2026 Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team

[nitrotech]

George just lost a win in Spain that he should have easily controlled from the front. The reason he can't win races with ease is not him "managing things", it's that he's not got the tyre management to do what those other guys can do. When he comes out on new tyres you can just sense the hesitation to push, he knows if he pushes they will not last. That's why his lap times are so flat across a race, because he doesn't dare use his pace when the tyres are fresh. Then when he finally gets put under pressure because cars behind catch up he is forced to push and it's a coin flip if the tyre saving has been enough or not. Today it was because he still had a car advantage, but last time out in Spain against Kimi and Lewis it wasn't.

I just can’t believe he can’t get on top of it. He’s been racing for 8 years. Maybe is a driving style trade off? I don’t know.

When someone drivers those backmarker turds like Williams of 18 to 21 and horrible donkeys like Mercedes cars from 22 to 25, it's hardly surprising that he has developed such a cautious mindset towards the car and not pushing. A great 7 time WDC couldn't get any better results in those 4 years despite using all of his experience and sometimes special upgrade packages meant for him.

[OverheatedTurbo]

George just lost a win in Spain that he should have easily controlled from the front. The reason he can't win races with ease is not him "managing things", it's that he's not got the tyre management to do what those other guys can do. When he comes out on new tyres you can just sense the hesitation to push, he knows if he pushes they will not last. That's why his lap times are so flat across a race, because he doesn't dare use his pace when the tyres are fresh. Then when he finally gets put under pressure because cars behind catch up he is forced to push and it's a coin flip if the tyre saving has been enough or not. Today it was because he still had a car advantage, but last time out in Spain against Kimi and Lewis it wasn't.

I just can’t believe he can’t get on top of it. He’s been racing for 8 years. Maybe is a driving style trade off? I don’t know.

When someone drivers those backmarker turds like Williams of 18 to 21 and horrible donkeys like Mercedes cars from 22 to 25, it's hardly surprising that he has developed such a cautious mindset towards the car and not pushing. A great 7 time WDC couldn't get any better results in those 4 years despite using all of his experience and sometimes special upgrade packages meant for him.

Hopefully he can extract some more because to be honest, even with what I have said, I still think he can be bloody quick.

[SB15]

I know George won but imagine if Kimi and Max started where they should have done, he still needs to pick up the pace going forward.

Make whatever you want to make of it. George has this obsessive mentality to preserve the car and tyres. He wants to keep the car just ahead and control it. Even when he has reserve pace, he just doesn't make full use of it before going for a pit stop. It's really bad mentality and costs him a lot of time. This has been the case all through his time in F1. It makes his team mate look faster over the race stint, despite hiim winning.

George started doing 1m11s in 21st lap and kept the same pace until 71st lap. So no advantage of burning 50 laps worth of fuel? Conservative? Afraid? Overthinking? Overconfidence? Not sure what it is. He doesn't drive like Vettel or Max or even Kimi now. Push push push. In all his wins, despite having the best car on the day, he never ran away. Always finished a handful of seconds ahead.

https://i.ibb.co/LX88HSRQ/compare.png

That's damning evidence! Plus once the tyres grain up he can't really extract that much performance because he knows in a long race where tyre wear is the conversation, he's really on the back foot.

[SB15]

Make whatever you want to make of it. George has this obsessive mentality to preserve the car and tyres. He wants to keep the car just ahead and control it. Even when he has reserve pace, he just doesn't make full use of it before going for a pit stop. It's really bad mentality and costs him a lot of time. This has been the case all through his time in F1. It makes his team mate look faster over the race stint, despite hiim winning.

George started doing 1m11s in 21st lap and kept the same pace until 71st lap. So no advantage of burning 50 laps worth of fuel? Conservative? Afraid? Overthinking? Overconfidence? Not sure what it is. He doesn't drive like Vettel or Max or even Kimi now. Push push push. In all his wins, despite having the best car on the day, he never ran away. Always finished a handful of seconds ahead.

https://i.ibb.co/LX88HSRQ/compare.png

The question is why would you push to the limit and wear out components faster if you dont have to? Points are the same either way if you win a second or a lap ahead.

but satisfaction

joking side, people just follow blindly the narratives that commentators create. Commentators want excitement for more viewership.

Actually, George creates this fake excitement whenever he is in front, you believe the guy behind him would catch up, whenever they get close he put his foot into gas and the gap stays the same.

He didn't expect Lewis or Kimi to get the jump on him in Spain. That's not fake excitement, George tyre management is beyond woeful and it may have to do with his driving style being too aggressive on the initial turn-in to keep rotation, which doesn't help the tyres. He makes the point of "need to understand the tyres" when the other top drivers in the Top 4 teams seemed to have figured them out with zero issue.

The only way he can win this championship is by pure strategy and quick thinking, because on pure pace is not going to be a guarantee for his wins.

[PlatinumZealot]

George should still be worried. Kimi was faster.
The only saving grace is that conditions were hot and low grip. The conditions he doesn't like. So in a sense he reversed the damage here. There should be slightly cooler, more grippy tracks coming up.

[zibby43]

George’s pace was fine. He was just metronomic with his consistency.

Kimi was 0.049 quicker in terms of race pace delta.