Poll: Australian Grand Prix 2022, Melbourne - Race 3

[this_is_gav]

Have Merc mentioned anything about the new fuel? Is it the ethanol thats messing things up for them do we reckon?

People are speculating that it's the E10 fuel that's causing issues, but Mercedes seem keen to divert the subject when asked, understandably, as if it is the fuel then the supplier is their primary sponsor.

I did hypothesize during the Bahrain weekend that Mercedes might have intentionally created a smaller and more efficient engine, thinking that the potential aerodynamic benefits (hence their min-pods design) might outweigh the power loss, however if that was the case they would have said so by now so as to properly deflect the criticism away from the AMG HPP and Petronas.

I suspect that if it's the PU then they may be able to gain some back through "reliability improvements" (which are still allowed). If it's the MGU-K, energy store or control electronics then they aren't homologated until September, so they're free to improve them. Obviously the number of units are still a factor, and reliability seems to be an issue with all the teams bar Ferrari at the moment; Mercedes have seen failures (including Vettel this morning) while Tsunoda and Alonso are both on some of their final PU elements already! Whether those PU components are toast or can be repaired only time will tell.

Meanwhile Schumacher's PU is remarkably OK after his sickening crash in qualifying in Jeddah.

 

[JRS]

Have Merc mentioned anything about the new fuel? Is it the ethanol thats messing things up for them do we reckon?

People are speculating that it's the E10 fuel that's causing issues, but Mercedes seem keen to divert the subject when asked, understandably, as if it is the fuel then the supplier is their primary sponsor.

It's not as if ethanol is some weird, barely-understood thing. It's been around for a minute or six

I did hypothesize during the Bahrain weekend that Mercedes might have intentionally created a smaller and more efficient engine, thinking that the potential aerodynamic benefits (hence their min-pods design) might outweigh the power loss

Perhaps.

At any rate, the car clearly has some pretty fundamental problems if driver comments like those here are anything to go by:

Lewis Hamilton says his Mercedes is not responding to set-up changes and he was frustrated to be over a second off the pace despite a clean lap.

He ended a "difficult session" in 13th place, one-and-a-half seconds off pace-setter Charles Leclerc. "There's just not a lot we can do," said Hamilton. "This is the way it is so we just have to drive with it.

"That's just the frustrating thing because you're trying to push, you're trying to catch, and even when you do a decent lap, it's 1.2 seconds down so it's difficult."

The adjustments the team made to the W13 between today's two one-hour sessions did not improve its balance, Hamilton added.

"Nothing that you change on the car makes a difference at the moment," he said. "That's the difficult thing.

"You get in very optimistic and then you make changes and then and it doesn't seem to be wanting to improve. So we made some changes going into P2. P1 was better. P2 ended up being a bit harder for us. It's just a tricky car."

The team has been unable to resolve the "porpoising" problem it has had since the start of the season. George Russell said it is worse than ever in Australia.

"We’re definitely porpoising pretty bad," he said. "Into turn nine it’s probably the most severe I’ve experienced.

"I think it’s something we just have to deal with for the time being. We believe it’s the fastest way around the track.

"But maybe it’s not. We need to keep digging into the data and understand. We've sort of gone from left, right and centre with the set-up and all resulted in a similar outcome so we need to try and get on top of things and understand what happened."

So yes, the engine and hybrid systems are probably giving away a little to their rivals this season whether through an intentional decision to chase efficiency rather than power or because the others (Ferrari in particular) have caught and surpassed them. But it surely isn't all down to horsepower if Merc have a car that even Lewis Hamilton would call "tricky".

 

[Deleted member 651465]

At this stage they should bolt on their Barcelona spec sidepods and see what times they can get. If Lewis' comments about not being able to change the car much are true then that suggests to me that they need to do something drastic.

 

[this_is_gav]

It's not as if ethanol is some weird, barely-understood thing. It's been around for a minute or six

No, but it is the only thing that has changed with the PUs this season, so it seems logical to assume that Mercedes and Petronas have struggled to get on top of it as well as their rivals. The change to the PUs was meant to be pretty significant to extract the most out of the new fuel, and maybe Mercedes just haven't done a good enough job.

That said, it's not just the Petronas fuel (as all Mercedes-powered teams seem, on paper at least, similarly affected), so it's probably fair to say it's the PU itself on which more blame can be placed.

Perhaps.

At any rate, the car clearly has some pretty fundamental problems if driver comments like those here are anything to go by:

Definitely and you could see it all the way through Bahrain testing and the season so far, though I don't think a "size zero" style approach is the case now, but I did wonder when Williams, McLaren and obviously particularly Mercedes all went for super slim sidepods, with only Aston Martin (and all the other non-Mercedes teams) opting for the more rounded approach, even if the packaging underneath all of them will be somewhat slim (though still from the shots I've seen none are anywhere near the Mercedes).

I don't think that anymore though, as like I said Mercedes would have come out with that excuse long before now so it's spun as a positive rather than the lot of negatives being used so far. Maybe Mercedes are waiting until they can get the car somewhat sorted before they try to play that card, though I doubt it as a car company wouldn't want the negative publicity of slipping from having the top PU to what appears to be the slowest with the new fuel that every road car is being steered towards.

If it shares traits with it's predecessor (great power when fresh) it's only going to get much, much slower as the engine ages too, relative to their rivals.

 

[jaybee]

The season has gone for Merc. This is going to be like the start of the Hybrid with the big team offsets and I guess will last until we have another major rule change. Just towards the end of this period when the rest of the pack have mastered extracting the main performance out of their cars, it will change again. Sometimes designs just don't work out. The problem Merc will have is deciding whether it's a lost cause in terms of competing for the top. Do they accept it's a dog and the direction is on a road to nowhere, ditch it and come up with an entire new concept? Is that even possible to do during a season...? i.e. Build a whole new car design? There must be limitations. Or do they accept they will be a midfield team this year and just write off the year and only do minor development focussing on a fix for next year?

 

[Armageus]

Loving Seb since he left Ferrari

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1512389856823025667

 

[Kelt]

5000 euro fine...that'll teach him!

 

[cuke2u]

Pocket money, for entertaining the crowd Seb should be paid 5,000 euros...

 

[cuke2u]

On the subject of the Mercedes engines https://www.planetf1.com/news/fia-formula-1-engine-parity/ clearly the issue is with the aerodynamics..

 

[Mr Jack]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1512308151189651461

"It's gonna be turn one"

I like that Bottas and Hamilton seem genuine friends after their time together.

 

[Jono8]

On the subject of the Mercedes engines https://www.planetf1.com/news/fia-formula-1-engine-parity/ clearly the issue is with the aerodynamics..

Still don't believe it. Just feels like too much of a coincidence that all the Merc powered teams went backwards and the Ferrari back-markers are suddenly pretty fast, and Ferrari now arguably have the fastest car.

I mean, maybe it isnt power as such, but it seems like it has to be something to do with the Mercedes platform.

 

[JRS]

Just feels like too much of a coincidence that all the Merc powered teams went backwards

The Merc teams being:

Merc - hey, anyone can screw up, especially when they spent last year in a championship dogfight
Williams - already at the back, so had nowhere to go backwards to
McLaren - so far from their previous best that it isn't even funny any more...well, it's a little bit funny
Aston Martin - by the end of race 4 last year they had scored a whopping 4 points (one 10th place and one 8th place), if they're worse than that in another couple of races then I'd be prepared to give you that one

***edit***

Anyway, I don't know what y'all are worried about. Mercedes will be allowed to catch up, as Renault were back in the mid/late 2000s. It's only Ferrari who get punished for building a more powerful engine that's never actually proven to break the rules



LOL FERRARI INTERNATIONAL ASSISTANCE LOL

 

[Stumble Bum]

'DRS tweak overnight - One thing to mention is the DRS zone between Turns Six and Nine has been removed for safety reasons.

That means we're down to three DRS zones for the rest of the weekend.'

 

[Mr Jack]

Horrible porpoising for the Ferraris but still quick. McLaren looking better than the first two races.

 

[Stumble Bum]

Hamilton's head bouncing like crazy lol. How have Mercedes got it so wrong with their car. Good to see McLaren doing a bit better.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Latifi going full derp

 

[Psycho Ned]

Latifi going for a red flag every race this season

 

[Mr Jack]

That was Stroll's fault, surely?

 

[Stumble Bum]

Bit of confusion from both of them but probably more Stroll's fault for me.

 

[Junglist]

Latifi is trying to show his dedication to the red team