Hamilton at Mercedes 2012

[bill shoe]

How would Mercedes be performing in 2012 if Hamilton was already Rosberg's teammate?

I looked at Hamilton, Button, and Rosberg. I took each driver's fastest time from any of the three qualifying sessions at each race. Then I took the gaps from Hamilton to Button, and from Hamilton to Rosberg. For each of those two comparisons I dropped the 3 best and 3 worst gaps. There have been 14 races in 2012, so this leaves 8 typical gaps between Hamilton and Button, and 8 typical gaps between Hamilton and Rosberg. I took the average of those 8 gaps for each comparison.

Hamilton was 0.36 seconds per race better than Button. Hamilton was 0.43 seconds per race better than Rosberg.

I will make a reasonable assumption that Rosberg is as good as Button. Button is damn good and estimating Rosberg as his equal is doing Rosberg no injustice. The difference between Button and Rosberg is only 0.07 seconds per race (0.43 - 0.36 = 0.07).

This implies the McLaren is 0.07 seconds better than the Mercedes, but Hamilton is 0.36 seconds better than a grade-A F1 driver such as Button.

In other words, around 80% of the difference between Hamilon and Rosberg this season is due to Hamilton, and 20% is due to the car and team.

McLaren has to find 3 or 4 tenths to replace Hamilton.

Mercedes only has to find 1 tenth (0.07 actually) and they'll be championships contenders.

I think McLaren will come to realize that Hamilton was the cheapest three or four tenths that money could buy. How much money will they have to spend to come up with 3 or 4 tenths from the car at every race? They can't-- the RRA won't allow it. I can't help but think that McLaren simply screwed up the negotiations. Do you really think McLaren is happy with a $12 million per year savings and Perez in the cockpit?

[Slife]

While you say 20% difference is due to car, shouldn't you break that 20% into segments that represent strategies, pit stop performance etc, team environment, etc...

[ParanoiD]

doubt it

[Slife]

Do you really think McLaren is happy with a $12 million per year savings and Perez in the cockpit?

Well at the moment when they signed Perez they clearly thought it was the better idea. But afterwards they may have regretted it. So yes when they signed Perez they were most certainly happy with the deal.

[Hail22]

Its hard to say...It would be fantastic if we had the technical readouts of both the Macca and Mercedes (When pigs fly), From what I recall the Mclaren is a more balanced/well packaged car? Where as the Mercedes was born with issues from day one winter testing?

I think when Lewis arrives at the end of the season some small adaptations/changes may/will need to occur as he has been used to a more "Balanced" ride compared to the W03 Of course.

I doubt he would of done better with Rosberg as a team mate in my humble opinion, purely due to the fact the W03 has been plagued with a few niggling gremlins (however in pit stops Mercedes has been overly consistent...minus the China GP debacle with Schumacher).

[snoop1050]

on the flip side maybe the mercedes is much worse than the mclaren and rosberg is XXX faster than hamilton....

i dont see the point in this thread its a well accepted fact the w03 lacks alot of downforce compared to the other front runners and its speed in med/long corners is yet more evidence of that

[raymondu999]

I don't know. In pure speed I think Hamilton is quicker. But I think the Merc is fickle in needing a very specific technique and/or line to drive it.

I think the Merc is fundamentally a very fast car - but it malhandles. Ross Brawn has repeatedly said (since Monza 2010, in fact) that the issue is not the speed of the car, but rather it's being plagued by handling variations through the corner. They could have entry oversteer, before having understeer midcorner and a balanced exit, and curing one phase of the corner meant the others got worse.

As such I think initially Hamilton will be slower than Rosberg as he struggles to drive it conventionally at first, before then slowly assimilating the handling properties.

[marcush.]

How would Mercedes be performing in 2012 if Hamilton was already Rosberg's teammate?

I looked at Hamilton, Button, and Rosberg. I took each driver's fastest time from any of the three qualifying sessions at each race. Then I took the gaps from Hamilton to Button, and from Hamilton to Rosberg. For each of those two comparisons I dropped the 3 best and 3 worst gaps. There have been 14 races in 2012, so this leaves 8 typical gaps between Hamilton and Button, and 8 typical gaps between Hamilton and Rosberg. I took the average of those 8 gaps for each comparison.

Hamilton was 0.36 seconds per race better than Button. Hamilton was 0.43 seconds per race better than Rosberg.

I will make a reasonable assumption that Rosberg is as good as Button. Button is damn good and estimating Rosberg as his equal is doing Rosberg no injustice. The difference between Button and Rosberg is only 0.07 seconds per race (0.43 - 0.36 = 0.07).

This implies the McLaren is 0.07 seconds better than the Mercedes, but Hamilton is 0.36 seconds better than a grade-A F1 driver such as Button.

In other words, around 80% of the difference between Hamilon and Rosberg this season is due to Hamilton, and 20% is due to the car and team.

McLaren has to find 3 or 4 tenths to replace Hamilton.

Mercedes only has to find 1 tenth (0.07 actually) and they'll be championships contenders.

I think McLaren will come to realize that Hamilton was the cheapest three or four tenths that money could buy. How much money will they have to spend to come up with 3 or 4 tenths from the car at every race? They can't-- the RRA won't allow it. I can't help but think that McLaren simply screwed up the negotiations. Do you really think McLaren is happy with a $12 million per year savings and Perez in the cockpit?

IF is a long word in Formula 1 and actually it´s F1 spelled backwards -according to Mr.Ecclestone.

Hamilton is known for his speed in mediocre machinery ..so from that side I expect him to perform at MGP. But from where should he drag the famous 4 tenths -maybe from Alonso ?
Hamilton may well be talented enough to be 4 tenth quicker than Jenson in less than perfect machinery but if things pan out perfectly the top drivers extract what´s in there -there is simply no 4 tenths available , simple as that.
Hamilton will get a wake up call arriving at MGP -just how far back this team is in terms of being comüpetitive on a constant basis.It´s just the exact opposite to Mclaren they had 2 or three races with performance below par when MGP just had a string of races when they were really competitive.
In terms of Reliabilty -there is a lot left wanting on both sides -so no news there .Mind you Schumachers points scoring table is mainly a function of his car letting him down and him getting involved into tangles far from the lead ...so exactly where would he have scored better than Schumacher is a big question as Schumi had quite good qualy speed this year and found himself in top 6 positions 8times this year -something Rosberg managed in 4 races only .

[snoop1050]

qulifying times are skewed by mercedes drs anyway...
in actual races its a different story

goto this link
http://en.mclarenf-1.com/index.php?page ... Gv94FHEtgg

click on some odf the flags at the top and choose rosberg as driver 1 , hamilton as driver 2

compare the laptimes.

wheres lewis going to find these 0.5 - 2 seconds?

[marcush.]

Along those lines of argumentation-
Hamilton has 10-9 Qualy spots in top 6 ! So his dominance over Button is ....maybe not even there considering Button had a really large bleak string of races in a row as well .
So in effect Schumacher does not really show bad at all comparing outright speed in Qualy and especially delivering under pressure .

My of course blurred personal vision of it :Hamilton would have challenged Rosberg as well as Schumacher has this year ,how the fortunes would have panned out in terms of points is on another page .

W03 had just the odd races were it was cpable of winning .Rosberg delivered once and bagged a 2nd in Monaco at that time -both times Schumachers car failed and it certainly did not fail DUE to Schumacher ..We have no reason to think a yo-yo mojo approach would have changed reliability .
The car simply has no race speed and tactics of the team seem to conservative considering the performance available from the car.

[bgroovers]

I don't know. In pure speed I think Hamilton is quicker. But I think the Merc is fickle in needing a very specific technique and/or line to drive it.

I think the Merc is fundamentally a very fast car - but it malhandles. Ross Brawn has repeatedly said (since Monza 2010, in fact) that the issue is not the speed of the car, but rather it's being plagued by handling variations through the corner. They could have entry oversteer, before having understeer midcorner and a balanced exit, and curing one phase of the corner meant the others got worse.

As such I think initially Hamilton will be slower than Rosberg as he struggles to drive it conventionally at first, before then slowly assimilating the handling properties.

Ham is well known to be able to drive an unbalanced car with devastating speed unlike Button who needs perfect balance so i would have expected Lewis to be quicker more of the time than Rosberg who is also not the most adaptable driver either.

[raymondu999]

I don't know. In pure speed I think Hamilton is quicker. But I think the Merc is fickle in needing a very specific technique and/or line to drive it.

I think the Merc is fundamentally a very fast car - but it malhandles. Ross Brawn has repeatedly said (since Monza 2010, in fact) that the issue is not the speed of the car, but rather it's being plagued by handling variations through the corner. They could have entry oversteer, before having understeer midcorner and a balanced exit, and curing one phase of the corner meant the others got worse.

As such I think initially Hamilton will be slower than Rosberg as he struggles to drive it conventionally at first, before then slowly assimilating the handling properties.

Ham is well known to be able to drive an unbalanced car with devastating speed unlike Button who needs perfect balance so i would have expected Lewis to be quicker more of the time than Rosberg who is also not the most adaptable driver either.

He has shown that much in a twitchy car. But I disagree that the imbalance at Merc is like his 09 imbalance

[marcush.]

we will certainly have to wait for 2013 to answer these questions.
Adaptable...
last year Rosberg was the Tyre reader able to exploit things unreachable to sCumacher at least in qualy.Nothing of all this translated into 2013 .
one can safely say when the car is talking to you in aw ays you can understand it will be very hard to exploit what is there.
The theme is confidence .If the beast bites you will stay away from the situation you cannot control.

[lebesset]

Do you really think McLaren is happy with a $12 million per year savings and Perez in the cockpit?

Well at the moment when they signed Perez they clearly thought it was the better idea. But afterwards they may have regretted it. So yes when they signed Perez they were most certainly happy with the deal.

I don't believe that for a moment ; keeping lewis was always plan A and haggling about money is normal at contract time and I doubt that MGP have come up with more money although maybe more commercial freedom ; but basically I feel lewis just lost confidence in McLaren

and what is the best car ? a trawl through F1 records will show it is often not the fastest , it's a good car which is bomb proof , and MGP are now capable of producing that within the next couple of seasons , they have finally been given the resources ; it's the old ..to finish first etc
my reading of the situation is that the parent company said to MGB ...if you can sign the fastest driver we will allow you to not re-sign schu [ big marketing decision ], give you the resources , and sign up to continue in F1 for the long term

well MGB DID get lewis , and daimler benz HAVE signed up

anyone here not believe that having lewis won't have a psychological effect on MGP , get that tiny bit extra out of them ? they know what alonso said is correct , he is the one driver who can win in less than the best car

so , a big step forward in 2013 ...in with the big boys and not head of the midfield ...... and winning ways in 2014

as danny de vito said in LA Confidential , you heard it here first

[Nando]

It´s a bit of a useless concept comparing drivers when they sit in different cars.
we simply don´t know how much is car and how much is driver.

We can only compare drivers in the same cars because they are the only two that run equal cars.