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The 2021 F1 Season.

If Merc had surplus budget, which they will not have as the spend would have been planned a long time ago, and they had planned performance developments back in June or before, then yes they could deliver some improvements over the next few races.

But as I have explained a few times on here, the right decision is to invest as much as possible in getting the best solution with the new rules as they stand a very good chance of dominating for the next n years as well.

Max has won 7 races so far and Lewis 4, and yet Lewis is still very much in the championship. With 8 races to go, Lewis can still win, and if they cut out their strategic errors, then I think that Lewis has a very good chance.

Ian, will the ongoing development of the Mercedes 2022 car not provide any upgrade opportunities for inclusion on Lewis's 2021 car? The same obviously applies to Red Bull, but I understand that Honda already brought forward their 2022 engine for this year to push for better results / Championship(s). The 2022 has given more performance and has been reliable. I know Red Bull are going to have to take a 4th Engine along with penalties at some point, but I understand it's the same for Mercedes too.
 
Ian, will the ongoing development of the Mercedes 2022 car not provide any upgrade opportunities for inclusion on Lewis's 2021 car? The same obviously applies to Red Bull, but I understand that Honda already brought forward their 2022 engine for this year to push for better results / Championship(s). The 2022 has given more performance and has been reliable. I know Red Bull are going to have to take a 4th Engine along with penalties at some point, but I understand it's the same for Mercedes too.
On the chassis side the 2022 car is so different to the 2021 car that no team will find upgrades that are transferrable.

I have not followed the engine regulations and so do not know what is allowed and what isn't.
 
One other point that I forgot to add regarding overtaking at Monza is as follows.

For cars of similar performance, it is very difficult to overtake at Monza (e.g. McLaren, RBR and Merc). However if cars have different performance levels then it is easier to overtake at Monza and generally the grid will end up with the cars paired up. This year it did not happen as much as in the past, but the McLaren's showed how it could be.

BOT, who I am normally critical of in terms of his overtaking ability, did very well to get through the field. In the first stint he was generally on a slower tyre than the people he was trying to overtake, but the setup and his driving, including overtaking, were very good to get him up to 3rd.
 
Hill was interesting on the Adelaide incident in the abovementioned Schumacher documentary - "If I'd been in his position, would I have done the same thing? Hmmm...."

Think about that... is Damon the sort of driver who would think "I'm going to take him out"? No, so draw your own conclusions. The corollary is obvious to all those outside of those too blinkered to see the truth. And now we really do need to move on.
 
Max has won 7 races so far and Lewis 4, and yet Lewis is still very much in the championship. With 8 races to go, Lewis can still win, and if they cut out their strategic errors, then I think that Lewis has a very good chance.

I completely agree, Max is now under suspicion of still being too aggressive, that will play on his mind. Lewis has been here before and prevailed. I'd say both of them have a 50/50 chance of winning this championship... it could well come down to team errors. It's going to be interesting that's for sure. Lewis needs a clean productive weekend at Sochi and then the pressure really will be on Max.
 
On the chassis side the 2022 car is so different to the 2021 car that no team will find upgrades that are transferrable.

I have not followed the engine regulations and so do not know what is allowed and what isn't.

I understand the chassis constraints and I think the engine is subject to a token system which restricts the areas of improvement that can be made during the season.

My thinking was more towards small aero developments and such for the 2022 car that might be transferable to improve the 2021 cars.

I'm hoping Lewis can have a good weekend in Sochi. Mercedes have a brilliant dominant record there.
 
BOT, who I am normally critical of in terms of his overtaking ability, did very well to get through the field. In the first stint he was generally on a slower tyre than the people he was trying to overtake, but the setup and his driving, including overtaking, were very good to get him up to 3rd.

Did BOT take too much out of the medium tyres initially on his second stint? Perhaps, if he had looked after them a bit more initially, he might have stood a better chance of passing PER and the McLarens later in the race. Still, I think last to 3rd was very good, but it would have been sensational with a win.
 
My thinking was more towards small aero developments and such for the 2022 car that might be transferable to improve the 2021 cars.

Aero for 2022 has no read across to aero for 2021 as the concept is very different. In a bit more detail any change to the flow on one car will have a different effect on the other car unless you are extremely lucky. The only way you could find out if you are extremely lucky is by testing it on both cars in the wind tunnel (deciding which to test would be extremely difficult and wasteful), which they will not do as they are focused on winning from 2022 and beyond.
 
Did BOT take too much out of the medium tyres initially on his second stint? Perhaps, if he had looked after them a bit more initially, he might have stood a better chance of passing PER and the McLarens later in the race. Still, I think last to 3rd was very good, but it would have been sensational with a win.
Maybe BOT could have looked after his tyres a bit better (he will have been doing that in any case as he knew what he would need to do later in the race) but I doubt that it would have made any difference as Lewis, VER and PER showed what is well known for Monza (as I mentioned #1703). BOT finished as high up as I think he could. One of his best races for a long time.
 
Maybe BOT could have looked after his tyres a bit better (he will have been doing that in any case as he knew what he would need to do later in the race) but I doubt that it would have made any difference as Lewis, VER and PER showed what is well known for Monza (as I mentioned #1703). BOT finished as high up as I think he could. One of his best races for a long time.

Agree on Bottas. Now he knows where his future lies, it seems to have released some pressure off him. He was in a lose/lose situation when GR stepped in for LH last year and buckled badly. Couple that with GR making the most of his chance and driving really well made Bottas look worse than he his. Bottas has run Lewis close in qualifying so the one lap speed is definitely there even if over a race distance LH is usually ahead there.
 
I completely agree, Max is now under suspicion of still being too aggressive, that will play on his mind. Lewis has been here before and prevailed. I'd say both of them have a 50/50 chance of winning this championship... it could well come down to team errors. It's going to be interesting that's for sure. Lewis needs a clean productive weekend at Sochi and then the pressure really will be on Max.

I doubt Max will give it a second thought, he is and I think will always be the way he is.

That, for me anyway, was shown on Sunday when he walked away without even checking to see if Lewis was ok.

I agree with Damon's first reaction on Sky, maybe someone told Damon later to temper his words.
 
A question to IanW:

Where you at Sauber the same time as Marcus E? If so, how do you rate him?
Marcus was a nice guy and I enjoyed working with him.

In terms of pure pace he was on average around 0.4 secs a lap slower than Charles Leclerc in qualifying.
 
I watched the documentary and think that the Autocar review is pretty good. I was for most of my time working at a competitor team and so Michael's driving skill was admired but his over the top efforts to win were not.

When Michael joined Mercedes after his first retirement it was a strange occasion. The whole team was brought together for a debrief and then Michael was brought in to the room and introduced as our new driver. The room erupted with excitement, but we wondered why Michael would come out of retirement to drive a car that was not going to be good enough for a few years and whether he still had it as all drivers in F1 find it increasingly difficult as they age.

Michael is one of the few drivers that has driven for a team that I worked at that I did not talk to. In the early days he wanted the communication to go through Ross (this included being in the room with others, but he said what he wanted to Ross, who then repeated what Michael had said...) and then through his race engineers. He kept a small circle around him.
 
Michael is one of the few drivers that has driven for a team that I worked at that I did not talk to. In the early days he wanted the communication to go through Ross (this included being in the room with others, but he said what he wanted to Ross, who then repeated what Michael had said...) and then through his race engineers. He kept a small circle around him.

That would be a massive red flag for me. Although I thought drivers were famously super close with their engineers?
 
That would be a massive red flag for me. Although I thought drivers were famously super close with their engineers?
Ian did say "in the early days" - the documentary shows him being very friendly with the mechanics, playing football with them in the garage, that sort of thing. One of the factors in the Schumacher success appears to have been a ferocious work ethic - he would put in whatever it needed to succeed, staying long hours in the garage when nearly everyone else had gone.

Trouble is, the urge to succeed often drove him over the line. One of the more interesting parts is one I well remember, his rear-ending of Coulthard at Spa in the rain, and his storming down to the McLaren pit and having to be physically restrained. Ross Brawn thought that Coulthard had slowed down, but Coulthard couldn't have seen him through the wall of spray thrown up by the McLaren, and, as Coulthard said to him, "You ran into me, Michael, I didn't reverse into you!" Yet he seemed incapable of believing that he was at fault.
 
That would be a massive red flag for me. Although I thought drivers were famously super close with their engineers?
There maybe some confusion of terms here.

The race engineers are a group of 2 or 3 engineers (called Race Engineer and Performance Engineer and or System Engineer) who go to all the races and tests with their nominated driver. With the same on the other side of the garage and then with a Chief Race Engineer, a Strategy Engineer and sometimes shared System Engineers.

The race driver works very closely with the travelling engineering team. Back at the factory the Race Engineer will then discuss issues that the driver wants fixing, e.g. new seat, steering wheel layout, different padding, revised seatbelts, different airflow for cooling etc.

The Race Engineer used to review handling problems (in any case documented during and after each session) with the Vehicle Performance Group, but nowadays all teams use simulators and so the Vehicle Performance Group will speak directly with the drivers.

Michael joined well before going testing and so had time to build the relationship with his Race Engineers before going testing and racing.

I hope that makes things clearer?
 


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