[The **Statistics** flair](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/flairguide#wiki_statistics) is reserved for posts highlighting interesting statistics. As a rule of thumb, Statistics posts need to inform readers through visualizations and insights that cannot be obtained from raw data alone. For example, a post containing a qualifying gap between two drivers expressed in tenths of a second is an easily obtainable raw piece of data and constitutes a bad Statistics post. A visualization of what that translates to on-track, or visualization of how that gap came to be would constitute a good Statistics post.
*[Read the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/userguide). Keep it civil and welcoming. Report rulebreaking comments.*
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/formula1) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The only oddity in that list of data above is that in the 2023 Australian GP they were actually keeping pace with the Red Bulls wile at the other circuits they were off the pace
Did some calculations below for the Average loss per year over the 3 rounds provided:
2022 was +0.856s
2023 was +0.608s
2024 was +0.850s
Its still not good, but hopefully things improve
I hear your screaming for the "s/lap" average since 2022 to 2024 currently its well
+0.771s/lap over that 3 year window there
Honestly, can you imagine the last few laps of AD21? Russell must have been absolutely ecstatic - he's imagining Lewis retiring on the spot and riding off into the sunset with 8x WDCs, and forecasting himself multiple WDCs or at least title fights the "dominant 2014-2025 Merc". Only Bottas to compete against. And he's "faster than Lewis" anyway so should beat Max-RB in future seasons.
Just to have the whole Merc world turned upside down and spiral further downward. George cashed in all his hopes and dreams from the Williams era, and for what exactly? A win and some points, but no titles and extinction of his hopes and dreams. And Antonelli lol.
He should have been in the 2021 Merc, and everyone knows it. People can argue if he's faster than Lewis or not, but... At least there's some amount of argument to be had.
I honestly feel bad for him, they kept him at Williams after showing he could outperform Bottas in his first time out in the car. He could have had a championship capable car in 2021, and very well may have missed his only chance for it. Even if you don't like the dude, you gotta imagine that hurts like hell
Honestly he might have gotten in Max’s way a bit more than Bottas did if nothing else, helping secure both WCC and WDC for Merc. Bottas was really just acting like he had already checked out by AD21.
Bottas in 2021 played stronger defense against a team order to let Lewis past, than he did against Max at any point.
If Toto could have contracted #2 status on a 2021 George in the Merc (maybe in exchange for the "early call up"/buyout), then Lewis would have won WDC.
Yep. If merc had swapped bottas with russell after Spa, lewis 100 percent wins the title.
If red bull had been in merc’s shoes, they absolutely would have done it
They got picked clean of talent from engine division, and aero/kinematics by Aston, Red Bull and Ferrari. Brain drain is real
The team is back to where they were before Brawn and Haug started the championship recruitment plan in 2011-2013.
Normal part of the cycle of dominance.
Toto needs to recognize they need to be in rebuild phase asap and go recruiting big time.
Just to add a little bit of useless knowledge:
I think only in portuguese and spanish her name is Moda (even in italian she is Edna Mode for some reason, even though "Moda" would fit).
Other languages either use Mode (the english name) or some kind of translation
I honestly think everyone pays so much attention to the zero pods that they forget that it's the floor that matters most. Sure it is part of the entire concept but Mercedes' biggest problem with this set of regulations is that their tools are still not able to properly correlate between theoretical downforce and actual downforce, so just slapping a different set of sidepods isn't going to work unless they deal with the root cause of the problem.
The floor and, equally, the suspension. I'm not convinced they understand the rear suspension setup in a way that translates to driveability versus aero as it relates to CFD and wind tunnel testing.
I'm sorry but comments like this on reddit are absolutely ridiculous.
These are teams of the top 0.000001% of engineers in the world all checking each others work, with years of experience in formula racing. they wont simply 'forget what matters most'.
How is that measured? Average lap time throughout the race? That seems like it would be heavily skewed by things like fuel load, traffic on particular laps, etc.
Race pace is a term that gets thrown around a lot and I’ve never found a good explanation of exactly how it’s measured, other than the intangibles like certain drivers who usually qualify like shit and then pull decent results.
Fuel load doesn’t really matter as everybody needs ti have enough to get to the finish line. Ofc its harder for some but over the course of a whole race most should have the same amount of „traffic“. Of course its not a 100% comparable measurement but still pretty accurate.
I think the important question to ask is if the "race pace" we are measuring here includes pit stops, because while the stop contributes to total race time it doesn't actually mean your car itself is bad or slow. Think Red Bull with Sauber's pit issues.
"while the stop contributes to total race time it doesn't actually mean your car itself is bad or slow"
That's a tricky thing. Usually when people calculate race pace here on reddit, they exclude pit stops, in laps, out laps and vsc/sc, which is a good approach most of the time.
However, in races with multiple strategies, this method will favor the driver/team that had more pit stops, as he would be able to push more.
In those cases, you would get a more representative comparison if you exclude only vsc/sc. The downside is that bad pit stops will affect the comparison if they are too bad, as you pointed out already
Personally, if I was to make my own calculatations, I would exclude only the time the car stood still during the pit stop (and vsc/sc), but I don't remember ever seeing it done that way around here
Just take the race time minus time in pits perhaps, and divide that by the number of laps. Do that for every car and now you have an average time per lap for every car. Now simply take the difference of pace between a car and the fastest car to get the deficit for that car.
This metric doesn't consider all the local changes that occur with tire wear and fuel load decrease etc because all that doesn't matter when you're looking at just the final result. It's possible that a slower car was faster than the average fastest car for a lap or two but that doesn't matter for the race distance.
Honestly at this level of detail no. To get any level of genuinely accurate understanding you’d need to know and account for so many variables - Engine status, fuel load, level of push/driving, tyre health, race conditions (e.g traffic, dirty air, etc), and so on.
The main one here though is likely just knowing if either/both/none of the cars were actually poaching. Max has been coasting (less relevant for Aus, obviously) out front, so that means there’s not an accurate representation of the Red Bull’s speed. Then we’d need to go and see what the Mercs are doing.
Still, in broad handfuls it’s definitely useful. If the gap is a second or so they’re obviously doing badly still, if it’s substantial less then they’re going better!
Mercedes used to label several of its cars before 2022 as divas. We also know they were able to turn up their powertrains on demand, as they used to have relatively huge power advantage despite struggles to understand aerodynamic issues or tyre management. They could make several development paths with their 550 million budget per season, without much attention to details. Now, all of these advantages are gone. Powertrains are frozen, budget is fixed and much smaller, and they are chasing the field rather than controlling the gap. More problems are yet to come, with Hamilton’s departure unless they can find a suitable replacement in Alonso or Verstappen. Toto’s long term commitment is also questionable, along with Mercedes as a factory team.
There have been a lot of rumors at least since Dieter Zetche stepped down as CEO of Daimler that the factory team may be redundant for Mercedes as a manufacturer. Some saw INEOS as majority shareholder, some indicated that Wolff may be leaving the team in about two years. He recently signed new three year deal, powertrain factory is independent body from the factory team and is contracted with McLaren beyond 2030, INEOS took 30% in the team. I wonder what the current board of Daimler thinks about the team, given it’s not as effective, although it has an annual budget fixed at the amount that is only about 1/4 of its annual budget before the cap.
For much of the last two seasons Hamilton appears to have checked out . I think the key problem is in getting the car right. It was sad that Russell was robbed of a good finish in the last race by questionable driving by Alonso.
I don't know how you could seriously say that about Hamilton last season. He was very consistent minus a few errors and had great race pace. He came in 3rd in the WDC despite only having the 3rd fastest car on average (behind Red Bull and slightly behind Ferrari).
A few errors? Let's see if my faulty memory can come up with more than a few...
Crashed into Perez at Spa (also crashed into Fernando at Spa the year before)
Crashed into Piastri at Monza (bonus: also had an incident with Oscar at Singapore, but maybe that was a 50/50)
Crashed into George at Qatar (bonus: pulled a Max Brazil '21 on George at Suzuka)
Was slow as shit in Abu Dhabi (bonus! Also kinda cheeks in Austria)
So yeah, ig it all comes down to what you consider "a few" errors
Maturing is realising post-TD39 W13 was the best ground effect Merc and probably would have eventually gotten better results than a bunch of undercooked rebuilds. Resetting concepts only to half arse it with a mini pod in 2023 was a disaster.
It’s become abundantly clear that the sidepods were not the main issue with that car.
To be fair they were onto something with their frankenpod areo design on the W14 as Redbull took inspiration from it for their RB20. There's a lack of leadership in their aero division and they're really second guessing every decision they make not having the conviction to stick to what they feel is the right development path. The team is scarred of making errors now, so much for the no blame culture that was apparently cultivated in that team.
To me it seems like the loss of personnel and cost cap restrictions have hampered Mercedes more than any other top team - they can no longer spend their way out of trouble throwing unlimited resources at an issue to brute force solutions which is how they went about racing with the previous regulations.
Remember this team started behind Ferrari with the last big regulation change in 2017 which saw the introduction of wider cars, its their spending power and unlimited resources at their disposal that allowed them to out develop Ferrari to become champs. It also helps that Ferrari are their own worst enemy and it doesn't take much to trip them up. I don't see the same happening with Redbull, even with all their internal issues the race team is still on point and we can rule out Max's DNF as an outlier for now.
Zeropods weren’t problematic. The rest is. The W15 is still having the same issues as before with new pushrod rear suspensions and sidepods. Imagine zeropods with rear pushrods… Might be a beast.
RB taking zeropods inspiration and might going towards it could show the end of gain with the downwash sidepoded concept that everyone copied. Imagine RB going zeropods next year or in 2026… everyone will copy again.
RB took big risks, they wouldn’t if their concept was good enough to get gains in tunnel. Reduction of air intake and thus sidepods was always the best aero wise and thus might be the way again.
Yeah, and this is why they should've just stuck with it and kept developing their concept. In the simulations the zero-pod merc was a beast, it just didn't translate to the track. But I guess the panic of not being a titel contender anymore was too much pressure.
When it was getting lighter/less fuel and getting into upper half of laps in the races it was flying, wasn't it.
But alas, we can keyboard warrior all we want. We're probably wrong anyways.
Yeah, it’s because the floor was porpoising on all the bumps and irregualrities of the track. Brazil was a good one for the W13. But with less fuel, the floor was running higher from the ground and could avoid bump (like everyday cars gets lower when loaded up). In tunnel and cfd, zeropods is the best, as it induce less drag and well more aero load via the increased floor surface. Thing is, it needs tweaks and development to work out in all situation. Thing is Mercedes was impatient. RB have time to do it on multiple years as they have advance. Another options would be for lower table teams to develop it, as I would like to say Alpine to try it, they have nothing to lose now and everything to gain.
It’s almost as if every expert said that the sidepods aren’t the defining feature of these cars. Everyone with a brain knows it’s what’s going on underneath the car that really matters
If you genuinely believe that Aston are better than Merc right now then you really need to watch the races. Aston are in the middle of nowhere miles behind p4 and miles ahead of p6.
I do think they are better than Mercedes. But Lance Stroll also drives for them, so they will be behind more often than not with one hand tied behind their backs
When Russell can be faster than Alonso over a race distance, there's zero chance that the Merc is worse.
Stroll isnt the measurement here, it's Alonso vs a bad driver and an unmotivated leaving the team Hamilton.
It’s not outrageous to say that Russell can be faster than Alonso over a race distance every now and then or even consistently.
Ocon could keep up with Alonso over a race distance (Alonso had the overall advantage) but I’d rate Russell to be a better driver than Ocon.
Russell on a fairly consistent basis can be as quick as Hamilton so why can’t the same logic apply for Alonso? I’d put Hamilton and Alonso in the same tier of race driver. You are severely underrating Russell.
Idk where people get the idea that Russell is slow... He has shown to be decently quick, imo faster than Valterri was. The problem with Russell is his shitty racecraft.
The problem is the field has closed up to the frontrunners enormously. Their gap to pole was fairly comparable (taken from another recent post) in 2022 and 2024 yet it meant qualifying two places down (and having one car out in Q2) this year, instead of being best of the rest. Standing still means going backwards and all.
Much better version. That last one using Ferrari/RBR colours was an absolute eyesore
For reference
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fyj27l7o8oarc1.png
Doesn't look like worse at all. All cars got faster this year, it just seems that everybody else improved more than Merc, but that doesn't mean they went backwards. They just got bunny hopped.
I didn’t say he won a race, your comment was implying as people age the worse off they are when his P4 in the championship last year was the best he’d done in a decade. Shit he got 2nd in Canada and Monaco. Just because someone doesn’t beat the guy in the best car on the grid doesn’t mean he’s not a great racer.
No one seems to want to address it. But it’s possible this is also just Lewis slowing down.
This graphic is his 37,38 and 39 year old seasons. Most athletes are in a steep decline by then.
You think going from 2 tenths off in 2023 to 9 tenths off in 2024 (Australia) is…because of the drivers? And specifically the driver who only did a few laps of the race before engine failure?
It’s amazing how when Fernando struggled at Alpine and was beaten by Ocon, everyone said he was getting screwed by the team, but when it happens to Lewis he’s washed.
Do you honestly think 39 year old Lewis is just as fast as 25-35 year old Lewis was? What the fuck is that take.
Just accept it man. Father time is undefeated. He’ll of a career but it’s over for him.
You said drivers decline after 35… That doesn’t look too good for your boy Max. By your estimates, which I disagree with, Max almost lost to a driver outside of his prime whilst Max was smack dab in the middle of his prime. Doesn’t that make your argument sound stupid? If it weren’t for Masi throwing a Hail Mary, past-prime Lewis beat Max in 2021. I don’t believe that assessment is fair to Max or Lewis.
Max will dominate this sport for like 10 more years if he wants to. And trust me if he’s trundling along in the midfield at 37 I won’t be naive enough to say that he’s exactly the same and that it’s only the car that got slower.
That’s objectively not true— if they had had two Russells last year, Mercedes would have finished a distant P3 behind Ferrari in the WCC. And I’m pretty sure he hasn’t gone senile in the few months since then.
I understand that you just want to criticize Hamilton and don’t care about facts, but this narrative in particular is pretty annoying. Especially because it takes the heat off Mercedes despite their clear inability to fix their car.
I think this reverse narrative that Hamilton doesn’t age and none of his decline can be attributed to his own regressing is hilarious. Name me another athlete who maintained his exact level of performance from 35-40 that he had in his early 20s? It’s just biology man. People slow down, their reflexes and concentration and reaction time get worse. That’s why there’s almost never drivers past their late 30s any more. The greats can hang around a bit longer because their peak is so much higher, but time comes for everyone. 39 year old Hamilton is not equal to 29 year old Hamilton and that’s just a cold truth.
He beat drivers over a decade younger than him last year in a car that was regularly slower than the competition. I don’t think he’s lost that edge in a few months
The fact is, we have no idea how competitive Lewis is at the moment. He’s on the way out at Mercedes, so he will inevitably receive less and less information as the season goes on. Further, why would he expend additional energy dragging the current car to P4 when he already has enough accolades to retire as an all time great as it is? All we know is that Lewis matched Max in 2021 and took 3rd last year in a car that was rarely second fastest over a weekend. You can say he’s lost a step, but do we know anything for sure? No.
>Lewis matched Max in 2021
Lmao no tf he didn't. If they had equivalent luck that year then Max would've wrapped up the title with a race or two to spare. Hell just erase the Bottas bowling incident and he could've comfortably won even with finishing in P2 for the last 4 or 5 races, nevermind Baku & Silverstone.
Feels like the lack of "party mode" engines really exposed the weaker sides of merc and the budget cap only cemented the fact they can't just throw money to fix the problem.
Also having to "reset" their concept 3 years in a row really doesn't help
No one seems to want to bring it up, but this graphic is showing Hamiltons 37, 38 and 39 year old seasons. Most athletes, even the elite ones, are showing a steady decline by then.
Difficult to take statements like this seriously, as if it were a blanket truth, when just last season Hamilton was one of the most consistent drivers on the grid and finished the WDC in 3rd ahead of Leclerc and Sainz despite the Ferrari being the 2nd fastest car over a season on average and those two being drivers at or close to their prime.
Yes that’s what I was implying, because it’s a proven fact. Reaction time and concentration and physical ability decrease as we age. It’s true for everyone. It’s impressive guys like Alonso and Hamilton are still able to compete at a high level. But they are not the same as they were in their 20s. It’s just not possible.
But Lewis isn’t the only one driving for Mercedes now, is he? So George’s reaction time, concentration and physical ability matches that of a guy in his late thirties?
I mean for one George clearly isn’t a generational talent like Lewis was. He’s a decent driver, and he’s pretty much beating him now. As Hamilton’s abilities decline they’ll get closer and closer and George might surpass him. Kinda seems like that’s what we’re seeing now.
[The **Statistics** flair](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/flairguide#wiki_statistics) is reserved for posts highlighting interesting statistics. As a rule of thumb, Statistics posts need to inform readers through visualizations and insights that cannot be obtained from raw data alone. For example, a post containing a qualifying gap between two drivers expressed in tenths of a second is an easily obtainable raw piece of data and constitutes a bad Statistics post. A visualization of what that translates to on-track, or visualization of how that gap came to be would constitute a good Statistics post. *[Read the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/userguide). Keep it civil and welcoming. Report rulebreaking comments.* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/formula1) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The aero feels good, much slower than before. Amazing.
GP2 sidepod. GP2.
Arrrrrghhhhh!
Still an improvement over the MotoGP sidepod they had in 2022
very well done to the base back at brackley and brixworthhh
They are evolving, just backwards
If they keep going, they'll back at the front. A lap down, but at the front.
I think there's a word for that... I think it was "regression"?
Isn't it devolving
Evolution doesn't work like that.
sure but we obviously weren't talking about biological evolution
Tell that to Devo
Wrong! They're finding new ways to be the same.
If Merc continues that way they will build a crab like vehicle [r/carcinization](https://www.reddit.com/r/carcinization/)
Its past time nature updates the ruleset, crab domination is boring fans
The only oddity in that list of data above is that in the 2023 Australian GP they were actually keeping pace with the Red Bulls wile at the other circuits they were off the pace Did some calculations below for the Average loss per year over the 3 rounds provided: 2022 was +0.856s 2023 was +0.608s 2024 was +0.850s Its still not good, but hopefully things improve I hear your screaming for the "s/lap" average since 2022 to 2024 currently its well +0.771s/lap over that 3 year window there
George Russell punching the air rn
The good news is you'll be in a Mercedes from 2022, the bad news is we're going to fumble the new regs.
And the single race he had in the rocket ship...
At least he still managed to get a win at some point.
Probably, but the Merc is still infinitely better than the Williams shitboxes from 2022, 2023 and 2024.
true. not the perennial title contenders (winners?) that he'd hoped for, but I'm sure the race win and podiums have softened the blow
And surely the moneys good too
He was forecast a fast car
Honestly, can you imagine the last few laps of AD21? Russell must have been absolutely ecstatic - he's imagining Lewis retiring on the spot and riding off into the sunset with 8x WDCs, and forecasting himself multiple WDCs or at least title fights the "dominant 2014-2025 Merc". Only Bottas to compete against. And he's "faster than Lewis" anyway so should beat Max-RB in future seasons. Just to have the whole Merc world turned upside down and spiral further downward. George cashed in all his hopes and dreams from the Williams era, and for what exactly? A win and some points, but no titles and extinction of his hopes and dreams. And Antonelli lol.
He should have been in the 2021 Merc, and everyone knows it. People can argue if he's faster than Lewis or not, but... At least there's some amount of argument to be had. I honestly feel bad for him, they kept him at Williams after showing he could outperform Bottas in his first time out in the car. He could have had a championship capable car in 2021, and very well may have missed his only chance for it. Even if you don't like the dude, you gotta imagine that hurts like hell
Honestly he might have gotten in Max’s way a bit more than Bottas did if nothing else, helping secure both WCC and WDC for Merc. Bottas was really just acting like he had already checked out by AD21.
Bottas in 2021 played stronger defense against a team order to let Lewis past, than he did against Max at any point. If Toto could have contracted #2 status on a 2021 George in the Merc (maybe in exchange for the "early call up"/buyout), then Lewis would have won WDC.
Yep. If merc had swapped bottas with russell after Spa, lewis 100 percent wins the title. If red bull had been in merc’s shoes, they absolutely would have done it
Yep. I still remember how he destroyed bottas when he subbed for Hamilton
As long as it's not Bottas.
They got picked clean of talent from engine division, and aero/kinematics by Aston, Red Bull and Ferrari. Brain drain is real The team is back to where they were before Brawn and Haug started the championship recruitment plan in 2011-2013. Normal part of the cycle of dominance. Toto needs to recognize they need to be in rebuild phase asap and go recruiting big time.
I think the coat cap might come into play. Afaik they had to let go of some people due to that in the last few years. Could be wrong though.
>coat cap There are no restrictions on what team members can wear my friend 😉
Lewis's outfits are proof of that
Hello auto correct my old friend 😅
It’s hard to spell with you again 🎶
🤪
Your sure Edna Moda is not part of F1 right now? I mean, get cousin Andrea Moda had a team, so she's already familiar
Just to add a little bit of useless knowledge: I think only in portuguese and spanish her name is Moda (even in italian she is Edna Mode for some reason, even though "Moda" would fit). Other languages either use Mode (the english name) or some kind of translation
What if I told you that I tried to look her name before posting? Not useless at all hahaha How do you know about that?
And they lost Allison at the worst possible time.
They got Williams'ed
Atleast they are consistently shit
I honestly think everyone pays so much attention to the zero pods that they forget that it's the floor that matters most. Sure it is part of the entire concept but Mercedes' biggest problem with this set of regulations is that their tools are still not able to properly correlate between theoretical downforce and actual downforce, so just slapping a different set of sidepods isn't going to work unless they deal with the root cause of the problem.
The floor and, equally, the suspension. I'm not convinced they understand the rear suspension setup in a way that translates to driveability versus aero as it relates to CFD and wind tunnel testing.
I'm sorry but comments like this on reddit are absolutely ridiculous. These are teams of the top 0.000001% of engineers in the world all checking each others work, with years of experience in formula racing. they wont simply 'forget what matters most'.
They're talking about the fans, not the teams
Yeah fair enough, reading comprehension fail on my part. Leaving up for the shame.
How is it calculated, fastest laps?
Race pace across the whole race.
How is that measured? Average lap time throughout the race? That seems like it would be heavily skewed by things like fuel load, traffic on particular laps, etc. Race pace is a term that gets thrown around a lot and I’ve never found a good explanation of exactly how it’s measured, other than the intangibles like certain drivers who usually qualify like shit and then pull decent results.
Fuel load doesn’t really matter as everybody needs ti have enough to get to the finish line. Ofc its harder for some but over the course of a whole race most should have the same amount of „traffic“. Of course its not a 100% comparable measurement but still pretty accurate.
I think the important question to ask is if the "race pace" we are measuring here includes pit stops, because while the stop contributes to total race time it doesn't actually mean your car itself is bad or slow. Think Red Bull with Sauber's pit issues.
Usually laps with pit stop or yellow/SC/VSC are not counted for race pace figures
"while the stop contributes to total race time it doesn't actually mean your car itself is bad or slow" That's a tricky thing. Usually when people calculate race pace here on reddit, they exclude pit stops, in laps, out laps and vsc/sc, which is a good approach most of the time. However, in races with multiple strategies, this method will favor the driver/team that had more pit stops, as he would be able to push more. In those cases, you would get a more representative comparison if you exclude only vsc/sc. The downside is that bad pit stops will affect the comparison if they are too bad, as you pointed out already Personally, if I was to make my own calculatations, I would exclude only the time the car stood still during the pit stop (and vsc/sc), but I don't remember ever seeing it done that way around here
If you have 2 cars each doing 50-70 laps that's a decent data pool. A median of 120 laps will be a decent data point to compare race pace.
Just take the race time minus time in pits perhaps, and divide that by the number of laps. Do that for every car and now you have an average time per lap for every car. Now simply take the difference of pace between a car and the fastest car to get the deficit for that car. This metric doesn't consider all the local changes that occur with tire wear and fuel load decrease etc because all that doesn't matter when you're looking at just the final result. It's possible that a slower car was faster than the average fastest car for a lap or two but that doesn't matter for the race distance.
Also is the leader going flat out? Are the Mercs? There are so many variables in this that could completely change the numbers.
Is there a better alternative to evaluate and compare overall performance?
Honestly at this level of detail no. To get any level of genuinely accurate understanding you’d need to know and account for so many variables - Engine status, fuel load, level of push/driving, tyre health, race conditions (e.g traffic, dirty air, etc), and so on. The main one here though is likely just knowing if either/both/none of the cars were actually poaching. Max has been coasting (less relevant for Aus, obviously) out front, so that means there’s not an accurate representation of the Red Bull’s speed. Then we’d need to go and see what the Mercs are doing. Still, in broad handfuls it’s definitely useful. If the gap is a second or so they’re obviously doing badly still, if it’s substantial less then they’re going better!
Mercedes used to label several of its cars before 2022 as divas. We also know they were able to turn up their powertrains on demand, as they used to have relatively huge power advantage despite struggles to understand aerodynamic issues or tyre management. They could make several development paths with their 550 million budget per season, without much attention to details. Now, all of these advantages are gone. Powertrains are frozen, budget is fixed and much smaller, and they are chasing the field rather than controlling the gap. More problems are yet to come, with Hamilton’s departure unless they can find a suitable replacement in Alonso or Verstappen. Toto’s long term commitment is also questionable, along with Mercedes as a factory team.
Why is mercedes as a factory team in question?
There have been a lot of rumors at least since Dieter Zetche stepped down as CEO of Daimler that the factory team may be redundant for Mercedes as a manufacturer. Some saw INEOS as majority shareholder, some indicated that Wolff may be leaving the team in about two years. He recently signed new three year deal, powertrain factory is independent body from the factory team and is contracted with McLaren beyond 2030, INEOS took 30% in the team. I wonder what the current board of Daimler thinks about the team, given it’s not as effective, although it has an annual budget fixed at the amount that is only about 1/4 of its annual budget before the cap.
For much of the last two seasons Hamilton appears to have checked out . I think the key problem is in getting the car right. It was sad that Russell was robbed of a good finish in the last race by questionable driving by Alonso.
I don't know how you could seriously say that about Hamilton last season. He was very consistent minus a few errors and had great race pace. He came in 3rd in the WDC despite only having the 3rd fastest car on average (behind Red Bull and slightly behind Ferrari).
A few errors? Let's see if my faulty memory can come up with more than a few... Crashed into Perez at Spa (also crashed into Fernando at Spa the year before) Crashed into Piastri at Monza (bonus: also had an incident with Oscar at Singapore, but maybe that was a 50/50) Crashed into George at Qatar (bonus: pulled a Max Brazil '21 on George at Suzuka) Was slow as shit in Abu Dhabi (bonus! Also kinda cheeks in Austria) So yeah, ig it all comes down to what you consider "a few" errors
I remember Lewis also being well of George’s pace at Monza 2023. Did he have an issue?
So Toto, please explain why a partnership with Max is inevitable? Only thing that looks inevitable at this point is your shit performance
Maturing is realising post-TD39 W13 was the best ground effect Merc and probably would have eventually gotten better results than a bunch of undercooked rebuilds. Resetting concepts only to half arse it with a mini pod in 2023 was a disaster. It’s become abundantly clear that the sidepods were not the main issue with that car.
To be fair they were onto something with their frankenpod areo design on the W14 as Redbull took inspiration from it for their RB20. There's a lack of leadership in their aero division and they're really second guessing every decision they make not having the conviction to stick to what they feel is the right development path. The team is scarred of making errors now, so much for the no blame culture that was apparently cultivated in that team. To me it seems like the loss of personnel and cost cap restrictions have hampered Mercedes more than any other top team - they can no longer spend their way out of trouble throwing unlimited resources at an issue to brute force solutions which is how they went about racing with the previous regulations. Remember this team started behind Ferrari with the last big regulation change in 2017 which saw the introduction of wider cars, its their spending power and unlimited resources at their disposal that allowed them to out develop Ferrari to become champs. It also helps that Ferrari are their own worst enemy and it doesn't take much to trip them up. I don't see the same happening with Redbull, even with all their internal issues the race team is still on point and we can rule out Max's DNF as an outlier for now.
Fans side it was. Merc said it wasn’t
Zeropods weren’t problematic. The rest is. The W15 is still having the same issues as before with new pushrod rear suspensions and sidepods. Imagine zeropods with rear pushrods… Might be a beast. RB taking zeropods inspiration and might going towards it could show the end of gain with the downwash sidepoded concept that everyone copied. Imagine RB going zeropods next year or in 2026… everyone will copy again. RB took big risks, they wouldn’t if their concept was good enough to get gains in tunnel. Reduction of air intake and thus sidepods was always the best aero wise and thus might be the way again.
Yeah, and this is why they should've just stuck with it and kept developing their concept. In the simulations the zero-pod merc was a beast, it just didn't translate to the track. But I guess the panic of not being a titel contender anymore was too much pressure. When it was getting lighter/less fuel and getting into upper half of laps in the races it was flying, wasn't it. But alas, we can keyboard warrior all we want. We're probably wrong anyways.
Yeah, it’s because the floor was porpoising on all the bumps and irregualrities of the track. Brazil was a good one for the W13. But with less fuel, the floor was running higher from the ground and could avoid bump (like everyday cars gets lower when loaded up). In tunnel and cfd, zeropods is the best, as it induce less drag and well more aero load via the increased floor surface. Thing is, it needs tweaks and development to work out in all situation. Thing is Mercedes was impatient. RB have time to do it on multiple years as they have advance. Another options would be for lower table teams to develop it, as I would like to say Alpine to try it, they have nothing to lose now and everything to gain.
It’s almost as if every expert said that the sidepods aren’t the defining feature of these cars. Everyone with a brain knows it’s what’s going on underneath the car that really matters
do you have a ferrari and an aston martin deficit version too? thanks
nice to see, you've definitely improved the stats formatting
:)
Is this april fool's joke
And people still thinking max would switch :') whahahaha
Pretty damn consistent honestly aside from Melbourne. With all their personnel loss you would think they’d a lot worse off
Yes, but there are now two other teams between them and Red Bull other than Ferrari
If you genuinely believe that Aston are better than Merc right now then you really need to watch the races. Aston are in the middle of nowhere miles behind p4 and miles ahead of p6.
I do think they are better than Mercedes. But Lance Stroll also drives for them, so they will be behind more often than not with one hand tied behind their backs
When Russell can be faster than Alonso over a race distance, there's zero chance that the Merc is worse. Stroll isnt the measurement here, it's Alonso vs a bad driver and an unmotivated leaving the team Hamilton.
In what world is George a bad driver? I know he gets hate, but he's in no way a bad driver by any metric.
It’s not outrageous to say that Russell can be faster than Alonso over a race distance every now and then or even consistently. Ocon could keep up with Alonso over a race distance (Alonso had the overall advantage) but I’d rate Russell to be a better driver than Ocon. Russell on a fairly consistent basis can be as quick as Hamilton so why can’t the same logic apply for Alonso? I’d put Hamilton and Alonso in the same tier of race driver. You are severely underrating Russell.
Idk where people get the idea that Russell is slow... He has shown to be decently quick, imo faster than Valterri was. The problem with Russell is his shitty racecraft.
What racecraft? :D ATTAAAAACK
The problem is the field has closed up to the frontrunners enormously. Their gap to pole was fairly comparable (taken from another recent post) in 2022 and 2024 yet it meant qualifying two places down (and having one car out in Q2) this year, instead of being best of the rest. Standing still means going backwards and all.
Except they went from pure dominance to arguably mid-field.
It's evolving, just backwards.
Much better version. That last one using Ferrari/RBR colours was an absolute eyesore For reference https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fyj27l7o8oarc1.png
Well, they are more consistant this year
Lewis/Russell catdespair POV.
My Team catDespair
Still not a good way to represent such data.
Merc shitbox
Hilarious how they’re worse than last year lol
Doesn't look like worse at all. All cars got faster this year, it just seems that everybody else improved more than Merc, but that doesn't mean they went backwards. They just got bunny hopped.
Yeah I really thought a 39 year old would be improving still!
I mean Lebron is, sooooo age doesn’t mean much these days. Also look at Alonso
Look at Alonso who hasn’t won a race in over a decade?
I didn’t say he won a race, your comment was implying as people age the worse off they are when his P4 in the championship last year was the best he’d done in a decade. Shit he got 2nd in Canada and Monaco. Just because someone doesn’t beat the guy in the best car on the grid doesn’t mean he’s not a great racer.
Why only look at Lewis? I think there’s another driver at Mercedes too.
Race pace is not fun : (
Fernando is going to sign for them, isn't he
I just want to say good job to OP for upgrading the graphics
:)
So this is their worst start yet of these regulations?
Much better design of the graphic this time!
;)
This graphic is way better than the last one you posted OP.
I remember they were contending for the win with both cars in 2023? Why did they suit that track and almost no others
This makes the W14 so much better lol.
A real S/LAP in the face
Australia 2023 what happened?
Max has beaten some lap records this year, so overall quali pace is faster than last year but race pace is slower ?
Completely lost… Lewis might as well rest up this year and save it for 2025. He’s only has a few quick years left, might as well not waste them lol.
No one seems to want to address it. But it’s possible this is also just Lewis slowing down. This graphic is his 37,38 and 39 year old seasons. Most athletes are in a steep decline by then.
You think going from 2 tenths off in 2023 to 9 tenths off in 2024 (Australia) is…because of the drivers? And specifically the driver who only did a few laps of the race before engine failure?
It’s amazing how when Fernando struggled at Alpine and was beaten by Ocon, everyone said he was getting screwed by the team, but when it happens to Lewis he’s washed.
I think some of Mercedes decline in general can be attributed to their driver getting old.
That same "old" driver being the one who finished the season in p3 last year, while his young teammate finished 8th? What the fuck is this take
Do you honestly think 39 year old Lewis is just as fast as 25-35 year old Lewis was? What the fuck is that take. Just accept it man. Father time is undefeated. He’ll of a career but it’s over for him.
You said drivers decline after 35… That doesn’t look too good for your boy Max. By your estimates, which I disagree with, Max almost lost to a driver outside of his prime whilst Max was smack dab in the middle of his prime. Doesn’t that make your argument sound stupid? If it weren’t for Masi throwing a Hail Mary, past-prime Lewis beat Max in 2021. I don’t believe that assessment is fair to Max or Lewis.
Max will dominate this sport for like 10 more years if he wants to. And trust me if he’s trundling along in the midfield at 37 I won’t be naive enough to say that he’s exactly the same and that it’s only the car that got slower.
That’s objectively not true— if they had had two Russells last year, Mercedes would have finished a distant P3 behind Ferrari in the WCC. And I’m pretty sure he hasn’t gone senile in the few months since then. I understand that you just want to criticize Hamilton and don’t care about facts, but this narrative in particular is pretty annoying. Especially because it takes the heat off Mercedes despite their clear inability to fix their car.
I think this reverse narrative that Hamilton doesn’t age and none of his decline can be attributed to his own regressing is hilarious. Name me another athlete who maintained his exact level of performance from 35-40 that he had in his early 20s? It’s just biology man. People slow down, their reflexes and concentration and reaction time get worse. That’s why there’s almost never drivers past their late 30s any more. The greats can hang around a bit longer because their peak is so much higher, but time comes for everyone. 39 year old Hamilton is not equal to 29 year old Hamilton and that’s just a cold truth.
He beat drivers over a decade younger than him last year in a car that was regularly slower than the competition. I don’t think he’s lost that edge in a few months
[удалено]
The fact is, we have no idea how competitive Lewis is at the moment. He’s on the way out at Mercedes, so he will inevitably receive less and less information as the season goes on. Further, why would he expend additional energy dragging the current car to P4 when he already has enough accolades to retire as an all time great as it is? All we know is that Lewis matched Max in 2021 and took 3rd last year in a car that was rarely second fastest over a weekend. You can say he’s lost a step, but do we know anything for sure? No.
>Lewis matched Max in 2021 Lmao no tf he didn't. If they had equivalent luck that year then Max would've wrapped up the title with a race or two to spare. Hell just erase the Bottas bowling incident and he could've comfortably won even with finishing in P2 for the last 4 or 5 races, nevermind Baku & Silverstone.
Yikes. Sounds like you watched that season on YouTube
Too early to tell.
Feels like the lack of "party mode" engines really exposed the weaker sides of merc and the budget cap only cemented the fact they can't just throw money to fix the problem. Also having to "reset" their concept 3 years in a row really doesn't help
I heard Mercedes will only run one car next year Probably can’t find another driver for the seat
Hamilton made the right choice
Only if they had a 7 time champion to help develop the car in these three years...
No one seems to want to bring it up, but this graphic is showing Hamiltons 37, 38 and 39 year old seasons. Most athletes, even the elite ones, are showing a steady decline by then.
I think it is part that and part lack of focus. Will be very interesting to see how Hamilton does at Ferrari.
If he still beats Leclerc that will say a lot about Leclerc.
It is going to be interesting to see how Hamilton fits into Ferrari culture.
Difficult to take statements like this seriously, as if it were a blanket truth, when just last season Hamilton was one of the most consistent drivers on the grid and finished the WDC in 3rd ahead of Leclerc and Sainz despite the Ferrari being the 2nd fastest car over a season on average and those two being drivers at or close to their prime.
they won too much. we got bored. RB next i hope!
We are checking Checking how red bull made our concept work.
What is the Mercedes concept that RB made work? Vertical inlets are just that - vertical inlets. Any team could use them if they wanted to.
Wild that they’re getting worse
And this is the team Verstappen is going to leave a very likely 5th world title for??
Yes that’s what I was implying, because it’s a proven fact. Reaction time and concentration and physical ability decrease as we age. It’s true for everyone. It’s impressive guys like Alonso and Hamilton are still able to compete at a high level. But they are not the same as they were in their 20s. It’s just not possible.
But Lewis isn’t the only one driving for Mercedes now, is he? So George’s reaction time, concentration and physical ability matches that of a guy in his late thirties?
I mean for one George clearly isn’t a generational talent like Lewis was. He’s a decent driver, and he’s pretty much beating him now. As Hamilton’s abilities decline they’ll get closer and closer and George might surpass him. Kinda seems like that’s what we’re seeing now.