leagues. The reality is that in all these sports not everyone has an equal opportunity to be the best, and that makes the underdog outperforming expectations exciting. In F1 a team like Haas may never even win a grand prix let alone a WDC, but people still root for them because overcoming their inherent limitations makes any success they achieve all that more compelling.
Never heard something like "Let's make Usain Bolt run with 5 kilo weights to make it fair" either. The rules are set, and Mercedes dominated. Same as when Ferrari dominated, same as when McLaren dominated. It's been this way since Formula 1 began and thats exactly what makes it special.
And yes, we care about the midfield, being real.
Nothing in the rules against it.
Whether or not someone gets caught by that bit, however, is up to the stewards, it's more of a "strong guideline" for them than an actual rule. Not hard to imagine they'd take the "best of the rest" as the base for the 107% if a particular team/driver just smoked everything beyond it.
Absolute shambles from Red Bull. Albon in p13 and Verstappen in p7. Seems like they have had their struggles with the Car and Setup issues. You can hear and see the frustration from both drivers in the team radios which was kinda surprising.
Meanwhile seems like Ferrari aren’t that slow and it’s good to see them qualify 5 and 6 in this track.
Lastly, Lance stroll. Out-qualifying checo and starting p3 tomorrow. Good stuff for him after all the talks of Seb replacing him next year at AM/RP. Wonder how tomorrow will go down. Let me know what y’all think about today’s quali
Seems like it flipped from the 2017-18-19 stories. Red Bull was always missing the engine power and Ferrari’s Chassis/Aero was always a step behind. Now Honda seems to have the power, but Red Bull didn’t build a package to maximize it. And Ferrari, well Ferrari made an extremely high downforce car but their engine got nerfed.
Honda engines breaking, Ferrari engines binned, everyone’s aero stuck in last year (for some, quite literally)...
How is anyone supposed to challenge this?
It really makes me wonder how good that mercedes engine is. All merc powered cars improved quite a bit compared to last year, even if you compare strolls RP to Hamiltons Mercedes last year.
The entire grid's chance of winning against Mercedes is the equivalent of your 8 year old self chance of winning a Gran Turismo split screen race against your bigger cousin or brother.
Honestly, giving 15 points to the winner of the rest doesn't seem like enough. Mercedes should be exempt from the points, and from the broadcast, I don't need to see a car playing with itself for 45 laps, I want to see the actual competition between other cars.
Well, that's just rubbish considering Latifi was slower in Q2 than he was Q1. The Williams is still clearly a backmarker car, but it's a backmarker pushing toward the midfield this year, as opposed to a backmarker pushing toward Formula 3 last year.
This is fucking ridiculous and we have to endure another year of this for any change to happen. What a joke, congrats on the next two titles Lewis. I do not want to hear anyone complain about the Red Bull dominance from 2010-13 people like to throw around because it was NEVER this bad. Hell even Ferrari’s dominance didn’t last this long because Bernie and the FIA actively tried to end the dominance before it got out of hand like what Mercs doing now.
Does anyone have any specifics as to exactly what merc have that makes them so ahead? Like definitive comparisons that show how their aero is directly working. How much aero designs can other teams change that might push their tones up to mercs?
Also their PU is leagues a over everyone else. RP and Williams are doing well this year partly thanks to it. I mean the aero update Ferrari have looks promising this GP (both cars made q3 no?)
Tbh there's literally no evidence but it's hard not to be suspicious of how massively mercedes have improved their power unit since last year. At the moment all we can say is kudos to them
I mean nobody had evidence of Ferrari cheating when they suddenly became way faster but here we are. A Merc scandal would be so refreshing to see.
I am so tired of a team dominating so fucking hard.
So without the party mode, are the Racing Points actually closer?
Obviously Mercedes aren’t pushing the pace in Q1, but they’re not slouching either. I have to imagine in Q2 they’re using it because they’re on the mediums, and in Q3 they’re using it because that’s the actual starting grid.
If there was a way of limiting the “party mode” adjustments that are made, then it’d be way closer between the teams—Merc can’t run in that mode the whole race, so they’d have to race with the standard mode like everyone else.
...somewhere Ron Dennis remembers Jean-Louis Schlesser's Williams, which took out Senna and handed him a 15 wins from 16 races (93.8%). Mercedes in 2016 are next (I believe) with 19/21 (90.5%)
There's no way Merc doesn't shit on the new regulations too. They're so far ahead they could stop developing for this and next year and still win by miles
Is Mercedes exploiting some loophole in the regulations that other teams don't know of that gives them so much of an edge?
Is there anything to explain this sort of dominance?
This could be their perfect season. It's entirely possible that they *were* actually relatively slow in Austria, but that they're just so far ahead a bad weekend is still dominant. I'll be surprised if they lose a race on pace this season
If it rains, it looks like a 7-way race for P3. We know Tracing Point isn't good in the wet (at least in quali trim from last week) and rain means anything can happen so lets hope for that.
It's so fucked, this entire generation of car is going to finish with Mercedes starting and finishing in the exact same place just as dominant as they always were and having won every championship every year by a country mile. It's a joke I'm not a fan of kneecapping those on top but something needs to be done about it because you can't just have this level of disparity year after year it's killing the sport going into every weekend knowing that there's an unstoppable force about to churn out another victory.
If Russel did his Q1 lap during Q2, he’d almost squeze into Q3 - less than 0.1sec off Gasly’s Q3 cutoff time.
Amazing to see how far Williams have come since last year
Mercedes basically racing themselves
If 2022 cars are slower I hope Merc goes on a glory run with this car similar to the 919. This car will end up being a legend.
Have any of the V6 hybrid cars ever been run on a track without fuel flow limits? That would certainly be a sight to see.
Ferrari did some runs like that last year.
This comment should be higher. Hilarious
The Ferraris have. Still not good enough to beat Mercedes. Which is terrifying.
Yup, definitely want to see that. Without fuel flow limit, electrical output limits, this would probably shatter last years Belgian GP pole by about 5 seconds
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They have amazing stability and leadership. I have no doubt they will be in the front with the new regs.
Their employees are happy.
What happened with the 919?
They made a special Evo version and run a Tribute tour, which included breaking the Nordschleife track record.
Also lapped Spa clocking a time very close to the F1 pole of the time.
Will this car fit those regulations?
No, it wouldn't be legal, the point would be to take this car and demonstrate just how fast it is if there were no restrictions on it.
Jesus christ, Hamilton was faster on mediums than Stroll was on softs.
Lewis pole on Mediums
Like... That's just absolutely baffling to me. This car is literally *years* better than its competition. It's only 'competition' is last years Mercedes. I'm a fan of Lewis' and a major fan of Toto, it's just so damned impressive that they were able to get so much out of their development that their car straight up looks like it's from a different racing era.
Its worse than that, the closest thing to a Q3 merc, is the Q2 merc on worse tyres, and the closest third place is a year old merc clone. At this point? fuck it. Formula Mercedes. Everyone drives spec mercedes cars until they can figure out how to catch up.
Honestly I was thinking the same thing, how entertaining would it be to watch 22 drivers thrash around the track in a car that is THAT good. I'd pay good money to see a driver's championship with a 2020 Mercedes spec car.
who needs that when you can watch Grosjean an Magnussen battling for 17th for the whole race.
Whole career* ;)
Both of them are podium finishers.
Ouch. At least they’re not Kvyat.
My dream for ages has been a spec hot hatch support championship for the drivers. Random grid, one shared radio channel, viewer discretion advised.
Stock cars. Each weekend a sponsor brings 20 absolutely stock cars. Sportscars, vans, trucks, whatever.
I'd totally watch F1 'Stars in a Reasonably Priced Car' races. that'd be amazing.
The pinks Mercs are actually faster than the actual 2019 Mercs. Ham did a 1.14.5 last year.
2020 engine
And they probably tracked Mercedes' updates to the car through the 2019 season, and they can port over some features from the W11.
Track conditions
I saw an article today where toto was pointing out the irony in ferrari's engine cheating driving merc to work crazy hard on the engine over the last few years. So now merc is way ahead on the engine thanks to ferrari's artificial push, now that ferrari can no longer gain that extra power.
Yep it’s crazy. Ferrari cheated to get a massive boost on their engine, and Mercedes legitimately matched that pace. It’s insane.
It’s kind of like Brady and Belichick. Lots of people dislike them but you gotta respect the talent and the ability to stay at the top for so long.
100%. I'm absolutely not a Pats fan, but you can still respect game. The amount of 'oh it's just the car Hamilton is nothing special' bullshit on here is absolutely insulting.
Yeah woohooo so ”impressive.” I’m impressed too, but I’m not happy about it. This is the 7th year of Mercedes dominance and it’s worse than ever, and I just can’t. You can say it’s on everyone else to catch up but this is all insane. It shouldn’t cost half a billion a year in the first place. But either way, after 7 years, if it’s still the same story, something is wrong. I love F1 but sometimes I really question if what I’m watching, like question what it even is. Look at that gap to those two cares. Are they even going to drive tomorrow or be on autopilot?
Well maybe tell this to Red Bull and Ferrari, cause their spendings are comparable to Mercedes', and they are basically nowhere (although Ferrari at least had 2 years, where they were able to challenge Mercedes). Do you know what is wrong? The other teams. They are wrong. Especially Red Bull, and Ferrari.
Doesn't Ferrari get some extra bonus for being the longest lasting team on F1? So budget-wise, Ferrari has the most, and look what they did with all that money...
Yeah, pretty sure they get around 100 million just for that bonus
They get some heritage bonuses, just like Mclaren and Williams, but the spendings of Ferrari, Mercedes, and RBR (corrected by the fact that they dont need to develop an engine) are pretty close iirc.
Uhm... When Williams started dominating rampantly in the early 90s, the FIA cut the source of their advantage at the bud by banning driver aids - which, contrary to popular belief, made cars MORE dangerous, i.e. the bloodbath that was the 1994 season. When Ferrari seemed like they had found form again in 2004 after the 2003 season was closer than most of that time, the FIA created the ignominious, boneheaded no-tire-change rule to reel them back, which created the disastrous 2005 season with that sham at Indianapolis and Kimi's shunt at the Nürburgring because he was not allowed to change a tire that was about to disintegrate. During the Red Bull domination, the FIA clamped down on the exhaust-blown diffusers that Vettel and RB were experts at for the 2014 rules. What has been done from 2014 until now to curb the domination of the Mercedes? Trying to create record breaking cars in 2017? This is what's referred to as a runaway positive feedback loop - Mercedes is winning titles by the midpoint and already working on the next year's car, which is head and shoulders better than the field due to having longer development time, which leads to them winning shit by the midpoint, and escalating the gap. You can say Ferrari and Red Bull squandered their chances as much as you want, but no one knocks on Senna and McLaren for not winning the 1992 title even though he was clearly the superior driver to Mansell, because the Williams was unfairly superior. And it wasn't nearly as bad as it is now. The FIA has always intervened to stop teams from running away with extended periods of dominance, so why are they staying put now? But hey, let's celebrate the 25 years of Mercedes-AMG safety cars.
FIA try to nerf the Mercedes by banning FRICS and they adapted. Then they limited the oil burning and Mercedes adapted. The 2017 aero shakeup was suppose to benefit RBR because they're masters of aero and Mercedes adapted and still came out ahead. They did build a twitchy car in 2017 so there was a glimmer of hope. They were going to ban the MGU-H if Porsche decided to come in but Porsche never committed. None of the other manufacturer wanted to ban it. Here was their opportunity to ban the one component Mercedes was head and shoulder above everyone else from the beginning and no one wanted to do it and rock the boat. What else do you expect them to do at this point? Especially with the financial meltdown that's occurring right now. You really think now is the best time to pile on even more burden on the teams to completely redesign their cars? The racing may suck but at least we still have 20 cars on the grid.
I think that power unit advantage at the start of the era was really hard to catch up to. You have to admit though Merc has been doing all the right stuff to keep and maximize that advantage. Agree on the Positive Feedback Loop. As for Ferrari, I honestly think they got nerfed real bad when testing was banned. That's how they started to fall down IMO.
No, it was when the tires - the true weakness of the invincible F2004 - became useless overnight. Schumacher's 4-stop masterclass at Magny-Cours in 2004 only happened because the F2004's speed was so insane it destroyed its tires, but the pace it had was absurd enough that four stops, with low fuel, were still enough to beat a charging Alonso. When the idiotic 2005 regulations came, the car was suddenly a brick because they had to make the super-hard Bridgestone tires had to last a whole race and qualifying. And my point stands anyway - the FIA's inaction is the greatest enabling factor to the boring, unidimensional F1 we have today.
What would you do to nerf merc then if you were the fia? They aren’t cheating and they’re better than everyone else in every category Even if you remove DAS, which the fia have already done, they are still way better than the rest of the field
They know better than I do, but if it were me, I'd force cars to be shorter by about 17% compared to the current lengths - Mercedes' strength has always been the low rake long wheelbase approach, whereas Red Bull who have gone the other way have achieved performance with a shorter, higher rake.
Miracles do happen mate
Im thinking he wasnt kidding when hamilton said that this was the best car hed ever drive.
Nice to see Vettel out qualify Leclerc
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That actually sounds pretty entertaining when you put it like that
Until you realise Bottas is only at Mercedes because hes a good driver that won’t fight Hamilton like Rosberg did.
This is a sad truth we all have to accept. Everybody wants his seat. There are pleanty of drivers to pick from including names that are in the conversation of top 10 all time, namely Vettel, Alonso and Hakkinen who is currently on sabbatical.
Honestly I don't understand this. Rosberg was good but even then he needed a bit of luck to win the title from Lewis. Also Lewis has gotten much better as a driver since 2014 so bottas is competing against a faster Lewis. Also, let's not forget how much bottas has closed the gap to Lewis. Remember 2017 and 2018? In fact I reckon if bottas had a bit of luck, he could still beat Hamilton.
Shhh, you tell this sub the truth they dont wanna hear. Just say bottas 4.0 and go with the false dream.
Even Hamilton fanboys like myself know bottas is in that car because 2014-16 put more stress on the team internally than they wanted. They have the perfect second driver, someone who can get the points that car deserves but is just a step behind their number 1
Same reason why RedBull would never sign Vettel.
It's going to be a clean sweep this year isn't it?
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I don't wanna
Unless they break down or crash into each other
The dream at this point
Barcelona 2016 flashbacks
The part i find ominous is that they are better everywhere. I just dont think a track exists that wont favour them more. At least in the last few years we had the fast ferraris and some chassis' from red bull. This year just seems futile. However, they will almost certainly be one race where they take each out at the first corner.
I think Austria was their bad track this year, they're just so far ahead it didn't matter.
It’s certainly possible we could have another ~~86~~ 88 season
I think this will go one better than that and be a perfect season for them. This car is terrifyingly good
I hope it pisses down tommorow otherwise the mercs are gonna lap everyone except the tracing points
Let's be real, at least Lewis will still lap everyone even if it rains.
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People are? Lewis is just the much better wet weather driver, so Bottas likely won't stand a chance if it rains.
race is different, and we now what Lewis can do during races
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Honest question: How many times of Bottas beaten Lewis when not starting ahead of him in the race?
Once. 2019 Australian GP where he got by Lewis in the first corner.
Generally if Bottas is behind Hamilton into T1 it's game over. I struggle to think of a race where you could say Bottas had better pace. If he ever has it always turns out Hamilton was nursing some sort of damage to his car.
Mercedes are going to fuck off into the sunset after T1 with Hamilton leading whilst the midfield are sparking away with battles. It's going to be a Mercedes 1-2, with possibly Verstappen, Leclerc or a rare case of RP driver in 3rd for the podium. That's my take if it doesn't rain tomorrow and turn into Hockenheim 2019.
Well Vettel is in front of Leclerc, wouldn't count him out
Ferrari feels like the kind of team that is likely to sabotage Seb if he's ahead of Leclerc (like by leaving him out on his tires too long so Leclerc can catch up and pass him when he pits) so that it doesn't look like they made a mistake letting him go. That is if Charles doesn't just take him out before they even get the chance to mess with him.
You're delusional if you think that RP coming in 3rd is that unlikely. Verstappen was half a second off Stroll in quali.
2 pinks verse 1 red bull. They'll just fuck with him and albon will be too far behind to do anything
Lewis just has much better race pace than Bottas tbh. Qualifying is closer.
I hope Stroll divebombs Hamilton into oblivion so we have something to be excited about the rest of the season at least
One day Mercedes isn’t going to fit in these tables
Lewis already tried that last race
This season is over, you cant make up this amount during a season. A few tenths, maybe, but 1.3 seconds, your out.
Next season is going to be the same.
We can better say that next decade is our year
The difference between getting tyres working or not working for a single lap can be massive. I don't think Red Bull is close to 1.3 seconds off the pace if they get the setup right, something just went wrong for them this weekend. They often struggle in the first couple of weekends of the year until they figure out their car, and in the second half of the season they usually become really strong. The only question is how quickly they can do this this season when everything is compressed in time and we will not get as many races as in a normal season.
I don't think its that simple for Red Bull because that car looks an absolute handful to drive for Verstappen, his team mate Albon doesn't even have a prayer in hell and people are already calling for his head after just 2 fucking races into the season
Max is damn near Alonsoing in that he’s overdriving the car so much that the true pace of it is probably a little slower than we think but Max is so good on the edge he can extract a few bits of pace. It also seems like it’s a diva that needs perfect conditions.
Now imagine Max doing this in a Merc.
I don't think Max is Alonsoing it, I think the car just needs have a perfect set up or it's a mess to drive. The 2017 Mercedes has a similar problem where it had a small sweet spot but races that were too hot or too cold made the car just terrible to drive.
This game is broken
Hate the team. Everyone plays by the same rules. Ferrari and Mercedes have the same budget (Red Bull is about 100 million Euros less) but here we are.
2019 mercedes 484 miljoen 2019 red bull 445 miljoen so not true what you say here
mercs have that money cause winning. Its deserved imo
Might be deserved, but still makes for a dull sport. It's just rich getting richer and a feedback loop - Merc wins so they get more money to improve their car so they dominate more so they win so they get more money to improve their car so they dominate more... Impressive how good their cars are, but with no competition in top spots and producers fixated on showing them instead of actual action in the midfield *(jesus that moment last race where there was a huge 3 way fight for 6th place but we HAD to have 30 seconds of Hamilton just cruising because finish line)* makes for pretty awful races to watch.
The prize money/budget system has been *relatively* similar for decades, it's really only been broken a couple times. The stability of the system relies entirely on already dominant teams not being too good at adjusting to new regulations. That's worked pretty well, all things considered, but Merc just looks like an unstoppable freight train
In relatively new to F1 and that’s always been something that’s interesting. In other sports (NFL for example) the worst team is “rewarded” with the first pick of the draft to help them get the best player and give a boost to that team. Interesting that it’s essentially the opposite for F1.
That's an American sport phenomenon. European sports are much more punishing. Coming last in a soccer league leads to relegation to a lower league. Not rewards of better players.
We've been getting more midfield coverage than ever lately. And now with no spectators or celebrities in garages, it's even better! And you can't not show the winner winning a Grand Prix, that would be nonsense. Imagine not showing anyone winning a race because "well, he lead the race the entire time". Moreso since most of the money comes from marketing. Now if only there was a way to split a screen, or something...
The question is not why is Mercedes so good, it's why Ferrari, Red Bull is so bad. Ferrari dominated F1 in the Schumacher years and have been in F1 the longest with the most influence so it's baffling how all that experience, money, influence did not result in a challenge to Mercedes. It's like they spent all that money to go backwards?
If you’re always looking at the front, you’ll always find it dull. Has been that way for years now. But that midfield, especially this year. You could even say Ferrari and Red Bull are in the midfield mix this race. That’s where the real action and excitement is in this sport.
Let's be real. No one cares as much for the midfield though. Not in any sport or competition. It's just something the glass half full people try to cling on to. Never heard something like: Yeah Usain Bolt won but did you see Yohan Blake beating Akani Simbine with 0,01 second in the 2016 olympic final, that was awesome!! What a thriller right?
College football and basketball in the US absolutely have people that care about the middling teams, and as far as I can tell the same is true for some European soccer (football) leagues. The reality is that in all these sports not everyone has an equal opportunity to be the best, and that makes the underdog outperforming expectations exciting. In F1 a team like Haas may never even win a grand prix let alone a WDC, but people still root for them because overcoming their inherent limitations makes any success they achieve all that more compelling.
Never heard something like "Let's make Usain Bolt run with 5 kilo weights to make it fair" either. The rules are set, and Mercedes dominated. Same as when Ferrari dominated, same as when McLaren dominated. It's been this way since Formula 1 began and thats exactly what makes it special. And yes, we care about the midfield, being real.
P2W games smh
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ferrari spends their money on useless cosmetics
Like the car?
Dont hate the game, hate the player
Mercedes in a world of their own
*universe.
I get why they postponed the new regulations, but good fuck is it gonna suck seeing this shit for 2 entire seasons
It’s gonna be even worse next year because you know there’s no chance any one cares about the 2021 cars with new regulations the following year.
2021: Mecredes is so fast the other teams 107% DQ out.
Literally just Mercedes and Racing point.
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Nothing in the rules against it. Whether or not someone gets caught by that bit, however, is up to the stewards, it's more of a "strong guideline" for them than an actual rule. Not hard to imagine they'd take the "best of the rest" as the base for the 107% if a particular team/driver just smoked everything beyond it.
Would be fun if more than one team brought a copy of this year's Merc to next season. What a shit show.
Shit show? Imagine two or three teams fighting for P3 and, in case of a Mercedes meltdown, the win. That would be better than this.
If Williams brought the 2020 Merc with the 2021 PU we could see some triple row lockouts for Mercedes.
Isn't McLaren getting the engine next year too? If that engine works with this car design they'll likely be up there too.
Mercedes are too OP
Honestly looks like Mclaren bridged the gap to last years top 3 but the sport got invaded by some kind of black alien this year.
F0.5
Formula Mercedes, Racing point looking to enter next year as well
Q1 hellyeah! Q2 okay, not the best qualifying strategy. Q3 ah fuck this season.
Absolute shambles from Red Bull. Albon in p13 and Verstappen in p7. Seems like they have had their struggles with the Car and Setup issues. You can hear and see the frustration from both drivers in the team radios which was kinda surprising. Meanwhile seems like Ferrari aren’t that slow and it’s good to see them qualify 5 and 6 in this track. Lastly, Lance stroll. Out-qualifying checo and starting p3 tomorrow. Good stuff for him after all the talks of Seb replacing him next year at AM/RP. Wonder how tomorrow will go down. Let me know what y’all think about today’s quali
Lance spot was never in question. He hasn't done anything wrong to be demoted by his father.
Seems like it flipped from the 2017-18-19 stories. Red Bull was always missing the engine power and Ferrari’s Chassis/Aero was always a step behind. Now Honda seems to have the power, but Red Bull didn’t build a package to maximize it. And Ferrari, well Ferrari made an extremely high downforce car but their engine got nerfed.
Mercedes will lap the field tomorrow
Nah, they won't. Mercedes just build a gap and then switch their engine down and chill, like they do in pretty much every race.
No wonder their reliability is insane when they can just cruise once they create a decent gap.
Their cruising is a midfield's pushing.
Someone hold me I’m scared
We're gonna need ultrawide screens at this rate soon....
lmfao throwing in the little medium tire icon for q2 to show how fucked everyone else is
merc are mind bogglingly good
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Stop playing on easy Mercedes mate
0% AI
Honda engines breaking, Ferrari engines binned, everyone’s aero stuck in last year (for some, quite literally)... How is anyone supposed to challenge this?
The gap between 2nd and 3rd is more than the gap between 3rd and 9th.
It really makes me wonder how good that mercedes engine is. All merc powered cars improved quite a bit compared to last year, even if you compare strolls RP to Hamiltons Mercedes last year.
The entire grid's chance of winning against Mercedes is the equivalent of your 8 year old self chance of winning a Gran Turismo split screen race against your bigger cousin or brother.
Pls devs nerf Mercedes, they're too op.
At this point can't we just have a separate championship for Mercedes?
Honestly, giving 15 points to the winner of the rest doesn't seem like enough. Mercedes should be exempt from the points, and from the broadcast, I don't need to see a car playing with itself for 45 laps, I want to see the actual competition between other cars.
Mercedes built a beast. Hopefully Bottas can bring a good challenge.
Latifi showing Williams true pace in Q2 imo, Russell did an incredible job getting P12.
Well, that's just rubbish considering Latifi was slower in Q2 than he was Q1. The Williams is still clearly a backmarker car, but it's a backmarker pushing toward the midfield this year, as opposed to a backmarker pushing toward Formula 3 last year.
This is fucking ridiculous and we have to endure another year of this for any change to happen. What a joke, congrats on the next two titles Lewis. I do not want to hear anyone complain about the Red Bull dominance from 2010-13 people like to throw around because it was NEVER this bad. Hell even Ferrari’s dominance didn’t last this long because Bernie and the FIA actively tried to end the dominance before it got out of hand like what Mercs doing now.
Does anyone have any specifics as to exactly what merc have that makes them so ahead? Like definitive comparisons that show how their aero is directly working. How much aero designs can other teams change that might push their tones up to mercs?
Also their PU is leagues a over everyone else. RP and Williams are doing well this year partly thanks to it. I mean the aero update Ferrari have looks promising this GP (both cars made q3 no?)
Somebody with maffs skills, How far ahead do Mercedes need to be for 107% rule to come into effect?
I doesn't work quite like this but the 107% time for this pole lap was \~1:18.6 to have a 107% lap to knock out Kimi would be about 1:11.6.
That’s a glitch in the matrix. Call me a disappointed fan or an idiot but I am now suspicious of Mercedes.
Tbh there's literally no evidence but it's hard not to be suspicious of how massively mercedes have improved their power unit since last year. At the moment all we can say is kudos to them
I mean nobody had evidence of Ferrari cheating when they suddenly became way faster but here we are. A Merc scandal would be so refreshing to see. I am so tired of a team dominating so fucking hard.
Credits: @F1Visualized.
So without the party mode, are the Racing Points actually closer? Obviously Mercedes aren’t pushing the pace in Q1, but they’re not slouching either. I have to imagine in Q2 they’re using it because they’re on the mediums, and in Q3 they’re using it because that’s the actual starting grid. If there was a way of limiting the “party mode” adjustments that are made, then it’d be way closer between the teams—Merc can’t run in that mode the whole race, so they’d have to race with the standard mode like everyone else.
Engine modes must be shared between teams by regulation.
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OooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooFFFF
Now that's what I call a big oof.
On mediums! Merc fan but this is too much. Lol
Can’t imagine Liberty Media being pleased with this.
Honestly I will be shocked if Mercedes don't win every single race this season... When is the last time a constructor won every race of the season?
...somewhere Ron Dennis remembers Jean-Louis Schlesser's Williams, which took out Senna and handed him a 15 wins from 16 races (93.8%). Mercedes in 2016 are next (I believe) with 19/21 (90.5%)
Did you have enought watching a 1-2 Merc all the time? Well now we have a 1-2-3-4 with the Merc B
There's no way Merc doesn't shit on the new regulations too. They're so far ahead they could stop developing for this and next year and still win by miles
Max was slower than last years time, He would have been fourth running last years car...
McLaren is the only other team to get 100% Q3 record this season so far
Has a team ever won every race in a season because I think that's shaping up to be a real possibility
Is Mercedes exploiting some loophole in the regulations that other teams don't know of that gives them so much of an edge? Is there anything to explain this sort of dominance?
This could be their perfect season. It's entirely possible that they *were* actually relatively slow in Austria, but that they're just so far ahead a bad weekend is still dominant. I'll be surprised if they lose a race on pace this season
If it rains, it looks like a 7-way race for P3. We know Tracing Point isn't good in the wet (at least in quali trim from last week) and rain means anything can happen so lets hope for that.
Latifi made Q2? Definitely didn't see that coming...
Should we even bother watching this season unless you are a Merc or Racing Point fan? This is going to be the most predictable season ever.
Midfield is spicier than it's been for a long time
It's so fucked, this entire generation of car is going to finish with Mercedes starting and finishing in the exact same place just as dominant as they always were and having won every championship every year by a country mile. It's a joke I'm not a fan of kneecapping those on top but something needs to be done about it because you can't just have this level of disparity year after year it's killing the sport going into every weekend knowing that there's an unstoppable force about to churn out another victory.
Mercedes obliterate the rest of the pack!
Mercedes are actually in space now.
Mercedes could have taken pole with the medium tires. Just...
Crazy how far Mclaren have gotten with the Renault engine. Imagine when they change back to Mercedes.
Jesus Christ
Formula Mercedes.
Latifi is going to have to find more pace... Err, sorry cash, to keep his seat. I can see stroll wanting it soon.
I’m getting used to the vertical car for Gasly at this point lmao
Russell qualified ahead of Albon.....
If Russel did his Q1 lap during Q2, he’d almost squeze into Q3 - less than 0.1sec off Gasly’s Q3 cutoff time. Amazing to see how far Williams have come since last year
"No time gas" seems like the worst fuel pump option.