2024 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[Quantum]

Why doesn’t Lewis make his extreme setups in Free Practice? 3 hours and can start with a extreme setup, go the other way and meet in middle.

Then again, wasn’t this the team that was making excuses in Bahrain GP after 27 hours of testing?

What does Testing have to do with the first Grand Prix race weekend of a season?
Projecting where you might be to what transpires is not exclusive to this team, never has been and never will be.

[Just_a_fan]

I kind of agree that Toto needs to go. I like him as a character and for what he has done for the team over the years. But he can bring no mor3 new ideas as team principal.
He should be CEO then bring Binnotto in as teamp principal.

I think that, should Mercedes look for another TP, they should bring Ross Brawn back. He has shown that he's a good TP, he grasps the technical aspects of formula 1, has a good eye for technical talent and, IMHO, is a charismatic leader. I believe he could have the same effect that Fred Vasseur is having at Ferrari.

Ross Brawn is retired and at nearly 70 years of age probably doesn't want the crap that comes with being a TP. Why risk your legacy as one of the great TPs at his stage of life?

[Just_a_fan]

Why doesn’t Lewis make his extreme setups in Free Practice? 3 hours and can start with a extreme setup, go the other way and meet in middle.

Then again, wasn’t this the team that was making excuses in Bahrain GP after 27 hours of testing?

The team has a programme of things they do during FR such as long runs and the like in order to check cooling, tyre use, etc.. And he does sometimes change the setup between FP sessions. The issue is that he doesn't seem to want to go back to something that worked if the experiments don't work out. Maybe they just leave it too late because of the team's programme taking up the majority of the time.

His changing the set up in China did seem to be a dumb thing to do and quite why his engineers didn't tell him to leave it alone is beyond me. Maybe they also think the car can be magically set up to overcome its obvious issues.

[Luscion]

Why doesn’t Lewis make his extreme setups in Free Practice? 3 hours and can start with a extreme setup, go the other way and meet in middle.

Then again, wasn’t this the team that was making excuses in Bahrain GP after 27 hours of testing?

https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/for ... p-problem/

Russell talks about it here, also on an unrelated note, Merc's big upgrade package that was scheduled for Imola was moved up to Miami because they're tired of racing in no man's land according to AMuS

Russell defended the split of set-ups: "We have to go different ways to learn more about our car." This is also the view of some engineers. They insist that the W15 is a better car than the W14. "We have improved compared to last year. Unfortunately, our opponents have improved even more, so we are now worse in relation."

[chrisc90]

Why doesn’t Lewis make his extreme setups in Free Practice? 3 hours and can start with a extreme setup, go the other way and meet in middle.

Then again, wasn’t this the team that was making excuses in Bahrain GP after 27 hours of testing?

What does Testing have to do with the first Grand Prix race weekend of a season?
Projecting where you might be to what transpires is not exclusive to this team, never has been and never will be.

The fact you have 27 hours before the race to find an optimal setup? If your making radical decisions before the first race of the season between FP3 and qualifying, you have had more than enough time to set the car up to be perfect for that race.

[chrisc90]

Why doesn’t Lewis make his extreme setups in Free Practice? 3 hours and can start with a extreme setup, go the other way and meet in middle.

Then again, wasn’t this the team that was making excuses in Bahrain GP after 27 hours of testing?

The team has a programme of things they do during FR such as long runs and the like in order to check cooling, tyre use, etc.. And he does sometimes change the setup between FP sessions. The issue is that he doesn't seem to want to go back to something that worked if the experiments don't work out. Maybe they just leave it too late because of the team's programme taking up the majority of the time.

His changing the set up in China did seem to be a dumb thing to do and quite why his engineers didn't tell him to leave it alone is beyond me. Maybe they also think the car can be magically set up to overcome its obvious issues.

I understand the brake cooling, tyres etc, but I think, personally, going extremes with setup with no testing before qualifying and the race it puts a tonne of risk on the weekend’s important sessions.
At one point, you might aswell make setup changes through the race and have a extra 2.5hrs of testing time.

[Luscion]

AMuS confirming the big upgrade that was meant for Imola has been moved to Miami

https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/for ... p-problem/

Wolff takes this glimmer of hope by the scruff of the neck: "Everything is so close behind Red Bull that small improvements make a big difference." An upgrade in Miami should now fix that. It was planned for Imola, but will be brought forward. Mercedes does not want to drive in no man's land any longer.

[Just_a_fan]

Why doesn’t Lewis make his extreme setups in Free Practice? 3 hours and can start with a extreme setup, go the other way and meet in middle.

Then again, wasn’t this the team that was making excuses in Bahrain GP after 27 hours of testing?

The team has a programme of things they do during FR such as long runs and the like in order to check cooling, tyre use, etc.. And he does sometimes change the setup between FP sessions. The issue is that he doesn't seem to want to go back to something that worked if the experiments don't work out. Maybe they just leave it too late because of the team's programme taking up the majority of the time.

His changing the set up in China did seem to be a dumb thing to do and quite why his engineers didn't tell him to leave it alone is beyond me. Maybe they also think the car can be magically set up to overcome its obvious issues.

I understand the brake cooling, tyres etc, but I think, personally, going extremes with setup with no testing before qualifying and the race it puts a tonne of risk on the weekend’s important sessions.
At one point, you might aswell make setup changes through the race and have a extra 2.5hrs of testing time.

I do wonder if the car has just too narrow a set up window unlike previous Mercs where they could play around to try to get the perfect set up. Lewis is trying to get perfection and is losing "good enough" as a result.

[chrisc90]

I do wonder if the car has just too narrow a set up window unlike previous Mercs where they could play around to try to get the perfect set up. Lewis is trying to get perfection and is losing "good enough" as a result.

Yeah, that could be the case. I don’t think we have seen bad deg on the W15 so far from memory??, just a car that seems to have either a loose front or a twitchy rear end.
Yeah, it didn’t work with a full tank in China on the soft tyre, but I think that’s been a trait of the merc cars in this era of regs. Seem to come alive more into the race.

I think a lot of it is coming down to the floor and how it works at different fuel levels and height. The W14 was a very fast car in CoTA last year, but that was a car that was also running low.

[Venturiation]

Does it mean Mercedes lost HP sponsor for next year?

[CaribouBread]

Does it mean Mercedes lost HP sponsor for next year?

I remember HP splitting into Consumer and Enterprise, maybe even Software? And i think HPE sponsors Mercs so whichever HP company sponsors Merc it should not be a conflict with Ferrari. Just a bit confusing.

[Quantum]

Why doesn’t Lewis make his extreme setups in Free Practice? 3 hours and can start with a extreme setup, go the other way and meet in middle.

Then again, wasn’t this the team that was making excuses in Bahrain GP after 27 hours of testing?

What does Testing have to do with the first Grand Prix race weekend of a season?
Projecting where you might be to what transpires is not exclusive to this team, never has been and never will be.

The fact you have 27 hours before the race to find an optimal setup? If your making radical decisions before the first race of the season between FP3 and qualifying, you have had more than enough time to set the car up to be perfect for that race.

Which teams were perfect at Bahrain apart from your favoured Red Bull?
Testing was done in different conditions, if the car has a narrow operating window(we see that it does) it will have variance to how that operation occurs in those differing conditions.
Imposing a set of imaginary boundaries to demand perfection from one specific team seems a bit harsh to me.

[Hoffman900]

I’m always reminded that there is no guarantee of a fix either, because the issues that caused it to be wrong in the first place (something like correlation) aren’t a given to be fixed.

People don’t design things to be “wrong” from the get go and unless the tools and knowledge on the front end of the design is completely understood, you’ll never fully correct anything.

Three seasons in, and it’s clear Mercedes is having big issues with their modeling, correlation, and engineering prowess. How many times now have we heard that they “fixed it” over the last three seasons?

They fixed 'a lot', It is not like W14 was slower than W13, or W15 is slower than W14.
For instance, George's Jeddah quali laps from 2022 to 2024,
1:29.104 (pole:1:28.200),
1:28.857 (pole:1:28.265),
1:28.316 (pole:1:27.472).

My speculation is that every team has a similar gap between their tools and reality, but they put harder targets to hit during development, while Merc set their targets based on the scores from their tool and think they will be champion based on the data that they have.

In a vacuum, 0.8” is within noise of conditions only, even within the same day. Need to compare to the whole field.

[Venturiation]

First he says the setups were the same now he says they are completely different clown behavior

[Luscion]

First he says the setups were the same now he says they are completely different clown behavior

AMuS also has Russell mentioning him and Lewis having two different setups and it being neccessary

Russell defended the split of set-ups: "We have to go different ways to learn more about our car." This is also the view of some engineers. They insist that the W15 is a better car than the W14. "We have improved compared to last year. Unfortunately, our opponents have improved even more, so we are now worse in relation."

Maybe when he mentioned "we" in relation to having similar setups the first time he was talking about his side of the garage? sometimes drivers say "we" when they just mean their side, Perez does it as well.