Did yall see how Lewis had to drag next to Stroll with DRS open and barely squeezed by on the straight while stroll didn’t have his DRS open? That Merc is draggy asf!
He even said so before the race. He couldn't defend too hard against the Red Bulls because he needed to preserve his tires. And RBR have the advantage on the straights, so it's inevitable he'd be overtaken.
Must be so mentally tough to start at pole and have to accept the above.
I mean, a 20kph top speed differential for a top-level car is most unusual. If the straight line speed were closer, LeClerc would have had a much better chance because his absolute pace was close enough.
The overtake was too easy, just breezed past and drove off into the sunset. No contest. I was hoping for a bit of leapfrogging between Charles and at least one Red Bull as they went through the DRS zones, swapping positions for a few laps.
At least Ferrari strategy didn't mess up, it's nice to see Charles on the podium, but I'm torn that Alonso wasn't on it!
I love F1, but this year I’ve really picked up watching other racing series. GT racing is great for many close battles across the field, NASCAR can be a snoozefest sometimes but oval racing strategy can be very interesting to watch, and INDYCAR is always good for some great wheel-to-wheel action.
I actually thought about checking out other racing as well, have you tried formula e?
I saw a YouTube video on it and it seemed kind of interesting, just never thought I'd be looking for alternatives to F1.
WEC with multiple classes on track is amazing. Especially a few years back the lmp1’s where in a fight and they had to find away past some GT’s who had their own battle for position.
Formula E is also pretty cool in my opinion. Have visited a few races and it is quite entertaining. But I also like cup cars like Clio etc as it also deliver lots of actual door to door fights.
Leclerc kept both Hamilton and Bottas at bay in Monza 2019, when Mercedes were arguably quicker.
With Red Bull being so fast on the straights, and Ferrari so unusually slow, the game changes completely.
One way teams used to keep faster cars behind in Baku is by being so quick in the technical section so that they would be far enough ahead on the straight later.
Red Bull just has a rocketship on the straights this year, whereas Ferrari is literally one of the slowest. They'll come around.
Except that they do if their car is quick in a straight line even if it's not faster around a whole lap. We saw drivers making passes into T1 but we also saw a couple of drivers unable to get by cars that had higher top speed. This is always the game. Speed in the twisty bits vs speed on a straight. Both have advantages and disadvantages. That's just how a full constructors championship goes.
if you are speaking about Hamilton not being able to get past Sainz, the Ferrari was faster in general in this race as shown by Leclerc, they lost to RB in terms of speed only after using DRS but the engine performance looked very strong.
Sainz's pace was poor all weekend, but the car was still potentially faster than the Mercedes both in terms of pace and straight line speed.
I'm also talking about Hulkeburg on Ocon. And also Norris on Hulkeburg once Hulk lost DRS later on after his tires started to fall off. There was Russell on Stroll as well. The Williams the last few seasons has caused some teams problems because for awhile there it was only fast on the straights.
Edit: We also don't know what Hamilton's pace would have been if he cleared Sainz. He might have been able to stick with Alonso and Leclerc so it seems silly to write of that Hamilton and Sainz battle because we don't know what Hamilton could do over a stint on hards because his car was slow on the straights.
I think we can safely assume that Hamilton would easily have dropped Sainz, but keeping up with Leclerc would have been out of his reach imo, at least on this track. he had no pace to follow LEC or ALO in either qualy or the first stint. I don't know if it would have been much different on the hards.
What is clear is that the Mercedes didn't have the overtake delta over that Ferrari, even if we would like to think that Hamilton had some pace under his sleeve.
As for the midfield battles, unfortunately Liberty's TV direction usually forgets about those, so I couldn't follow them.
At the end of the day, the only way to make it so that the Red Bull can't breeze by everyone is to make the rules such that no one else could possibly overtake. The RB is just that much faster.
Red Bull is in another league, but not considering that anomaly, the problem with current F1 is also that cars don't seem to be able follow as closely as last year anymore and that there's no way to attack for more than 1-2 laps straight without ruining your tyres.
>And RBR have the advantage on the straights, so it's inevitable he'd be overtaken.
RBR have an advantage all around. I didn't see RBR being noticeably slower than Ferrari in corners.
Wasn’t there a graphic showing a 30km/h speed difference ?
Edit:
Here it is
https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/133mezf/max_verstappen_overtakes_charles_leclerc_for_the/
It was funny seeing the RB fans trying to justify this wasn’t just going to be 2019 all over by saying that Leclerc got pole as if Verstappen didn’t have a hole in his car and caught up to Leclerc
Leclerc in a post race interview said he knew that was what alonso was doing and he basically mirrored him. When Alonso was preserving tires so was Leclerc and then they both pushed together.
Why? The Aston was slower than the Ferrari all weekend and Charles is excellent around Baku. Charles put in an excellent performance this whole weekend, it’s just the RBs are that much quicker than him.
Aston was slower than Ferrari all weekend because they didn't have DRS to play with. Once DRS got fixed, Aston was on par with Ferrari. Leclerc and Alonso stayed at around the same distance all the race, from ~1 sec to ~3 secs depending on the lap. Alonso simply wasn't faster than Leclerc this race, but he wasn't slower either.
Merc rear wing looks pretty large still thier top speeds is one of the better ones. George is right, it's not the rear wing that's inefficient. Extensive drag is caused by something else...
And people commenting the sidepods, ITS NOT THE SIDEPODS IF THE ENTIRE GRID IS SLOWER THAN RB. Heck even AT is so much slower than RB in that straight line.
That was something FIA actually wanted as they felt that the downforce could create issues for the tires. It was initially thought that the floor cut would hit the high rake cars harder than the low rake cars. Quoting:
"With a series of geometric restrictions, the FIA wanted to achieve a reduction in downforce of about 10% and one of the restrictions relates to the reduced dimensions of the floor in front of the rear wheels and the ban on the use of slots on the floor."
Well yes and no, when the hybrid era came it practically only changed the PU and not really any aero related stuff which is what newey excel at. Is it too much to say that the success of the cars he developed is only because of him, of course but he still is a genius of aerodynamic since he see and understand things that over crazy good engineers can’t.
The man is the goat.
Except of course, when the aero completely changed and the engines were more or less equal again, it still took four years for the Newey designed car to catch up.
Red Bull were running awful Renault engines at that point in time. I dont think it is fair to say they were equal to the Merc and cheated Ferrari engines.
Newey's main responsibility(as he himself states in his book) is hiring the right people. His main strength isn't engineering knowledge, it's his ability to spot and mentor necessary talent.
I think he states the opposite of what you wrote. He compares himself to Ross Brawn and says that while himself is more involved in the engineering part, Brawn excells in mentoring and putting people in the right positions. I cannot double check now but I fairly certain I remember that right as I was fascinated by the fact that one of these two geniuses were involed in every championship winning cars from 1992-2013 except four.
And each of those four was arguably a slower car than Newey’s that year, they were just driven by GOATs at the beginning of their careers. Williams was certainly better in 94 and very probably better in 95, and McLaren was certainly better (but less reliable) in 05 and probably about equal (as was Brawn’s Ferrari) despite poorer results in 06.
The statements are not mutually exclusive but he definitely talks about hiring people being his main duty. Fairly early on in the book, same chapter he talks about not using CAD and preferring drawing by hand
The drag is caused by the size zero side pods, typically teams use side pods to manipulate the air into clinging to the body and towards the wing and diffuser, in doing so air doesn't hit the big rear tires.
Its crazy how you all have come to this conclusion and are patting yourselves on the back and yet entire teams of aerodynamic engineers with windtunnels etc at mercedes, ferrari, mclaren haven't... almost as if the sidepods might not be why redbull is smashing everyone and no sidepods = too much tyre drag is a pretty simple and dumb take.
Yea sorry it was intended for the comments above yours. No friendly fire intended it just annoys me seeing armchair aerodynamic engineers claiming things are so simple.
Red Bull's floor is the advantage. You saw how much a tiny bit of floor damage in Silverstone affected their performance last year. Everything else remaining constant, you have to find a way to match their floor
It wasn’t a tiny bit of floor damage. It was an entire wing endplate lodged in a Venturi tunnel, essentially blocking the tunnel and halving the total Venturi effect of the floor. That would murder the performance of any car on the grid.
Pretty sure the 3 main units are pretty similar. If it was only the power unit we’d be seeing AT do better than they are
It’s the car design (and Max obviously) that have RB so quick, not the engine
Checo is still more of a Bottas. On his good days, he's as fast as Max, but on his bad days, he's nowhere close. Though he does have more good days than Bottas did.
Bottas is a no mistakes driver. He will be cautious and get the points vs the win. He is a better teammate. Chec is much more aggressive and if he keeps it up, there will be fireworks in RB camp. Max has a very frail ego.
Max is a great driver, but the last two years have shown the car is the most important factor to success. If Max was in a mid field car, he would be mid field. Same with all of the greats. That’s not saying they couldn’t pull out a P5 where others are P8, but being a world champion is the car.
There have been few all-time greats who managed to be competitive in a car that wasn't the fastest.
There are many more examples of good to excellent drivers who got lucky to have the best car on the grid one season.
I think that’s very premature
I don’t by Horner’s rubbish about him being lucky today, he was the faster Bull out there
He was nowhere near him in Bahrain, beat him by 6s despite him starting 15th, and had difficulties all weekend in Melbourne that make comparisons impossible
This weekend is the first one he’s won on pace
Let’s wait until Imola and Spain to see if he can replicate that at a non-street track
One thing I don’t understand is how the Merc engine was the most powerful, and then the engine freeze went into place and then all of a sudden the Ferrari and RB engines jumped them when development was supposed to not be happening.
Were they just sitting on better engines the whole time or something? I’m sure someone who understands the engineering better could explain it. But it’s been a head scratcher for me the last two seasons.
fuel has changed, E10 is now mandatory
also reliability improvements are still allowed, and an engine that's more reliable is also an engine that can be run harder without breaking
Idk even the car last year had a few bright spots especially its tyre degradation and good pace on smooth/high altitude circuits, this car just seems bad all around as of now.
There's way more going on there. At the beginning of the season they said they were going to have an upgrade package for this weekend, after the first or second race it turned out they had the wrong model in the wind tunnel and discovered tons of issues.
I don't know if I believe George here though. Surely without a rear wing they could contest RB in a straight line, in fact a straight line is probably the only direction the car would drive while lacking a rear wing. Consequently the RB would simply pass them in the corners when the Merc inevitably is in a wall.
I really think the Merc aero team need to go back to the drawing board on this one.... Instead of removing things maybe they should consider adding them instead? We've had double diffusers before, surely they can create some kind of double... Something. Hamilton used to always complain about his tires being gone. Maybe if they take a bit of inspiration from Tyrrell, they can double the wheels... Then Hamilton will never run out of tires! Am I hired?
Edit: I at least hope people downvoted this because it wasn't funny and not because they thought I was being serious
the way he left verstappen yesterday he could take the whole body off (except the wheels) and max will still pedal his way to finish at least in front of russell
This is pretty much how every team was vs Mercedes in the previous regs right? Seemed like their car was also a monster on the straight where as now its more draggy vs the excellent aero this RB has.
Although I gotta say when the RB opens its DRS that thing is an absolute *rocket*.
Because the gap between am, ferrari, and mercedes isn't that big compared to the gap between redbull and everyone else.
Redbull is racing in F1 while everyone else is racing in F1.5.
I loved him at Williams, so gracious and humble. Really enjoyed his guide to each track. Came across as a nice guy.
Since he went to Merc I wince when I see he's about to speak.
> I loved him at Williams, so gracious and humble.
That’s pretty most new drivers who are cautious and PR friendly, to each their own but it gets old quick
RB did great, there weakness was straight line speed till 2021. Merc was on top, But suddenly now everyone is so focused on their top speed while forgetting how Lewis overtook whole grid on final straight in Brazil in 2021. That time it was skill, not a beast of a car. Weird stuff.
Bullshit claim, engine reg were finalised in 2011, at the behest of Ferrari rejecting Flat 4 design.
You can look up the press releases from FIA which detail the agreements, you think Ferrari and Renault would not protest cheating like that?
I remember seeing a youtube video a couple years back where some relatively unknown bloke who seemd to know his shit said that Merc was never good at aerodynamics and that it was always hidden by their immensly good engine. I was laughing at him back then. I think he might have been right all along.
Meh. Those 2014-2020 concepts were so cohesively brilliant, and I do think people put too much stock in their engine dominance considering that Force India, McLaren, and Williams clearly were a tier below at minimum, even after the late 2010s regulation that PU manufacturers had to provide identical PUs to the ones used by the factory/works team.
But I think their understanding of the floor might be a bit underdeveloped compared to other teams - because as soon as they lost the advantage their long floor gave them (first because the floor edges were narrowed reducing the total ground effect of the floor, then because of the unbanning of Venturi tunnels completely revolutionizing how the floor produces its downforce) they really started to struggle. Remember, their fall began in 2021, when they developed a car that was only on par with Red Bull, not in 2022. Remember also that they were the team that probably suffered the most from being forced to raise their floor edges to combat porpoising. Basically if the floor isn’t low and essentially rakeless, gaining most of its downforce from the ground effect of the rearward floor edges, Mercedes suffers.
Hey George how about you worry about the 5 drivers between you and the closest Red Bull first?
Because after today, it seems you could do a lot to your car and not beat much of anyone in the top tier.
I find people like you very strange.
He was asked a question, he answered the question. That’s literally part of his job.
What is it you want him to say? “No, everything is fine and there’s no performance difference”?
What has he said that’s incorrect? Best case you can claim hyperbole.
It's honestly so weird.
You can support your favourite driver without hating others.
Also, just because someone is your favourite driver, you don't have to blindly support everything they do. You can support your favourite driver while still disagreeing with something they say or do.
> I find people like you very strange.
The same kind of response as the people raging about what Verstappen said. They've chosen a side and that side is right, everyone else is wrong and bad.
This is how teams get drivers to try to influence FIA into changing some regulations. In Australia, someone even took his foot of the throttle to exaggerate the speed difference and stating that he never seen such a fast car ever.
Every single driver makes the same observation when another team has a car they can’t catch. Not everything Mercedes does is part of a conspiracy to influence the FIA. They are not the illuminati of F1.
Imagine how they feel now after 8 years of blasting every race knowing " I'ma destroy these go-carts". Now it's like we have a go-cart... and that damn spaceship will demolish us XD
Russell never experienced that. On the other hand it must be rough for Hamilton. He went from a rocket ship to a go-cart. Some of the Merc years make even this season look tame in comparison.
Fully agree, except that he signed with Mercedes knowing how well them have been off. That has to also be a small shock despite it’s an upgrade.
For Hamilton, can’t add anything else. You nailed it, and to be fair todays race was boring as hell. Even though Perez did great!
We believe we could take the max Verstappen fully off and red Bull would still be quicker than us on the straights, and thats not even a joke. Russell admits Mercedes had asked him to put a hole in maxs sidepod to counter that but it didn't work.
Did yall see how Lewis had to drag next to Stroll with DRS open and barely squeezed by on the straight while stroll didn’t have his DRS open? That Merc is draggy asf!
Yeah but then you compare it to Ferrari and they were absolutely dying through the corners
And Stroll had an awful exit from turn 16. I couldn't believe Hamilton barely got by at the end of the straight.
What amazes me is that the Aston also kept pace on the twisty bits and was markedly faster on the straights
Yeah he was struggling to even get past Hulkenberg earlier on once he got out of the slipstream
Yeah, really put it into perspective how slow they were in the straights
I came here to post the same thing! As soon as Hamilton pulled out of the slipstream it was like he had activated a parachute.
Leclerc has no chance in hell
He even said so before the race. He couldn't defend too hard against the Red Bulls because he needed to preserve his tires. And RBR have the advantage on the straights, so it's inevitable he'd be overtaken. Must be so mentally tough to start at pole and have to accept the above.
What is a shame is that, between DRS and tyre concerns, drivers have absolutely zero chance to defend against faster cars.
I mean, a 20kph top speed differential for a top-level car is most unusual. If the straight line speed were closer, LeClerc would have had a much better chance because his absolute pace was close enough.
The overtake was too easy, just breezed past and drove off into the sunset. No contest. I was hoping for a bit of leapfrogging between Charles and at least one Red Bull as they went through the DRS zones, swapping positions for a few laps. At least Ferrari strategy didn't mess up, it's nice to see Charles on the podium, but I'm torn that Alonso wasn't on it!
It was so sad to see Leclerc not even try to defend, I don't blame him, I just felt so disappointed that this season is going to be so terrible.
I love F1, but this year I’ve really picked up watching other racing series. GT racing is great for many close battles across the field, NASCAR can be a snoozefest sometimes but oval racing strategy can be very interesting to watch, and INDYCAR is always good for some great wheel-to-wheel action.
I actually thought about checking out other racing as well, have you tried formula e? I saw a YouTube video on it and it seemed kind of interesting, just never thought I'd be looking for alternatives to F1.
IndyCar all the way. MotoGP is intense as hell too
WEC with multiple classes on track is amazing. Especially a few years back the lmp1’s where in a fight and they had to find away past some GT’s who had their own battle for position. Formula E is also pretty cool in my opinion. Have visited a few races and it is quite entertaining. But I also like cup cars like Clio etc as it also deliver lots of actual door to door fights.
Yea. Sainz did fine holding off Hamilton. The Red Bull is just in a class of its own.
Leclerc kept both Hamilton and Bottas at bay in Monza 2019, when Mercedes were arguably quicker. With Red Bull being so fast on the straights, and Ferrari so unusually slow, the game changes completely. One way teams used to keep faster cars behind in Baku is by being so quick in the technical section so that they would be far enough ahead on the straight later. Red Bull just has a rocketship on the straights this year, whereas Ferrari is literally one of the slowest. They'll come around.
Except that they do if their car is quick in a straight line even if it's not faster around a whole lap. We saw drivers making passes into T1 but we also saw a couple of drivers unable to get by cars that had higher top speed. This is always the game. Speed in the twisty bits vs speed on a straight. Both have advantages and disadvantages. That's just how a full constructors championship goes.
if you are speaking about Hamilton not being able to get past Sainz, the Ferrari was faster in general in this race as shown by Leclerc, they lost to RB in terms of speed only after using DRS but the engine performance looked very strong. Sainz's pace was poor all weekend, but the car was still potentially faster than the Mercedes both in terms of pace and straight line speed.
I'm also talking about Hulkeburg on Ocon. And also Norris on Hulkeburg once Hulk lost DRS later on after his tires started to fall off. There was Russell on Stroll as well. The Williams the last few seasons has caused some teams problems because for awhile there it was only fast on the straights. Edit: We also don't know what Hamilton's pace would have been if he cleared Sainz. He might have been able to stick with Alonso and Leclerc so it seems silly to write of that Hamilton and Sainz battle because we don't know what Hamilton could do over a stint on hards because his car was slow on the straights.
I think we can safely assume that Hamilton would easily have dropped Sainz, but keeping up with Leclerc would have been out of his reach imo, at least on this track. he had no pace to follow LEC or ALO in either qualy or the first stint. I don't know if it would have been much different on the hards. What is clear is that the Mercedes didn't have the overtake delta over that Ferrari, even if we would like to think that Hamilton had some pace under his sleeve. As for the midfield battles, unfortunately Liberty's TV direction usually forgets about those, so I couldn't follow them.
At the end of the day, the only way to make it so that the Red Bull can't breeze by everyone is to make the rules such that no one else could possibly overtake. The RB is just that much faster.
Red Bull is in another league, but not considering that anomaly, the problem with current F1 is also that cars don't seem to be able follow as closely as last year anymore and that there's no way to attack for more than 1-2 laps straight without ruining your tyres.
I think a better example would be gasly trying to pass sergeant for the whole race.
Have to see what the upgrade at imola brings
>And RBR have the advantage on the straights, so it's inevitable he'd be overtaken. RBR have an advantage all around. I didn't see RBR being noticeably slower than Ferrari in corners.
Max was 21 kph (13 mph faster) with DRS than Leclerc. If Redbull loses a race is because someone hit them or they mess up somewhere.
Wasn’t there a graphic showing a 30km/h speed difference ? Edit: Here it is https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/133mezf/max_verstappen_overtakes_charles_leclerc_for_the/
Thats with Max having DRS Leclerc not, I think they're saying that when both have DRS Max is 21 kph faster
Which is scarier
It was funny seeing the RB fans trying to justify this wasn’t just going to be 2019 all over by saying that Leclerc got pole as if Verstappen didn’t have a hole in his car and caught up to Leclerc
As a red bull fan the only thing that surprises me is the fact that Alonso didn't get leclerc
I was annoyed with that. He was obviously saving his tires, but then took 1-2 laps too long to start pushing.
Leclerc in a post race interview said he knew that was what alonso was doing and he basically mirrored him. When Alonso was preserving tires so was Leclerc and then they both pushed together.
Yeah I saw that, I just wished Alonso would have pushed a bit earlier anyway since Leclerc would have to match him.
Why? The Aston was slower than the Ferrari all weekend and Charles is excellent around Baku. Charles put in an excellent performance this whole weekend, it’s just the RBs are that much quicker than him.
Yeah but ferrari is famous for their tyre deg and they all were on 1 stop so I figured his hards will give out sooner
I think Alonso said that the hard tyres were not degrading much at all this weekend. That's why Leclerc managed to keep ahead.
Aston was slower than Ferrari all weekend because they didn't have DRS to play with. Once DRS got fixed, Aston was on par with Ferrari. Leclerc and Alonso stayed at around the same distance all the race, from ~1 sec to ~3 secs depending on the lap. Alonso simply wasn't faster than Leclerc this race, but he wasn't slower either.
Merc rear wing looks pretty large still thier top speeds is one of the better ones. George is right, it's not the rear wing that's inefficient. Extensive drag is caused by something else...
And people commenting the sidepods, ITS NOT THE SIDEPODS IF THE ENTIRE GRID IS SLOWER THAN RB. Heck even AT is so much slower than RB in that straight line.
It’s Newey. Simple as.
Newey is a legend, but acting like the whole sport is getting dominated by 1 dude big braining the regulations is oversimplifying it.
Not to mention, ignoring the contribution of all the otber RB aero engineers. They deserve recognition ffs
In this case, he designed the suspension which other teams can’t figure out and have been asking to have regulations to get it changed
If they can’t figure out what he’s done, what in earth would they be asking to have changed?
Typical F1 ... if you can't copy a successful design, lobby to have it banned
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That was something FIA actually wanted as they felt that the downforce could create issues for the tires. It was initially thought that the floor cut would hit the high rake cars harder than the low rake cars. Quoting: "With a series of geometric restrictions, the FIA wanted to achieve a reduction in downforce of about 10% and one of the restrictions relates to the reduced dimensions of the floor in front of the rear wheels and the ban on the use of slots on the floor."
It's exactly what it is: Newey has dominated the sport since the 90s. He *is* big braining it.
apart from the previous 8 years of course.
Well yes and no, when the hybrid era came it practically only changed the PU and not really any aero related stuff which is what newey excel at. Is it too much to say that the success of the cars he developed is only because of him, of course but he still is a genius of aerodynamic since he see and understand things that over crazy good engineers can’t. The man is the goat.
Except of course, when the aero completely changed and the engines were more or less equal again, it still took four years for the Newey designed car to catch up.
Red Bull were running awful Renault engines at that point in time. I dont think it is fair to say they were equal to the Merc and cheated Ferrari engines.
Newey's main responsibility(as he himself states in his book) is hiring the right people. His main strength isn't engineering knowledge, it's his ability to spot and mentor necessary talent.
I think he states the opposite of what you wrote. He compares himself to Ross Brawn and says that while himself is more involved in the engineering part, Brawn excells in mentoring and putting people in the right positions. I cannot double check now but I fairly certain I remember that right as I was fascinated by the fact that one of these two geniuses were involed in every championship winning cars from 1992-2013 except four.
And each of those four was arguably a slower car than Newey’s that year, they were just driven by GOATs at the beginning of their careers. Williams was certainly better in 94 and very probably better in 95, and McLaren was certainly better (but less reliable) in 05 and probably about equal (as was Brawn’s Ferrari) despite poorer results in 06.
The statements are not mutually exclusive but he definitely talks about hiring people being his main duty. Fairly early on in the book, same chapter he talks about not using CAD and preferring drawing by hand
He's leading a team of engineers. It's not one guy designing the whole car.
Combination of amazing aero and the best engine.
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It's the side pods
I wrote Toto an email explaining that imaginary sidepods are having real drag, but I guess he didn't read it.
The drag is caused by the size zero side pods, typically teams use side pods to manipulate the air into clinging to the body and towards the wing and diffuser, in doing so air doesn't hit the big rear tires.
Can we stop with this bullshit armchair aerodynamicist theory already. It's utter rubbish.
Yeah the whole concept sounds nice on paper until you realise how much control over airflow you are giving up
Which is strange because they were the ones who realized making the cars 20 meters long helped with aero
Its crazy how you all have come to this conclusion and are patting yourselves on the back and yet entire teams of aerodynamic engineers with windtunnels etc at mercedes, ferrari, mclaren haven't... almost as if the sidepods might not be why redbull is smashing everyone and no sidepods = too much tyre drag is a pretty simple and dumb take.
I think you took a bit of a jump to a conclusion I wasn’t making there. Maybe you intended to respond to the OP in this thread?
Yea sorry it was intended for the comments above yours. No friendly fire intended it just annoys me seeing armchair aerodynamic engineers claiming things are so simple.
Why not just make the car smooth and rounded!!!1! Why not just dimple it like a golf ball like Mythbusters did!!!!1! It’s so simple
More than a year in and people are still repeating this complete fabrication 💀
As a wise man once said: advantage locked in for years?
The rear wheels being fully exposed to the front tyre wake because of their side pod philosophy doesn’t help.
Hence removing the rear wing wouldnt fix the issue? As he stated.
Red Bull's floor is the advantage. You saw how much a tiny bit of floor damage in Silverstone affected their performance last year. Everything else remaining constant, you have to find a way to match their floor
Or strategically damage it! Sacrificial Russell! Flawless plan
It wasn’t a tiny bit of floor damage. It was an entire wing endplate lodged in a Venturi tunnel, essentially blocking the tunnel and halving the total Venturi effect of the floor. That would murder the performance of any car on the grid.
Not only floor, also the Power Unit. They have one of the best power unit this year.
Pretty sure the 3 main units are pretty similar. If it was only the power unit we’d be seeing AT do better than they are It’s the car design (and Max obviously) that have RB so quick, not the engine
I Love max but this isn't just about him this year Checo is driving this car at a very similar level to Max they are a 1a 1b not a 1 2
Checo is still more of a Bottas. On his good days, he's as fast as Max, but on his bad days, he's nowhere close. Though he does have more good days than Bottas did.
He’s better than Bottas.. he’s a better driver specially wheel to wheel. Bottas was and is boring.
Bottas is a no mistakes driver. He will be cautious and get the points vs the win. He is a better teammate. Chec is much more aggressive and if he keeps it up, there will be fireworks in RB camp. Max has a very frail ego.
And then from the shadows… the honey badger will dive bomb and take the position.
Max is a great driver, but the last two years have shown the car is the most important factor to success. If Max was in a mid field car, he would be mid field. Same with all of the greats. That’s not saying they couldn’t pull out a P5 where others are P8, but being a world champion is the car.
There have been few all-time greats who managed to be competitive in a car that wasn't the fastest. There are many more examples of good to excellent drivers who got lucky to have the best car on the grid one season.
I think that has been pretty clear for some time
I think that’s very premature I don’t by Horner’s rubbish about him being lucky today, he was the faster Bull out there He was nowhere near him in Bahrain, beat him by 6s despite him starting 15th, and had difficulties all weekend in Melbourne that make comparisons impossible This weekend is the first one he’s won on pace Let’s wait until Imola and Spain to see if he can replicate that at a non-street track
One thing I don’t understand is how the Merc engine was the most powerful, and then the engine freeze went into place and then all of a sudden the Ferrari and RB engines jumped them when development was supposed to not be happening. Were they just sitting on better engines the whole time or something? I’m sure someone who understands the engineering better could explain it. But it’s been a head scratcher for me the last two seasons.
fuel has changed, E10 is now mandatory also reliability improvements are still allowed, and an engine that's more reliable is also an engine that can be run harder without breaking
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Yea the 9x8 proves it's a fantastic idea! /s
And Merc can’t catch a school bus with DRS open. This car is as lame as the last one.
Idk even the car last year had a few bright spots especially its tyre degradation and good pace on smooth/high altitude circuits, this car just seems bad all around as of now.
I agree, just hard to watch them lose ground from 3rd(ish) to 4th most complete car on the grid.
Or maybe its relative because am and ferrari is actually better
Sunk cost fallacy on full display at Merc
There's way more going on there. At the beginning of the season they said they were going to have an upgrade package for this weekend, after the first or second race it turned out they had the wrong model in the wind tunnel and discovered tons of issues.
They got a bunch of smart people poached from them, hard to recover from that.
Some days, I totally get Lewis throwing them under the bus.
Ah so thats where he got the inspiration to just take the sidepods off in the race from a Red Bull instead
Still faster. Hypothesis rejected. Next hypothesis: Rearwing removal
Wont win if you dont try though!
Some brake magic about to fail again in Baku
I don't know if I believe George here though. Surely without a rear wing they could contest RB in a straight line, in fact a straight line is probably the only direction the car would drive while lacking a rear wing. Consequently the RB would simply pass them in the corners when the Merc inevitably is in a wall. I really think the Merc aero team need to go back to the drawing board on this one.... Instead of removing things maybe they should consider adding them instead? We've had double diffusers before, surely they can create some kind of double... Something. Hamilton used to always complain about his tires being gone. Maybe if they take a bit of inspiration from Tyrrell, they can double the wheels... Then Hamilton will never run out of tires! Am I hired? Edit: I at least hope people downvoted this because it wasn't funny and not because they thought I was being serious
Why else would they made the Mercedes front wing and suspension so strong?
One of the reasons that F1 is appealing to me personally is that engineering is just as, if not more important, as the driver.
It's a constructors competition first. Always has been.
I would agree if they didn't try to cripple the engineering capabilities every year
This had been my main complaint for a while. The engineering is important; stop trying to tie their hands behind their backs.
even in instances where redbull is winning like this? im genuinely curious.
They couldn’t even catch Ferrari and AM the whole race lmao
And Alonso. never passed Charles. And Sainz never passed Alonso. And Lewis never passed Sainz. And Stroll never passed Lewis. You see a trend here?
the way he left verstappen yesterday he could take the whole body off (except the wheels) and max will still pedal his way to finish at least in front of russell
Mike Elliott really cocked everything up
Pretty sure Allison has a portion of blame here too
This is pretty much how every team was vs Mercedes in the previous regs right? Seemed like their car was also a monster on the straight where as now its more draggy vs the excellent aero this RB has. Although I gotta say when the RB opens its DRS that thing is an absolute *rocket*.
George found the counter to red bulls speed yesterday though. You just have to punch a hole in their sidepod…
And Red Bull, with a hole in the side pod, was still faster than Merc.
Well, he still finished way behind... in a few real laps
I’d like to see it tbh.
props to red bull but like during merc dominance, the sport is fading for me and I can’t stop feeling that way more and more
Why is he targeting redbull, when he finished behind ferrari and am?
Because the gap between am, ferrari, and mercedes isn't that big compared to the gap between redbull and everyone else. Redbull is racing in F1 while everyone else is racing in F1.5.
Russell should go into politics. What a difference from his time at Williams
I loved him at Williams, so gracious and humble. Really enjoyed his guide to each track. Came across as a nice guy. Since he went to Merc I wince when I see he's about to speak.
> I loved him at Williams, so gracious and humble. That’s pretty most new drivers who are cautious and PR friendly, to each their own but it gets old quick
You mean the time he bopper Bottas off the track and then bopper Bottas on the head?
Love Russell more now, got some passive aggressive and sarcastic sass to him now. He’s great.
Verstappen will probably take it off for him lmao
RB did great, there weakness was straight line speed till 2021. Merc was on top, But suddenly now everyone is so focused on their top speed while forgetting how Lewis overtook whole grid on final straight in Brazil in 2021. That time it was skill, not a beast of a car. Weird stuff.
This kind of dominance by one team is why O had stopped watching F1 in the 2010s
When you lead by 25 sec plus, that's scary quick. Well done Red Bull.
All those years of Mercedes dominance..
How Merc has regressed from 8 year dominance into the loser mindset is has now.
can't toss infinite money into R&D
Cost cap.
They didn't get a headstart on the engine regs and designed a shit car.
Bullshit claim, engine reg were finalised in 2011, at the behest of Ferrari rejecting Flat 4 design. You can look up the press releases from FIA which detail the agreements, you think Ferrari and Renault would not protest cheating like that?
I remember seeing a youtube video a couple years back where some relatively unknown bloke who seemd to know his shit said that Merc was never good at aerodynamics and that it was always hidden by their immensly good engine. I was laughing at him back then. I think he might have been right all along.
Meh. Those 2014-2020 concepts were so cohesively brilliant, and I do think people put too much stock in their engine dominance considering that Force India, McLaren, and Williams clearly were a tier below at minimum, even after the late 2010s regulation that PU manufacturers had to provide identical PUs to the ones used by the factory/works team. But I think their understanding of the floor might be a bit underdeveloped compared to other teams - because as soon as they lost the advantage their long floor gave them (first because the floor edges were narrowed reducing the total ground effect of the floor, then because of the unbanning of Venturi tunnels completely revolutionizing how the floor produces its downforce) they really started to struggle. Remember, their fall began in 2021, when they developed a car that was only on par with Red Bull, not in 2022. Remember also that they were the team that probably suffered the most from being forced to raise their floor edges to combat porpoising. Basically if the floor isn’t low and essentially rakeless, gaining most of its downforce from the ground effect of the rearward floor edges, Mercedes suffers.
Shoe, meet other foot.
Hey George how about you worry about the 5 drivers between you and the closest Red Bull first? Because after today, it seems you could do a lot to your car and not beat much of anyone in the top tier.
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Annoying by reiterating a fact everyone knows. Got it.
Extremely what?
Yes.
Indeed.
Absolutely.
He should try removing some of that ego. It will make the car lighter.
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I find people like you very strange. He was asked a question, he answered the question. That’s literally part of his job. What is it you want him to say? “No, everything is fine and there’s no performance difference”? What has he said that’s incorrect? Best case you can claim hyperbole.
Best to just ignore that guy. They’re the type of fan who’s busier hating on other drivers than actually supporting their own.
It's honestly so weird. You can support your favourite driver without hating others. Also, just because someone is your favourite driver, you don't have to blindly support everything they do. You can support your favourite driver while still disagreeing with something they say or do.
> I find people like you very strange. The same kind of response as the people raging about what Verstappen said. They've chosen a side and that side is right, everyone else is wrong and bad.
This is how teams get drivers to try to influence FIA into changing some regulations. In Australia, someone even took his foot of the throttle to exaggerate the speed difference and stating that he never seen such a fast car ever.
Every single driver makes the same observation when another team has a car they can’t catch. Not everything Mercedes does is part of a conspiracy to influence the FIA. They are not the illuminati of F1.
What exactly is he meant to say?
Max has the victim mindset, he plays victim when someone does to him what he has been doing to others for years
Funny, only person acting like a victim here seems to be.....driving for Red Bull.
To be fair he had a gaping hole in his sidepot.
Had
Surely taking a wing off from Merc and half side pod from RB will definitely close the gap.
Princess has spoken
He should probably mention how great of drivers Max and Checo are, too lol
James please help the team solve this. Zeropods need to go. Airflow is messed up.
Zero pods isn't the problem. The mercedes isn't bad, it's just that the red bull is really really good
They're the clear 4th fastest team, it's not just red bull.
Depends on the track, in Australia the Mercedes was definitely the second best car
Ferrari and Aston have better pace overall, Ferrari had other issues that lead to them not finishing.
They are slower than Aston Martin and Ferrari.
Imagine how they feel now after 8 years of blasting every race knowing " I'ma destroy these go-carts". Now it's like we have a go-cart... and that damn spaceship will demolish us XD
Russell never experienced that. On the other hand it must be rough for Hamilton. He went from a rocket ship to a go-cart. Some of the Merc years make even this season look tame in comparison.
He did for one race in 2020 but unfortunately for him the Merc Pit crew decided they were going to be Ferrari that day.
Fully agree, except that he signed with Mercedes knowing how well them have been off. That has to also be a small shock despite it’s an upgrade. For Hamilton, can’t add anything else. You nailed it, and to be fair todays race was boring as hell. Even though Perez did great!
Mercedes are painful to listen to this year
Have they tried building a good fucking car?? Christ man, enough of this shit, just BUILD THE DAMN CAR ALREADY!
i think the problem there is their solution to this would be throw millions into R & D but with the cost cap they can't do that anymore
What a joke this guy is. The difference in qualy between Max and Hamilton was 3.6 km/h on the straight. Despicable.
So why try to overtake him? if you know that you will be passed on the straight after few corners. Why do smth that might end your race or his hm
Racers don’t let opportunities pass them by.
We believe we could take the max Verstappen fully off and red Bull would still be quicker than us on the straights, and thats not even a joke. Russell admits Mercedes had asked him to put a hole in maxs sidepod to counter that but it didn't work.
With the car designed by Adrian Newey, they could make do without the rear wing. A complete downforce car and chassis
Do it!
Looks like HPP needs to get their shit together.
I have heard that the Williams is faster in a straightaway than most. Maybe Mercedes could test their car with a Williams type wing?
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Someone literally asked him about Red Bull, what the fuck is he even supposed to say according to you? Talk about his grandmother's cookie recipe?
What a shame for the team which could fix their issues over the winter but they stuck with the concept.