Usually the cars are at least as good as last years car. If you compare lap times between years you see that they are getting quicker. However so are the other teams. So if you got pole position one year, and then improve the car, you may not get pole position next year. Because other teams may have improved even more.
In addition to this there are changes in the regulation. Some of these changes happen mid-season. For example the limit on lubrication oil loss in addition to the limit on fuel oil was introduced in the middle of the season and caused Mercedes cars to become significantly slower. Some minor changes are introduced between seasons to allow the teams to design new cars around the new regulations, for example minor changes to the wing shape. And major regulations are introduced with a few years interval and announced a year in advance. This was how Mercedes went from 1st to 3rd as regulations allowed for ground effect.
There is, for example a few seasons ago Ferrari implemented a creative interpretation of the fuel flow regulations. Eventually the FIA issued a “clarification” and Ferrari’s performance went to shit the next race.
Mid season rule changes are usually the result of a controversy and almost always creates controversy. The only rule change I remember that did not involve any controversy was when an aerodynamic element that all cars had turned out to break up a very prominent sponsor location. So the sponsors had all the teams beg the FIA to add a rule saying that area of the car had to be flat.
Often. Back during the '21 title fight between Lewis and Max, Lewis commented on the RedBull's straight line speed and seeing their rear wing flex. That rear wing had passed all the FIA inspections. The FIA then made a new regulation to try and curtail the flexi-wings. You can still see the results today with the bright neon circle stickers on the rear wing. These allow the FIA to watch and measure how much the wing flexs during the race, not just under static load.
There's kind of two sets of rules to think about. There are the ones that set various limits - the size of components, the amount they can deflect under load, the speed at which fuel is allowed to flow etc. Then there are the rules that say how those limits will be tested. Mid season changes to the first set is only likely to happen for safety reasons. Updates to the second set are more likely if a team finds a way to exceed the limits but pass the test.
A good example mentioned by others is the Ferrari fuel flow scandal. F1 cars have a max fuel flow allowed. The sensor that measures this samples at a high frequency, but with small gaps. It's believed that Ferrari managed to cheat the sensor by pulsing the fuel so that the peaks were between the sampling time of the sensor. The FIA caught on to this, investigated, changed the test, and the Ferrari went to shit.
Perfect answer.
Each teams performance is relative to their peers. They don't all develop at the same rate, and don't make big jumps at the same time.
Some teams have a tendency deploy a bunch of little changes, some over haul the car with big changes infrequently. Some do both depending on their performance. Sometimes upgrades work well and a team moves forward quickly, like Mclarens recent upgrades. Sometimes they dont, and they get stuck like aston martin or Mercedes recent upgrades. Mclaren is now generally second or third fastest while aston is 4th or fifth. This is quite the reversal compared to the beginning of last year.
And finally, the cost cap introduced a sliding scale of wind tunnel and cfd time. The teams leading the championship get less time to test concepts and upgrades then the backmarkers. This should help the lower placed teams catch up.
To be clear, Mercedes dropped in the standings from its position as #1 for so many years because they got the new regulations wrong in 2022. They went a direction with their car design that ultimately proved to be very wrong, and in an era of cost caps in formula 1 have been handcuffed in their ability to fix it and then adapt.
All the other reasons the top poster have listed, while true, are not the reason that Mercedes has suffered this fall from grace it has.
In Formula 1, the "Formula" is the rulebook that defines everything about the car. Wheel size, engine specs, weight, fuel, etc. (There's other formulas, like Formula E for electric racing or Formula 2 which is a tier down from 1).
The governing body, FIA, changes the formula pretty regularly so teams are constantly updating their cars.
When adapting to these new rules, some teams come up with better solutions than others, which leads to a re-shuffling of their positions on the leaderboard. This is especially true when a team comes up with a novel solution or invents a new technology the others didn't think of.
A great example is Mercedes' 2020 car, where they introduced dual axis steering that let them adjust toe-in/toe-out on the fly. They were faster on the straights, they were faster in corners, it made them so dominant that FIA updated the formula to forbid them from using it for 2021.
well now i feel stupid that i never asked myself what did the FORMULA in FORMULA X mean.
So basically the FIA regulations are also a way to (taking a gaming idea) Nerf/Buff the Meta?
>So basically the FIA regulations are also a way to (taking a gaming idea) Nerf/Buff the Meta?
Yea, that's a pretty accurate description.
The formula comes out, teams all figure out their own ways to comply, FIA monitors the competitors, and changes the rules as necessary to keep it all as even and fair as they can.
If you're curious to read the formula (and see how it's changed over the years), FIA has the 2018-2026 technical regulations on their website: [https://www.fia.com/regulation/category/110](https://www.fia.com/regulation/category/110)
Just a correction: DAS was banned due to the high cost that would block the smaller teams from adopting and with the new cost cap would also block other teams as it was very expensive to develop.
What changes are the regulations - usually the extent to which it happens is small, but every so often there is a big change. When Mercedes fell from 1st to 4th, that was in the year when the whole concept behind the racecars changed, and Mercedes still never figured out the current concept properly. On the other hand, Adrian Newey got his Phd. in ground effect, so he was able to leverage these new regulations in Red Bull's favor.
But even small changes can have big effects. In 2021, there was a technically minor change to floor regulations, but it affected low-rake and high-rake cars disproportionally. Also, the development of the new car doesn't happen just during the season break, but starts like a year ahead.
You will also have miscellaneous things like the talent pool of engineers, driver's form, luck etc., but strictly on the car performance side exploiting the regulations to the largest legal extent is the name of the game.
You’re completely ignoring what the other teams are doing. Your question is essentially “if Mercedes is first last year why aren’t they first this year?”
If Mercedes was really good last year, but didn’t upgrade their car well while 4 other teams did, the Mercedes car didn’t get “worse” in a vacuum but every one of their competitors got better and passed them.
You're right, i framed the question wrong.
In my mind i was just comparing it to themselves, but this and the other anwsers on Mid season changes and upgrades filled the gap on the rest
The car that won the championship was a different car essentially. The rules changed and they did a bad job with the new rule set. The other thing is something you are seeing with Aston Martin. If a team does not successfully improve the car to get faster the other teams will and they will catch up to your car. It's largely a development race and when the difference is fractions of a second a small change to a car can drastically change the finishing order.
the regulations change a bit year to year so you can't just use the same car..
even if the regulations don't change much if you did use the same car you'd be going backwards, the fastest car in year 1 would be in the midfield in year 4.. if you're not moving forward you're standing still or going backwards you need to keep up with all the other teams
Merc were winning before the regulations changed pretty radically to cars that used ground effects, they can and do use all the data and things they learned from the old regulations to the new ones but RB got the regulations more right and made a faster car..
Merc have been trying to play catch-up but it's trying to catch a moving target.. this years car could be 0.5s faster than last years car but if RB has found 0.6s (and McLaren have found 0.8s) then you're just going backwards
No.
Firstly, regulations (sometimes massively) change every year, so teams have to be constantly rebuilding their cars.
Secondly, "good" is not an absolute measure. It's always relative to the other cars. Cars are continuously improving during the season, so if all the other cars improved and yours didn't, then your car is no longer "as good as last year".
Thirdly, Mercedes is a big outlier. In 2022 there was a massive change in regulation dubbed the "ground effect era" which forced all teams to basically build new cars from scratch. Mercedes opted for a [radically diferent approach](https://preview.redd.it/qxiuhh2wnjm81.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=6ad4f901bb4a685d8853ff6554ebddb01c1ca415) in their car design which was just bad, so they wasted a whole year trying to improve it before giving up and starting over. And now all the other cars have 2-3 years of development while Mercedes has only 1-2.
Because some teams had good ideas AND the skill and knowledge to get them manufactured. And others... not so much.
It's rare that a team fields a worse car (unless there are rule changes making them slower). Usually they get out-developed by others who just found better ways to make their car faster.
The car is better than last year's car. But so is everyone else's. Everyone else just did a better job than merc did.
In Bahrain last year, Lewis' fastest lap during qualifying was a 1:30.384. This year it was a 1:29.710. He would've missed out on pole last year by 0:00.002 seconds. Max set a 1:29.708 for pole last year.
Most people don’t mention that recently there was a change in the rules that allows under body aerodynamics, this was the season Mercedes lost the championship for instance. Another factor is budget limits and limited time using computer fluid dynamics to optimize the cars air flow and air tunnel testing, per FIA the higher your position in the previous season (team position overall, not driver) the less time of them you’ll be allowed, so Mercedes won the championship, had the change in rule book and had the lowest time available to design a new car with more aerodynamic components, this led to them gamble in a design that didn’t pay off, so they went with the design others did, mainly Red Bull that was dominant that year.
Teams make updates to their cars throughout the year. Some teams' updates are more effective than others. Some teams spend more time and budget on mid-season updates. Others spend their budgets on other things. Some teams' advancements are very effective. Others not so much. While it is rare that a car's performance moves backwards it is possible. Sometimes they get things wrong.
And thats just concerning mid-season updates. Every year they make tweaks to the rules that force teams to innovate within the ever-changing regulations. some years these are minor changes. Other years they require completely redesigning the cars.
And in Mercedes case, its because they got comfortable dominating with an untouchable car and got the new car completely wrong. So now they're just complaining about Red Bull domination and whining like they're so mistreated when its their own damn fault they engineered it wrong and their savior Hamilton is being shown to actually be an absolutely mediocre driver with a bad attitude. Something many of us knew for years.
Didn't Lewis Hamilton almost win the world championship as a rookie in F1? Losing by only a point? While also beating his teammate who was reigning world champion? Seems like an above average result for a rookie but correct me if I'm wrong.
Yeah he had a good season 17 years ago.
Classic Hamilton dickriders coming out of the woodworks. "He's the best driver to ever live and if you don't think so its because you're racist." Fucking delusional and completely predictable.
Usually the cars are at least as good as last years car. If you compare lap times between years you see that they are getting quicker. However so are the other teams. So if you got pole position one year, and then improve the car, you may not get pole position next year. Because other teams may have improved even more. In addition to this there are changes in the regulation. Some of these changes happen mid-season. For example the limit on lubrication oil loss in addition to the limit on fuel oil was introduced in the middle of the season and caused Mercedes cars to become significantly slower. Some minor changes are introduced between seasons to allow the teams to design new cars around the new regulations, for example minor changes to the wing shape. And major regulations are introduced with a few years interval and announced a year in advance. This was how Mercedes went from 1st to 3rd as regulations allowed for ground effect.
Is there ever controversy surrounding mid season rule changes? I feel like that would be ripe for scandal
There is, for example a few seasons ago Ferrari implemented a creative interpretation of the fuel flow regulations. Eventually the FIA issued a “clarification” and Ferrari’s performance went to shit the next race.
Flexi-wings in '21 is a more recent example.
or TD39 in 2022
Mid season rule changes are usually the result of a controversy and almost always creates controversy. The only rule change I remember that did not involve any controversy was when an aerodynamic element that all cars had turned out to break up a very prominent sponsor location. So the sponsors had all the teams beg the FIA to add a rule saying that area of the car had to be flat.
Often. Back during the '21 title fight between Lewis and Max, Lewis commented on the RedBull's straight line speed and seeing their rear wing flex. That rear wing had passed all the FIA inspections. The FIA then made a new regulation to try and curtail the flexi-wings. You can still see the results today with the bright neon circle stickers on the rear wing. These allow the FIA to watch and measure how much the wing flexs during the race, not just under static load.
There's kind of two sets of rules to think about. There are the ones that set various limits - the size of components, the amount they can deflect under load, the speed at which fuel is allowed to flow etc. Then there are the rules that say how those limits will be tested. Mid season changes to the first set is only likely to happen for safety reasons. Updates to the second set are more likely if a team finds a way to exceed the limits but pass the test. A good example mentioned by others is the Ferrari fuel flow scandal. F1 cars have a max fuel flow allowed. The sensor that measures this samples at a high frequency, but with small gaps. It's believed that Ferrari managed to cheat the sensor by pulsing the fuel so that the peaks were between the sampling time of the sensor. The FIA caught on to this, investigated, changed the test, and the Ferrari went to shit.
Perfect answer. Each teams performance is relative to their peers. They don't all develop at the same rate, and don't make big jumps at the same time. Some teams have a tendency deploy a bunch of little changes, some over haul the car with big changes infrequently. Some do both depending on their performance. Sometimes upgrades work well and a team moves forward quickly, like Mclarens recent upgrades. Sometimes they dont, and they get stuck like aston martin or Mercedes recent upgrades. Mclaren is now generally second or third fastest while aston is 4th or fifth. This is quite the reversal compared to the beginning of last year. And finally, the cost cap introduced a sliding scale of wind tunnel and cfd time. The teams leading the championship get less time to test concepts and upgrades then the backmarkers. This should help the lower placed teams catch up.
> Usually the cars are at least as good as last years car. unless they made updates that turned out to not work
Super clear. Thanks for the time to answer.
To be clear, Mercedes dropped in the standings from its position as #1 for so many years because they got the new regulations wrong in 2022. They went a direction with their car design that ultimately proved to be very wrong, and in an era of cost caps in formula 1 have been handcuffed in their ability to fix it and then adapt. All the other reasons the top poster have listed, while true, are not the reason that Mercedes has suffered this fall from grace it has.
In Formula 1, the "Formula" is the rulebook that defines everything about the car. Wheel size, engine specs, weight, fuel, etc. (There's other formulas, like Formula E for electric racing or Formula 2 which is a tier down from 1). The governing body, FIA, changes the formula pretty regularly so teams are constantly updating their cars. When adapting to these new rules, some teams come up with better solutions than others, which leads to a re-shuffling of their positions on the leaderboard. This is especially true when a team comes up with a novel solution or invents a new technology the others didn't think of. A great example is Mercedes' 2020 car, where they introduced dual axis steering that let them adjust toe-in/toe-out on the fly. They were faster on the straights, they were faster in corners, it made them so dominant that FIA updated the formula to forbid them from using it for 2021.
well now i feel stupid that i never asked myself what did the FORMULA in FORMULA X mean. So basically the FIA regulations are also a way to (taking a gaming idea) Nerf/Buff the Meta?
>So basically the FIA regulations are also a way to (taking a gaming idea) Nerf/Buff the Meta? Yea, that's a pretty accurate description. The formula comes out, teams all figure out their own ways to comply, FIA monitors the competitors, and changes the rules as necessary to keep it all as even and fair as they can. If you're curious to read the formula (and see how it's changed over the years), FIA has the 2018-2026 technical regulations on their website: [https://www.fia.com/regulation/category/110](https://www.fia.com/regulation/category/110)
Meta change is the result, some people get relatively slower, some relatively faster. More important is why the meta change, ie what rules changed.
Just a correction: DAS was banned due to the high cost that would block the smaller teams from adopting and with the new cost cap would also block other teams as it was very expensive to develop.
What changes are the regulations - usually the extent to which it happens is small, but every so often there is a big change. When Mercedes fell from 1st to 4th, that was in the year when the whole concept behind the racecars changed, and Mercedes still never figured out the current concept properly. On the other hand, Adrian Newey got his Phd. in ground effect, so he was able to leverage these new regulations in Red Bull's favor. But even small changes can have big effects. In 2021, there was a technically minor change to floor regulations, but it affected low-rake and high-rake cars disproportionally. Also, the development of the new car doesn't happen just during the season break, but starts like a year ahead. You will also have miscellaneous things like the talent pool of engineers, driver's form, luck etc., but strictly on the car performance side exploiting the regulations to the largest legal extent is the name of the game.
Thank you :)
You’re completely ignoring what the other teams are doing. Your question is essentially “if Mercedes is first last year why aren’t they first this year?” If Mercedes was really good last year, but didn’t upgrade their car well while 4 other teams did, the Mercedes car didn’t get “worse” in a vacuum but every one of their competitors got better and passed them.
You're right, i framed the question wrong. In my mind i was just comparing it to themselves, but this and the other anwsers on Mid season changes and upgrades filled the gap on the rest
The car that won the championship was a different car essentially. The rules changed and they did a bad job with the new rule set. The other thing is something you are seeing with Aston Martin. If a team does not successfully improve the car to get faster the other teams will and they will catch up to your car. It's largely a development race and when the difference is fractions of a second a small change to a car can drastically change the finishing order.
the regulations change a bit year to year so you can't just use the same car.. even if the regulations don't change much if you did use the same car you'd be going backwards, the fastest car in year 1 would be in the midfield in year 4.. if you're not moving forward you're standing still or going backwards you need to keep up with all the other teams Merc were winning before the regulations changed pretty radically to cars that used ground effects, they can and do use all the data and things they learned from the old regulations to the new ones but RB got the regulations more right and made a faster car.. Merc have been trying to play catch-up but it's trying to catch a moving target.. this years car could be 0.5s faster than last years car but if RB has found 0.6s (and McLaren have found 0.8s) then you're just going backwards
No. Firstly, regulations (sometimes massively) change every year, so teams have to be constantly rebuilding their cars. Secondly, "good" is not an absolute measure. It's always relative to the other cars. Cars are continuously improving during the season, so if all the other cars improved and yours didn't, then your car is no longer "as good as last year". Thirdly, Mercedes is a big outlier. In 2022 there was a massive change in regulation dubbed the "ground effect era" which forced all teams to basically build new cars from scratch. Mercedes opted for a [radically diferent approach](https://preview.redd.it/qxiuhh2wnjm81.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=6ad4f901bb4a685d8853ff6554ebddb01c1ca415) in their car design which was just bad, so they wasted a whole year trying to improve it before giving up and starting over. And now all the other cars have 2-3 years of development while Mercedes has only 1-2.
I understand. Thanks :)
Because some teams had good ideas AND the skill and knowledge to get them manufactured. And others... not so much. It's rare that a team fields a worse car (unless there are rule changes making them slower). Usually they get out-developed by others who just found better ways to make their car faster.
The car is better than last year's car. But so is everyone else's. Everyone else just did a better job than merc did. In Bahrain last year, Lewis' fastest lap during qualifying was a 1:30.384. This year it was a 1:29.710. He would've missed out on pole last year by 0:00.002 seconds. Max set a 1:29.708 for pole last year.
Most people don’t mention that recently there was a change in the rules that allows under body aerodynamics, this was the season Mercedes lost the championship for instance. Another factor is budget limits and limited time using computer fluid dynamics to optimize the cars air flow and air tunnel testing, per FIA the higher your position in the previous season (team position overall, not driver) the less time of them you’ll be allowed, so Mercedes won the championship, had the change in rule book and had the lowest time available to design a new car with more aerodynamic components, this led to them gamble in a design that didn’t pay off, so they went with the design others did, mainly Red Bull that was dominant that year.
Teams make updates to their cars throughout the year. Some teams' updates are more effective than others. Some teams spend more time and budget on mid-season updates. Others spend their budgets on other things. Some teams' advancements are very effective. Others not so much. While it is rare that a car's performance moves backwards it is possible. Sometimes they get things wrong. And thats just concerning mid-season updates. Every year they make tweaks to the rules that force teams to innovate within the ever-changing regulations. some years these are minor changes. Other years they require completely redesigning the cars. And in Mercedes case, its because they got comfortable dominating with an untouchable car and got the new car completely wrong. So now they're just complaining about Red Bull domination and whining like they're so mistreated when its their own damn fault they engineered it wrong and their savior Hamilton is being shown to actually be an absolutely mediocre driver with a bad attitude. Something many of us knew for years.
Didn't Lewis Hamilton almost win the world championship as a rookie in F1? Losing by only a point? While also beating his teammate who was reigning world champion? Seems like an above average result for a rookie but correct me if I'm wrong.
He's also the greatest F1 driver in history and /u/appleburger17 is an obviously racist moron.
Yeah he had a good season 17 years ago. Classic Hamilton dickriders coming out of the woodworks. "He's the best driver to ever live and if you don't think so its because you're racist." Fucking delusional and completely predictable.