Formula 1 Discussion - And favourite driver?

[SargonF00t]

As others have pointed out, there is speculation that they will fall off later in the year. Word is they spent a significant amount of their development cost trying to understand and counter the performance issues related to the bouncing. Everyone who got a handle on it much faster (or just didn't have a real issue with it) can make that money go farther with upgrades that actually improve the car instead of fix it.

I still wonder if Mercedes & Ferrari can hide some of their expenditure by attributing it to the consumer car division of their company?

 

[Balr0g]

I still wonder if Mercedes & Ferrari can hide some of their expenditure by attributing it to the consumer car division of their company?

I read the FIA hired former accountants of F1 teams so in theory they should know where to look. Of course "creative accounting" might be a thing. Though let's put it into perspective:
Mercedes had a budget of over 300 million before. Now the cap says 142 million. Of course excluded are the drivers salaries as well as the head of department salaries. So in essence Mercedes might not have lost that much of a budget for development. But then there is also to consider that the staffing had to be reduced and as the winner of the constructors in 2021 Mercedes has the lowest amount of wind tunnel time available to them. And let's not forget all exp3enses are rising thanks to the current inflation rates which eats a good chunk of the budget alone for traveling. After all the budget cap encompasses the development and preparation of the car. So you more or less have a part of your budget you can't tocuh as you need it to travel to races. MErcedes right now is probbaly trying to figure out how their new car works. Perhaps the Barcelona highlight was just a flicker and next time they are down in the dumps again (possible as next race is in Monacco)

 

[Quiritium]

I guess that very long silence and the tone in his voice speaks volumes...
... but to his credit, he's a perfect professional about it.

"We'll talk about it later", rather than whining. Perez is such a great driver and such a great team-mate. A shame we most likely won't see him win a title.

But Verstappen now has a 6 point lead on Leclerc, while Perez still has a somewhat decent buffer against Russel (9Points) and Carlos (20 points). Even if he won with fastest lap, he'd be in P3, 13 points behind both Verstappen and Leclerc.

It's a shitty situation, but strategy wise, it was a sound decision.

Understandable, but this early in the season it comes off as a bit desperate. Still Checo definitely deserves props on this, especially when comparing his radio messages to LouLou's ou Max's. He's a true professional.

Hamilton, with one foot out the door, telling his engineers that they should retire his car after he sustained a puncture (a puncture, for Christ's sake!) was only slightly less shameful than the Sky commentators attempting to pass this off as a noble, engine-saving gesture rather than what it was - a butthurt former World Champion trailing his wounded ego back to the pits, while exerting more drag on his team than any aerodynamic issues they might be battling. As soon as he got his head down he was fine. However, the glib words of gratitude that he occasionally throws in the direction of the backroom multitudes who provide him with a car in which to race, are not reflected in his self-absorbed bearing. If you put Alonso or Vettel in the Merc they would probably set up the car better and maybe even drive it as well.

Mercedes, for all the overflowing promise of their mercurial rookie driver, and for all the positive steps they have taken to undo their lowrider bounce, are still at a point where they are reliant on DNFs and spergery from the Red Bulls and the Ferraris for podiums. I foresee a frustrating season bogged down in the dirty air of their rivals.

I couldn't believe my ears when he said that. Is this the much lauded "8 times" world champion? I don't know any other world champion who would have said that in the same circumstance.

And I'm growing increasingly suspicious of Merc and the engines they supply. Their jump in performance is significant while the other Merc powered teams continue to be at the bottom of the barrel with no signs of improvement. Despite their reliability issues and different aero package, you can easily see that Ferrari engine performance in the Alpha. Meanwhile AM and Williams can't seem to get out of the bottom of the pile, and McLaren has no speed compared to other cars running in the top 10.

 

[Coccxys]

As for the lewis radio message, i feel like we aren't seeing the whole picture here. Guy falls to second to last place on the second lap of the grand prix and says "we should just go ahead and retire" when they are comfortably the 3rd fastest constructor in F1, even before the upgrades this weekend, there's just no way (and i'm no fan of lewis myself)...like if that radio message was during the lap when he was limping around with the puncture, the car probably felt like shit. Maybe he thought he had some suspension damage or something. Like does he really think that if you are in 19th place or lower you should just quit and go to the next race after qualifying to save the engine?

He's said the same thing in the past when something has happened to put him towards the back. Even during the Mercedes domination era where he's ended up 2nd by the end of the race. He just always wants to throw the towel if it isn't going his way.

I read the FIA hired former accountants of F1 teams so in theory they should know where to look. Of course "creative accounting" might be a thing. Though let's put it into perspective:
Mercedes had a budget of over 300 million before. Now the cap says 142 million. Of course excluded are the drivers salaries as well as the head of department salaries. So in essence Mercedes might not have lost that much of a budget for development. But then there is also to consider that the staffing had to be reduced and as the winner of the constructors in 2021 Mercedes has the lowest amount of wind tunnel time available to them. And let's not forget all exp3enses are rising thanks to the current inflation rates which eats a good chunk of the budget alone for traveling. After all the budget cap encompasses the development and preparation of the car. So you more or less have a part of your budget you can't tocuh as you need it to travel to races. MErcedes right now is probbaly trying to figure out how their new car works. Perhaps the Barcelona highlight was just a flicker and next time they are down in the dumps again (possible as next race is in Monacco)

Merc also have the lowest allocation of CFD time this season due to winning the constructors last year.

I think Mercedes will probably stall out at this level. The trouble they have had more than any other team is tyre warm-up, it's no suprise they did well at a very hot Barcelona race where they could warm their tyres while others overheated theirs.

 

[Balr0g]

I think Mercedes will probably stall out at this level. The trouble they have had more than any other team is tyre warm-up, it's no suprise they did well at a very hot Barcelona race where they could warm their tyres while others overheated theirs.

I got the feeling that Merc wasted their tyres at the beginning of the race though that might be more due to them fighting a lot (and Leclerc managed to keep his soft tyres live for ober 20 laps). Of course I love the delusion "we are faster then before" while Leclerc and Verstappen drove of into the sunset at the beginning of the race. They might be faster then Sainz but that is more due to Sainz having not much confidence in the car at the moment

 

[Coccxys]

I got the feeling that Merc wasted their tyres at the beginning of the race though that might be more due to them fighting a lot (and Leclerc managed to keep his soft tyres live for ober 20 laps). Of course I love the delusion "we are faster then before" while Leclerc and Verstappen drove of into the sunset at the beginning of the race. They might be faster then Sainz but that is more due to Sainz having not much confidence in the car at the moment

I still think we're going to see a very variable merc performance. It will probably average out to 3rd in the WCC but with some big struggles at some tracks (cooler and higher altitude ones in particular). They need to nail the set up on that car and I think that is going to be their major difficulty at some tracks.

It will be interesting to see if anything comes of both Mercs almost cooking their engines at the end of the race. Both leaking coolant suggest they had driven them to their absolute limit. Much like a computer chip overheating an engine is not something you can reverse, the performance and/or life you've taken out of it isn't coming back. It's also a possible limit of the nopod design as it's very tightly packaged with limited air intakes, it may struggle for cooling/reliability at particularly hot and/or high altitude tracks. That or they went balls to the wall marginal on everything at Barcelona to try and placate hambone.

Sainz was missing quite a few upgrades that Leclerc had so it's possible the upgrades to the Merc and Alpha have caught up to that original ferrari design but the new ferrari design has also taken a step forward.

 

[Balr0g]

Wasn't Hamilton having issues with heat in Melbourne after closing on Russell? That was their lesser upgraded car. If the nopod design is truly responsible then some genius forgot to calculate nature into their simulations. Of course it might also be that they expecxted to cruise ahead and not battle with the peasants so now they run into cooling issues. Didn't Aston Martin also suffer cooling issues in Barcelona which meant they had to open their coolers more then they wanted? Might be a Mercedes issue. And we are not even in summer yet. I guess going for straightline speed has it's disadvantages. Monacco and Baku will be fun to watch

 

[Quiritium]

I still think we're going to see a very variable merc performance. It will probably average out to 3rd in the WCC but with some big struggles at some tracks (cooler and higher altitude ones in particular). They need to nail the set up on that car and I think that is going to be their major difficulty at some tracks.

It will be interesting to see if anything comes of both Mercs almost cooking their engines at the end of the race. Both leaking coolant suggest they had driven them to their absolute limit. Much like a computer chip overheating an engine is not something you can reverse, the performance and/or life you've taken out of it isn't coming back. It's also a possible limit of the nopod design as it's very tightly packaged with limited air intakes, it may struggle for cooling/reliability at particularly hot and/or high altitude tracks. That or they went balls to the wall marginal on everything at Barcelona to try and placate hambone.

Sainz was missing quite a few upgrades that Leclerc had so it's possible the upgrades to the Merc and Alpha have caught up to that original ferrari design but the new ferrari design has also taken a step forward.

Was that the reason for the "cool car" warnings Russel said he was getting during the race? His engineer replied they were real. I thought it was a weird conversation to be replayed by the tv direction. But Russel had already complained that the cockpit was getting too hot before the race started.

Edit: typo

 

[Mikoyan]

Was that the reason for the "cool car" warnings Russel said he was getting during the race? His engineer replied they were real. I thought it was a weird conversation to be replayed by the tv direction. But Russel had already complained that the cockpit was getting too hot before the race started.

Edit: typo

There was another easy to miss comm to Lewis near the end telling him to back off too, probably for the same reason.

Actually all the radio would be good to have on this. If they were worried about engine overheating early on that might've influenced 'let's just retire the car'.

 

[New Fag]

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While they have a point and the budget should probably increase at the same rate as inflation minus future reductions, Otmar is spot on and it's the teams with money trying to get more budget to develop their cars.

 

[LetterlandMafia]

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While they have a point and the budget should probably increase at the same rate as inflation minus future reductions, Otmar is spot on and it's the teams with money trying to get more budget to develop their cars.

Horner bleating about the small teams then the next paragraph being the small teams voting against it is some Curb Your Enthusiasm shit.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

It's also a possible limit of the nopod design as it's very tightly packaged with limited air intakes, it may struggle for cooling/reliability at particularly hot and/or high altitude tracks.

Ain't that some fine German engineering?
On cold tracks, the car can't get heat into the tyres and the car ends up slow.
On hot tracks, the cooling is insufficient and the car ends up slow.

 

[Mikoyan]

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While they have a point and the budget should probably increase at the same rate as inflation minus future reductions, Otmar is spot on and it's the teams with money trying to get more budget to develop their cars.

One race team is a pretty defined logistics load. What they ought to do is constrain that cost by taking the variable expenses (air freight, fuel for the trucks) and do the contracting for that through the FIA or rightsholders? Could get a great deal with some sponsorship.

 

[Full Race Replay]

Ain't that some fine German engineering?
On cold tracks, the car can't get heat into the tyres and the car ends up slow.
On hot tracks, the cooling is insufficient and the car ends up slow.

I am starting to understand what people are saying about the mercedes' narrow operating window

 

[Coccxys]

There was another easy to miss comm to Lewis near the end telling him to back off too, probably for the same reason.

That was towards the end of the race where there was a real DNF risk because the coolant level was rapidly dropping (leak or fucked gasket?), they confirmed simular on Russell's too. It will be interesting to see if it caused longer term damage to those units or any of the other bits in close proximity.


In other news that everyone already knows but you really don't want your boss to actually say it

 

[Balr0g]

Also in terms of Mclaren: Zack Brown also chimed into the debate over the budget cap saying that the inflation makes it harder to actually keep the expenses within the budget cap. Now I find that ironic that apparently most oif the teams didn'T account for the inflation as it wasn't there suddenly. Yes it has risen thanks to the Ukraine war but it was at a high level before that. And as Szafnauer said all teams could have set aside an amount just in case. If the FIa now compromises those teams get fucked. Just like Alfa got fucked when the minimal weight was raised to help the other teams or when they modified rules for the floor where Alpine had an advantage. Probably thew reason why Alpine is so adamant in vetoing any changes to the budget cap

 

[Coccxys]

Yeah the cap is the cap and they just haven't worked enough ways around it early enough. One obvious work around is salaries other than the top 5 are included but bonuses and other incentives aren't. If accountants can find a million ways for people to avoid paying tax then they can find ways around these regulations.

To an extent I'm not suprielsed they got caught out by the sudden surge in costs since the teams would have set their budgets long ago. Even if they set them as late as November 2021 then CPI in the UK was only 4.6%, if they were set in August 2021 then CPI was 3.2%, it currently stands at 9%. The energy usage of their factories is also included in the cap and well look at this shit


I spoke with a financial advisor about something last October and they were of the opinion that "no way inflation goes to 7%" and this was someone with a good track recored and all the licences. So I can understand the teams getting caught out.

 

[Mikoyan]

I spoke with a financial advisor about something last October and they were of the opinion that "no way inflation goes to 7%" and this was someone with a good track recored and all the licences. So I can understand the teams getting caught out.

The "inflation doomsayers" of last year weren't talking about 8+%. Totally agree on that.

 

[The Grognard]

Inflation adjustment is necessary anyways, since the price of exotic materials will be very unstable depending on how the geopolitical situation is. They also are gonna have to get creative with their accounting.

 

[Consider Lizärds]

Ecclestone be Gangsta now