Merc are really taking the p**s. They run around q1/2/3 engines turned to eco mode to keep everyone interested and probably give Tracing point strat mode to makie it look closer than it is. Quite frankly its begining to be a bore fest

With respect, I think you should be aiming your anger at the scuderia and red bull that aren’t doing a good enough job.
F1 is a meritocracy, if you want evenly matched cars, watch Indycar, IMO

Doesn’t make for great racing (for victory) but I doff my cap to toto and his merc team, greatest F1 team of all time?

Can someone remind me why Grosjean is still in F1? He’s a likeable character but is dangerous on track.

As for Merc winning everything so far, it’s not Merc’s fault that Ferrari bet the entire farm on carrying over the most potent engine on the grid, only to fall foul of the fuel flow rules. Leclerc drove well to bring it home in third, he’s clearly driving a different car to Vettel. Red Bull too have a handful of a car that’s costing Albon dearly, I reckon that it’ll be a couple more races yet before the team address whatever glitch is hobbling them.

Bonkers. If only the preceding 50 laps had been anything like as action-packed. Anyone joining me in a rain dance this week?

On a weird tangent, anyone else notice the correlation between not taking the knee and wearing a mask?

…only to fall foul of the fuel flow rules.

That makes it sound like an innocent misunderstanding… 🙂

First race I watched live in yonks – awesome, what a finale! 🙂

it’s not Merc’s fault that Ferrari bet the entire farm on carrying over the most potent engine on the grid, only to fall foul of the fuel flow rules.

Two points:
i) As above, they didn’t “fall foul”, they got caught cheating with an engine that was deliberately not compliant with the rules. The only reason they weren’t severely punished was the authorities couldn’t definitively prove what they were doing.

ii) Having chosen to go down that route, they lost years of engine development because their engine and car is optimized for an illegal level of fuel flow. That means that the combustion chamber design and cooling are not optimized for the legal fuel flow level, so all of the engine development done around that fuel flow level needs to be scrapped and redone.

I mean…. who wore it better ? @MercedesAMGF1 😊 pic.twitter.com/RdLncygysn

— Juliet Marsh (@Julietmarshy) August 3, 2020

The other side of Hols point above is that it forced Mercedes to begin development of a more powerful engine to close the power gap to Ferrari. It worked AND Ferrari went backwards, so Mercedes effectively moved two steps ahead. In addition, Ferrari’s aero package for 2020 was designed around that engine power in a car with say 1000bhp, thus it had enough power to generate the correct downforce whilst maintaining speed. Now, they can either generate downforce OR speed, but not both. For someone such as Seb who likes a stable car with smooth power delivery, driving something so twitchy and jarring, must be very difficult.

Perez is going to the CRB:

Vettel’s Racing Point switch could hang on outcome of CRB hearing

I could imagine a big cheque book coming out to make that issue disappear (if indeed it is an issue)

I could imagine a big cheque book coming out to make that issue disappear (if indeed it is an issue)

Thing is Carlos Slim who is Perez backer could buy and sell Stroll 25 times over.

That makes it sound like an innocent misunderstanding… 🙂

i) As above, they didn’t “fall foul”, they got caught cheating…

@Pondo and @hols2, to clarify my tongue was firmly in my cheek with that!

My point was that Ferrari banked on having more horsepower when they designed the SF1000, now that their fuel flow system is fully legal and that they’re down on outright grunt that the optimisations of the chassis and aero package are shown in contrast. The sector times at Silverstone seem to point towards reasonable mechanical grip in mid speed corners but it all goes pears in the faster corners and straights. One might enjoy a little schadenfreude at Ferrari falling foul of rules, but it’s not something that can be easily addressed for this season and next. Red Bull have (another) diva, but even on it’s best day the RB16 can’t match the Merc, the development embargoes for 2020/21 may mean that resources needed to tame it are restricted.

It’s 1988 all over again. Perhaps a wayward Williams might decide whether this is a season for the record books or not?

Re Racing Point.

Silvestone was a circuit where you’d expect a design heavily influenced by last year’s Mercedes with last year’s Mercedes’ engine, gearbox, rear chassis assembly and a remarkably similar front end and aero package to shine. Hulkenberg’s engine retirement aside, the team found themselves massively under-achieving again. Stroll’s one lap pace is good, but race pace was hugely disappointing, finishing behind Ocon and Gasly. Would have been good to see Hulkenberg benchmark Stroll, Hulkenberg must be very motivated to finally be in a car that could earn him that elusive podium.

One thing with the Merc cars in the hybrid era is that they’ve all been fast, but often difficult to set up and drive – Hamilton’s ability has often masked the weaknesses of the cars. Their qualifying dominance also masked how difficult some of their cars were to race in traffic. If they had clear air, they would cruise into the distance, but they would destroy their tyres if they had to follow another car. Racing Point are starting from scratch with a car they basically copied, so not really surprising that they are struggling a bit with set up.

Racing Point are starting from scratch with a car they basically copied, so not really surprising that they are struggling a bit with set up.

TBF even if they had an exact replica of the 2020 car you would still expect the Racing Point to be slower. Just because the team and driver combo isn’t the same calibre as the full works squad, therefore struggle to get the absolute best out of the car. They’d likely have some races where they’d sneak a better result but not many (see MotoGP satellite teams where 1 rider gets the works setup for example).
The fact that they are (kind of) doing their same but with last years more troublesome car, it’s not really a surprise to see them have poorer performances

Staggered that Tracing Point are trying to get Perez back in the car this weekend!…

Hulkenberg on standby as Racing Point await clarification on duration of Perez’s quarantine

“There was a little bit of confusion because it was on that cusp,” he said. “The inconclusive test was only inconclusive by FIA standards. By [Public] Health England standards that inconclusive test on Wednesday would have been a positive.

Is it me being a bit thick? I can understand how a test can be inconclusive (I had an ‘Unclear’ result myself) but positive/negative/unclear should be the same regardless of who reads the results?

Is it me being a bit thick? I can understand how a test can be inconclusive (I had an ‘Unclear’ result myself) but positive/negative/unclear should be the same regardless of who reads the results?

Its probably not as binary as a zero/one/null result.
The result is probably on a scale of 1-100. Different organisations may have different cut-offs for their own purposes

With regards to Ferrari and their current engine issues I do wonder if a part of the sealed agreement is that they stop pushing what ever boundary they were pushing as well as a development freeze on the engine for a period of time. You certainly wouldn’t want your rivals (or customers) to know that your engine isn’t going to improve for the foreseeable!

I do wonder if a part of the sealed agreement is that they stop pushing what ever boundary they were pushing as well as a development freeze on the engine for a period of time.

The FIA changed the way fuel flow is measured to prevent cheating. Ferrari can’t keep “pushing boundaries” because what they were doing was cheating. Merc (with DAS) and Racing Point (with a copy of the 2019 Merc) are pushing boundaries, but openly and apparently legally.

Ferrari are allowed to keep developing their engine just like the other teams, but all the engine suppliers had to stop development during the lockdown. The exception to that was Honda, because Japan didn’t have a lockdown at the same time as Europe, but they weren’t sure if Japan might lockdown later in the year. Therefore Honda was allowed to continue developing during the European lockdown, but will have to stop for the same period of time over the summer. This means that Red Bull turned up to the first race with a revised engine, but Ferrari were locked into the same spec they turned up to Melbourne with. Renault and Ferrari (and Merc) should be able to introduce an improved spec soon, while Honda will be stuck with theirs for longer.

Nah, the boundary completely changed as a second fuel slow sensor was added so they couldn’t
squirt between pulses*

*technical term

most of the other teams copied the high rake philosophy from red bull without really understanding it because they assumed if Adrian Newey was doing it it must be ‘right’.

I’m a big Newey fan and his book is a great read. He’s so well regarded that I can imagine exactly this happening.

As to Merc making it boring…. nope. They provide their engine, which we’re told is their magic bullet, to more teams than any other supplier, including Williams and Mclaren. These engines have to be exactly the same – no magic modes. Also, as Tracing Point have shown, the aero package of any car is on public display.

Basically, what I’m saying, is that everyone else is very average. To have Mercedes engines out there, no hidden aero tricks and still be done by over a second a lap is embarrassing. Not their problem.

Mercedes aren’t supplying McLaren with PU’s until next year. This year they are still running Renault PU’s.

Good point! Hopefully Mclaren will put it to good use. With the engine and their engineering you’d expect them to be second in the standings. We’ll see…

Problem for McLaren is that their car is designed around the Renault engine and all teams are required to run the same chassis next year as this year. This will limit McLaren’s ability to optimize their car for the different layout of the Merc power-unit (which will require the aerodynamics of the back half of the car to be altered). Definitely a better engine, but they won’t be able to take full advantage of it until 2022, when everybody has to start with a clean-sheet design.

This will limit McLaren’s ability to optimize their car for the different layout of the Merc power-unit (which will require the aerodynamics of the back half of the car to be altered).

I dunno, I seem to recall another team doing OK after shoe horning a Merc engine into the car at the last minute. Of course that was accompanied by massive rule changes which tends to shake up the order a bit, with concomitant loopholes to be exploited.

How will McLaren accommodate the Mercedes power unit?
Although the chassis design is frozen, McLaren will need to make changes to it in order to fit the power unit within the confines of its car.

These changes can be done on safety grounds, as the internal combustion engine remains a structural part of the car in combination with the monocoque chassis.

I seem to recall another team doing OK after shoe horning a Merc engine into the car at the last minute.

They found a loophole in the aero regs that gave them a massive advantage over everyone else. Once the other teams modified their car to run double diffusers, Brawn fairly quickly fell back into the midfield.

The Merc engine is laid out differently than the Renault, with a split turbo and the layout of the cooling system will be different. McLaren will be able to modify the chassis to physically fit the engine, but they won’t be able to optimize the aerodynamics around the sidepods, where the radiators, oil coolers, and intercooler are housed. That affects the airflow around the rear of the car, so the entire car really needs to be revised, which they will not be allowed to do.

The entire car needs to be designed around the engine cooling package, that’s why Merc are both extremely aerodynamically efficient, but have sometimes been marginal in hot races – they pushed that optimization so far that they had an advantage in cooler races, but were undercooled for very hot weather. McLaren will have to be conservative on the cooling side of things, which means they will lose some aero efficiency.

I don’t think that’s quite right….from autosport:

McLaren will also have to redesign its rear suspension components for 2021 too, as the new power unit and gearbox combination it will use will have different pick-up points for the wishbones and track rods.

Aerodynamic changes may be in the offing too, as the bodywork will have to be changed to supply the correct amount of cooling for the Mercedes components.

Currently, the Renault and Honda powered teams prefer to mount some of the cooling components above the engine intake.
This results in a bulkier engine cover but allows the sidepods to become more tightly packaged.

Both Mercedes and Racing Point have preferred not to mount them above the intake, but fellow Mercedes-powered runner Williams currently do so.

In that respect, McLaren may be able to continue with its packaging philosophy into 2021 without too many wholesale changes.

https://www.planetf1.com/news/mclaren-not-happy-token-loophole/

Looks like Merc have so much faith in Bottas that they’ve given him a one year contract. Russell will be looking forward to 2022.

Yep – Bottas passes his yearly appraisal once again! 🙂

Maybe why he didn’t attack Hamilton too aggressively at the start of last week’s race.

Bugger, Hulk may not get to drive this week:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/53683372

And for Bottas – it will be five years in the best team – I think that’s enough time to win a championship in the car that every other driver says they can win championships in! Proves there’s more to it than just the car.

Mechanical fault caused kvyats tyre failure
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/151126/kvyat-british-gp-off-caused-by-overheating-wheel-rim

Yay! The Hulk is in:

Hulk in/Perez poorly…

Whilst I wouldn’t wish ill health on Perez that is great news about the Hulk.

https://www.crash.net/f1/news/941202/1/racing-point-docked-15-f1-points-after-renault-wins-protest

Did not see that coming. I hope they have replacement parts ready to fit…

They should start a petition…