Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team 2014

[Just_a_fan]

Basically, what keeps Ros afloat is all those second place finishes. If Hamilton does not suffer any more mechanicals, my money is on him.

Hamilton has scored more points / finish than Rosberg. That's the telling statistic.

[iotar__]

Basically, what keeps Ros afloat is all those second place finishes. If Hamilton does not suffer any more mechanicals, my money is on him.

Hamilton has scored more points / finish than Rosberg. That's the telling statistic.

What does it even mean in both cases?
1.What second places "keeping afloat". I thought it was being in front of your main rival and faster in qualifying. Scoring points matter? Yes it does. Why should Rosberg be ashamed of this second place in Canada for example with a broken car he was able to manage unlike Hamilton? Or Bahrain where he was faster in qualifying and the race, or in Barcelona where he was faster in the race and strategy separated them and Hamilton used engine boost. Why should he be ashamed of second place in China where his telemetry didn't work and his race ended before the start?

You know what "keeps Hamilton afloat" after blunders in Austria, Canada, GB? Ultra dominant car. In Germany it was stewards closing their eyes on breaking the rules. Hamilton has only himself to blame to not achieve second place there that apparently "keeps Rosberg afloat".

2. What's telling about it? Some cryptic you know what I mean. No I don't know what you mean. Clarify. These are not really that complicated cases, every race has a pretty clear story, no need for "telling" statistics that prove that your favourite driver is the bestest.

Edit: to cover one more, why Rosberg should be ashamed of second place in Spa where but for three circumstances (forced to give position to Button, too early stop (questionable) and tyre dangling) he could have won the race? Remember why accident happened? Because he was faster than Hamilton, closed and tried to overtake.

[SiLo]

Basically, what keeps Ros afloat is all those second place finishes. If Hamilton does not suffer any more mechanicals, my money is on him.

Hamilton has scored more points / finish than Rosberg. That's the telling statistic.

What does it even mean in both cases?
1.What second places "keeping afloat". I thought it was being in front of your main rival and faster in qualifying. Scoring points matter? Yes it does. Why should Rosberg be ashamed of this second place in Canada for example with a broken car he was able to manage unlike Hamilton? Or Bahrain where he was faster in qualifying and the race, or in Barcelona where he was faster in the race and strategy separated them and Hamilton used engine boost. Why should he be ashamed of second place in China where his telemetry didn't work and his race ended before the start?

You know what "keeps Hamilton afloat" after blunders in Austria, Canada, GB? Ultra dominant car. In Germany it was stewards closing their eyes on breaking the rules. Hamilton has only himself to blame to not achieve second place there that apparently "keeps Rosberg afloat".

2. What's telling about it? Some cryptic you know what I mean. No I don't know what you mean. Clarify. These are not really that complicated cases, every race has a pretty clear story, no need for "telling" statistics that prove that your favourite driver is the bestest.

Edit: to cover one more, why Rosberg should be ashamed of second place in Spa where but for three circumstances (forced to give position to Button, too early stop (questionable) and tyre dangling) he could have won the race? Remember why accident happened? Because he was faster than Hamilton, closed and tried to overtake.

Oh look, you're bashing Hamilton again.

Anybody with half a brain would tell you that Hamilton has been the more unlucky of the two. He has also made his fair share of mistakes however (Silverstone and Austria). Rosberg has actually made more (Monaco, Spa, Monza) yet apart from dropping 7 points in Monza, actually benefited him AND was a detriment to Hamilton at the same time. I don't know how many times in the past that a driver has made so many mistakes that actually turned into an advantage.

[SectorOne]

Or Bahrain where he was faster in qualifying and the race, or in Barcelona where he was faster in the race and strategy separated them and Hamilton used engine boost.

Lesson #1 in trolling, always disregard interesting information when it goes against your argument but put emphasis on it when the argument goes with you.

[prince]

Bahrain where he was faster in qualifying and the race, or in Barcelona where he was faster in the race and strategy separated them and Hamilton used engine boost. Why should he be ashamed of second place in China where his telemetry didn't work and his race ended before the start?

Making the picture more broader, Lewis had a good cushion of 10 seconds after the last stop. He was on medium and Nico was on faster Soft rubber. Safety car got deployed and an easy looking strategy for Lewis, ended up in eroding his lead making them fight. Nico was faster only because of different compounds. Had there been no Safety Car, there would not have been any fight at all. Lewis was just plain unlucky to get into that position, but in racing all these are possibilities

Look at the lap chart and tell us, how Nico was faster.
http://184.106.145.74/f1-championship/f ... is_V01.pdf

Code: Select all

6 N. ROSBERG	44 L. HAMILTON

1 18:05:59		1 18:05:58
2 1:40.938		2 1:40.928
3 1:40.566		3 1:40.627
4 1:40.872		4 1:40.544
5 1:40.978		5 1:40.780
6 1:40.985		6 1:41.025
7 1:40.888		7 1:40.839
8 1:40.823		8 1:40.945
9 1:40.989		9 1:40.842
10 1:40.994		10 1:41.182
11 1:41.306		11 1:41.174
12 1:41.336		12 1:41.377
13 1:41.398		13 1:41.421
14 1:41.851		14 1:41.751
15 1:41.671		15 1:42.002
16 1:41.494		16 1:41.775
17 1:41.455		17 1:41.802
18 1:42.587		18 1:42.621
19 1:43.965		19 P 1:46.545
20 1:41.442		20 1:59.311
21 P 1:44.439		21 1:39.765
22 2:01.019		22 1:39.666
23 1:39.886		23 1:40.357
24 1:40.178		24 1:39.743
25 1:40.227		25 1:39.809
26 1:40.367		26 1:40.042
27 1:40.285		27 1:40.045
28 1:40.325		28 1:40.098
29 1:40.443		29 1:40.250
30 1:40.262		30 1:40.141
31 1:40.412		31 1:40.176
32 1:40.487		32 1:39.793
33 1:40.170		33 1:40.250
34 1:40.367		34 1:39.930
35 1:40.288		35 1:39.915
36 1:40.536		36 1:40.267
37 1:40.356		37 1:40.185
38 1:40.446		38 1:40.341
39 1:40.120		39 1:40.120
40 1:40.535		40 1:40.796
41 P 1:47.842		41 P 1:43.783
42 2:32.295		42 2:44.955
43 2:26.050		43 2:25.687
44 2:33.717		44 2:33.582
45 2:21.868		45 2:22.046
46 2:21.446		46 2:22.278
47 1:38.104		47 1:38.037
48 1:37.808		48 1:37.306
49 1:37.020		49 1:37.108
50 1:37.374		50 1:37.656
51 1:37.808		51 1:37.855
52 1:39.494		52 1:39.481
53 1:39.526		53 1:39.277
54 1:38.125		54 1:37.941
55 1:37.898		55 1:37.923
56 1:37.822		56 1:37.794
57 1:38.458		57 1:38.387

You know what "keeps Hamilton afloat" after blunders in Austria, Canada, GB? Ultra dominant car. In Germany it was stewards closing their eyes on breaking the rules. Hamilton has only himself to blame to not achieve second place there that apparently "keeps Rosberg afloat".

Ultra dominant car - Hmmm... So how was that Nico couldn't overtake JEV in Hungary, whereas Lewis did?

[Kingshark]

Bahrain where he was faster in qualifying and the race, or in Barcelona where he was faster in the race and strategy separated them and Hamilton used engine boost. Why should he be ashamed of second place in China where his telemetry didn't work and his race ended before the start?

Making the picture more broader, Lewis had a good cushion of 10 seconds after the last stop. He was on medium and Nico was on faster Soft rubber. Safety car got deployed and an easy looking strategy for Lewis, ended up in eroding his lead making them fight. Nico was faster only because of different compounds. Had there been no Safety Car, there would not have been any fight at all.

Nico was easily as fast as Lewis in Bahrain, probably a few tenths faster overall.

Let's look at the facts;

1. Rosberg out-qualified Hamilton by 0.279 seconds on Saturday. Hamilton got the better start and leapfrogged Rosberg.
2. Rosberg consistently stuck within 1.5 seconds of Hamilton for the first 15 laps or so.
3. Hamilton's tyres went off before Rosberg's, and they had a great tussle for the lead which Lewis won.
4. Lewis had to push his tyres harder to maintain the same pace as Nico. This would imply that Lewis had less pace overall.
5. Hamilton was given a 6.0 second undercut by pitting several laps before Rosberg. Lewis went on the option tyres, Nico on the primes.
6. The gap increased from 6.0 to 10.0 seconds in the next 20 laps (from lap 21 to lap 40).
7. This means that Rosberg was only losing an average of 0.20 seconds/lap on the prime tyres, which are typically significantly slower.
8. When the safety car came out, Rosberg was right on Hamilton's gearbox with the better tyre, and Lewis well well to defend the win.
9. It was a better start and better race-craft, not raw pace, which won Hamilton the race in Bahrain.

Look at this stint comparison between Nico and Lewis:

Nico maintains the gap at 1.5 seconds while taking care of his tyres better (which suggests better pace), then attacks from lap 14 onward and catches up to Lewis quite rapidly.

Look at the lap chart and tell us, how Nico was faster.

They were on different tyres.

The first stint was the only comparable stint, as they were both on the same tyres. Nico was faster in that stint.

[Phil]

Nico was easily as fast as Lewis in Bahrain, probably a few tenths faster overall.

Let's look at the facts;

4. Lewis had to push his tyres harder to maintain the same pace as Nico. This would imply that Lewis had less pace overall.
6. The gap increased from 6.0 to 10.0 seconds in the next 20 laps (from lap 21 to lap 40).
7. This means that Rosberg was only losing an average of 0.20 seconds/lap on the prime tyres, which are typically significantly slower.

I agree with most of your points - but I'm not certain there's only a singular conclusion to derrive from them. You state in point 7 that in the middle stint, Rosberg only lost an average of .20 seconds/lap while on the prime tyres, which are typically significantly slower. I'm not sure I agree with that. There's no doubt that Hamilton did receive the 'optimum strategy' call by going OOP (opposed to Nico going OPO) to the best of Mercedes's knowlege at the time, but there's no conclusive evidence that the prime tyre wasn't the stronger tyre to be on in the 2nd stint. This wasn't the first race by the way, where the prime tyre held up quite well, relative to the option. They were on drifferent stints, yes, but lets not forget that Hamilton while on that 2nd stint, wasn't attempting to get the most out of his tyres - he was driving with foresight - extending the durability of his tyres and the stint, to find the sweet spot in not having to come in too early for his last stint, but also extend his gap to Nico to avoid being vulnerable. The 10 second gap was probably sufficient for the win and his strategy, if there hadn't been a safety car. It was quite similar to the race in Barcelona, where the car running on the OPO strategy seemed to be quicker than the one doing OOP.

[Kiril Varbanov]

Mercedes to use shorter gear ratios for Singapore - http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/form ... 12531.html

Pat S. from Williams also thinks that 8 gears are way too much given the available torque.

[SectorOne]

I can´t really understand the article much(google translate for german and italian is not particularly good) but is it saying only 8th will get shorter or all of them?

[turbof1]

I can´t really understand the article much(google translate for german and italian is not particularly good) but is it saying only 8th will get shorter or all of them?

Although there is emphasis that the 8th gear in particular was way too long:

Bis Monza ist Mercedes mit einem viel zu langen achten Gang gefahren.

(Basicilly telling that not counting for Monza, the 8th gear was too long. Monza was the only appropiate place to have such a long 8th gear.)

It would be very implausible to only change the 8th gear without readjusting all other gears.

[FoxHound]

From my understanding they are set in stone before the season starts, with only 1 change to all ratios permissible at any stage in the season.

30 ratio changes were permissible in 2013.

Given the torque of these motors, and the short shifting we have seen prevalent throughout the season, why change for a stop start track?

It also begs the question, did Mercedes nail ratio selection in contrast to Renault and Ferrari?
Ricciardo's 362km/h sure tells a story of a loooooong 8th gear, which may be due to them missing out on top speed when no tow is available.

[WaikeCU]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/115883

Pascal Wehrlein assigned as Mercedes F1 reserve driver. Haven't heard of the kid before, but he's German for sure.

[Thunder]

He's driving in DTM this year and if i remember correctly he is the one that does most of the Simulator driving already for Merc F1. So it seems quite logical to me.

[NTS]

Could it be that they put him there just to put some strength in any "if you don't listen to our orders you will be out of the car for one race" type threats? Because without a reserve driver they really couldn't do such a thing.

[turbof1]

Could it be that they put him there just to put some strength in any "if you don't listen to our orders you will be out of the car for one race" type threats? Because without a reserve driver they really couldn't do such a thing.

I don't believe, or atleast not that it'll work. Mercedes would never deploy an unexperienced driver. Nico and Lewis know that.