2024 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[ringo]

150 Million is a waste of money on a driver. A driver can give 2 tenths over another faster driver, New tools and engineering can give 1.5 seconds.
Or Totto can pay himself to not be Principal and take a 2 year vacation for that money.

[dialtone]

150 Million is a waste of money on a driver. A driver can give 2 tenths over another faster driver, New tools and engineering can give 1.5 seconds.
Or Totto can pay himself to not be Principal and take a 2 year vacation for that money.

Maybe that’s how Toto thinks after he let Lewis slip through, but this is also marketing, not just 0.2s.

[e30ernest]

150 Million is a waste of money on a driver. A driver can give 2 tenths over another faster driver, New tools and engineering can give 1.5 seconds.
Or Totto can pay himself to not be Principal and take a 2 year vacation for that money.

Maybe that’s how Toto thinks after he let Lewis slip through, but this is also marketing, not just 0.2s.

Yeah I think a huge part of the value here will come from marketing. I read somewhere that the team is set to lose quite a bit of market value with the departure of Lewis. Getting another multiple world champion on board will help fix that and will be worth way more than the 150M.

[dia6olo]

150 Million is a waste of money on a driver. A driver can give 2 tenths over another faster driver, New tools and engineering can give 1.5 seconds.
Or Totto can pay himself to not be Principal and take a 2 year vacation for that money.

All things being equal I think even 2 tenths is exaggerated.
Over some drivers yes, even more than 2 tenths over some, but over another top driver, I doubt it.

[ringo]

150 Million is a waste of money on a driver. A driver can give 2 tenths over another faster driver, New tools and engineering can give 1.5 seconds.
Or Totto can pay himself to not be Principal and take a 2 year vacation for that money.

Maybe that’s how Toto thinks after he let Lewis slip through, but this is also marketing, not just 0.2s.

Yeah I think a huge part of the value here will come from marketing. I read somewhere that the team is set to lose quite a bit of market value with the departure of Lewis. Getting another multiple world champion on board will help fix that and will be worth way more than the 150M.

Max does not have the same pull as Hamilton. No one outside of F1 and Holland knows what a Max Verstappen is.
Max is fairly down to earth and has normal unknown networking compared to Lewis who is more celebrity, sporting and Hollywood networking. As good as he is, it just wont be the same team with Hamilton out.
Redbull always had fun stuff to present their drivers doing between races. Racing RVs or flying some crazy fast drone against the race car. Max needed that redbull energy to really get attention. Mercedes doesn't have that kind of youth and energy to boost Max's perception or vice versa.
Totto's dark days are coming if he doesn't have Max. I don't think any other driver will patch that wound for him.

[ringo]

150 Million is a waste of money on a driver. A driver can give 2 tenths over another faster driver, New tools and engineering can give 1.5 seconds.
Or Totto can pay himself to not be Principal and take a 2 year vacation for that money.

All things being equal I think even 2 tenths is exaggerated.
Over some drivers yes, even more than 2 tenths over some, but over another top driver, I doubt it.

Imagine +0.2 vs Russel. Now that would be really shocking for 150 million vs Russel's 10 million.

[zeroday]

150 Million is a waste of money on a driver. A driver can give 2 tenths over another faster driver, New tools and engineering can give 1.5 seconds.
Or Totto can pay himself to not be Principal and take a 2 year vacation for that money.

Maybe that’s how Toto thinks after he let Lewis slip through, but this is also marketing, not just 0.2s.

Yeah I think a huge part of the value here will come from marketing. I read somewhere that the team is set to lose quite a bit of market value with the departure of Lewis. Getting another multiple world champion on board will help fix that and will be worth way more than the 150M.

The issue is Max is not, nor ever has been, marketable. And Max will be the first to admit that. This is why Lewis still is the face of F1 for years even during this period of Merc not knowing how to build a car. He is still the most globally recognizable than any other driver. A markerter's dream come true.

Being offered 150 million is indeed a waste of money, but it's more to get Max's attention, so if nabbed they are more hoping to pull other key people (e.g. quality engineers they lost to RB) to rebuild for the future. When FER stole Lewis for 100+ million a year, Merc felt they had no choice to at least offer Max the same ballpark amount to get his attention (e.g. Lewis got his ambassodorship and so Merc had to offer Max the same too). Merc clearly were caught off guard losing Lewis.

So, their 150 million is more out of desperation than sound business sense. Their car has been terrible for the last 3 years, and so they have no choice but to sweeten the pot by offering a crazy high # to hide the painful reality to Max. If there car was relatively competitive, they would NOT be offering the supposed 150 million. It would be far, far lower -- probably more like 60 million because don't forget Max/Jos/Marco are desperate to leave RBR and taking a salary that is in-line with what he is already getting would be good enough for Max, IF the car had potential to win races & champs -- the car does not -- hence, bump up the # to a crazy 150 million. Of course, this 150 million could be total bs and way off and probably is much lower.

[CHT]

Max is not going to hang around in F1 to make up the numbers, he will retire much earlier than others. If he is going to switch team, I think he will likely go straight to Ferrari and quit instead of Merc.

[zibby43]

Not saying $150 million a year isn't an absurd amount of money, BUT:

The value of getting Verstappen is *not only* him driving for you, it's also him *not driving for Red Bull*!

Verstappen is not only the best driver, meaning you boost your chances of winning, but without him, Red Bull's chances of winning are significantly reduced. In other words, getting Verstappen from Red Bull immediately and significantly increases your chances to win (this is true for all teams, not just Mercedes, btw.)

Given that the top teams used to spend like 400-500 million pre cost cap, spending that much on Verstappen is the easiest way of significantly increasing your chances to win while staying under the cost cap. It's an absurd amount of money, but that doesn't mean it's not smart or economically sound.

Someone has bought into the "driver outperforms his car" idea.

No point paying $100m for a driver if the car is not good enough. The Red Bull is half a second or more quicker than the rest - that's simple physics. No driver can go faster than the car is able to go, doesn't matter who it is. All the best drivers do is get closer to the car's pace and they do it consistently.

Max in the Merc isn't winning titles.

He's probably winning races though with a step similar to what McLaren made in Austria last year.

You don't have to dig too deep to put a dent in the "driver doesn't make a difference" theory by looking what Max Verstappen is doing to Sergio Perez on a routine basis in the same car.

Or what Hamilton did to Bottas over a race distance. Both Bottas and Perez are multiple-GP winners to boot.

[Jdn1327]

Max is not going to hang around in F1 to make up the numbers, he will retire much earlier than others. If he is going to switch team, I think he will likely go straight to Ferrari and quit instead of Merc.

Hasn't he also spoken about himself and his father starting their own racing team at some stage? You're right in saying he won't stay in F1 long. Maybe they have other plans.

[PlatinumZealot]

The Dutch are too straight forward to jump to a team lead by an over promising and under delivering team prinicpal. They know the depth of RedBull first hand and whoever is left after Newey goes is still better than the incumbents at Mercedes.

[Vanja #66]

The Dutch are too straight forward to jump to a team lead by an over promising and under delivering team prinicpal. They know the depth of RedBull first hand and whoever is left after Newey goes is still better than the incumbents at Mercedes.

The reason for Max to move as soon as next year would be to bring/attract a few people from Red Bull in a hope of rebuilding the chassis team for 2026 and making the 26 car competitive. Also to get along with the team, learn the procedures, settle in, etc. Bishop for a Queen move, basically

[Xyz22]

The Dutch are too straight forward to jump to a team lead by an over promising and under delivering team prinicpal. They know the depth of RedBull first hand and whoever is left after Newey goes is still better than the incumbents at Mercedes.

The reason for Max to move as soon as next year would be to bring/attract a few people from Red Bull in a hope of rebuilding the chassis team for 2026 and making the 26 car competitive. Also to get along with the team, learn the procedures, settle in, etc. Bishop for a Queen move, basically

Very difficult to do considering the work on the 2026 chassis will start as early as January 2025 if there are no delays.

[Vanja #66]

Very difficult to do considering the work on the 2026 chassis will start as early as January 2025 if there are no delays.

Yes, which is why I said "in a hope of..."

[Cs98]

The upgrade for this weekend may be the most important in the history of the team. If it fails it solidifies the downward spiral of the team for a third straight year, and it will not be a promising sign for next year and beyond. If it shows promise however then it sort of vindicates the decision to bring back Allison, it shows that there is an understanding of this concept and ground effect, and it will give you some leverage at the perfect time in a bid to steal Verstappen. For Toto this is as big a weekend as they come, could define the future of the team for years.