2025 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[napoleon1981]

Max is no better or worse than the other drivers at turning a slow car to a winner.
Even his own Rb21 when it has a slightly off day, the great Max struggles and locks up and gets flustered. This concept of driving a donkey of a car to P1 is patently false.
Drivers will win one offs with poor cars. Gasly, Perez, Etc. But even Max isnt going to make a good car like a W16 fly around a track like the McL39.
I agree that mercedes has nothing to gain but toxicity from Max's joining. Great driver, but when you have the future in George and Kimi, it's hard to justify bringing him if he's not even working magic in his slightly slower but problematic car. Also what happens when he comes to Merc and has those crazy exist clauses and #2 driver clauses like he did at Redbull? He would leave the minute things look a little difficult.
I think George has a strong footing in the team. He is not like the disposable Sainz who was the bridesmaid to the prodigy and chosen one born in a manger at thw Scuderia Leclerc.

Forgot Suzuka already? No other driver could have won that weekend/race in the RB21. Toto absolutely wants Max, that is well documented and makes total sense. Every team principal has him at the top of the list period.

[maygun]

Kravitz, who is a relentless pot-stirrer but does have significant connections within the paddock especially @ merc

"I don't think [Russell's form] will have a bearing," Kravitz explained in Sky Sports' The F1 Show. "George could be leading the world championship, but Toto will, in all likelihood, if he gets the opportunity, sign Verstappen up for the future.
"I don't think, such is the unrelentingly cutthroat nature of Formula 1, I don't think he would think twice about replacing George Russell."

Toto doesnt really want Max. He's just saying he does to get under Horner's skin.
They have invested heavily in Russel's career and George hasnt failed them or under delivered. He is delivering as expected. There is no reason to cut that relationship. I dont think Toto has that ruthless nature. He is quite personable.

Just check how the popularity of the Mercedes team thread dropped since Lewis left, and you know why Toto wants to sign Max (apart from his driving skills). F1 is about advertising and exposure, not sports.

Only if Russell wins the WDC this will change. A world champion attracts media exposure. But even then I think he is like Rosberg, not loved or hated enough.

(edit: but for the same reason RBR cannot let Max go.....)

"popularity", you mean the toxicity around Lewis? 2/3 of the messages in the last years were about whether Lewis was washed or not, not about Mercedes or the success of Mercedes at all. Bringing Max would do the same, if the car is ready, and there about Russell would get the championship, as Max would do. If not, it would be some fans excusing Max and blaming team.

If the car is not performing, Russell would not create a toxic environment or blame the engineers and say oh they didn't listen to me or shout on the radio like an angry animal. It is like day and night, clear that this year, the team personnel are way happier.

Max also doesn't have the media exposure of Lewis Hamilton, Lewis had the story that everyone wanted, a poor family background, with a born talent, fighting with bully rich kids and becoming a global success. Max doesn't have any compelling story to sell to fans, an old toxic rich F1 dad, trying to make his kid F1 champion, at most you can sell the abuse story which Max would never play along with it.

[kurtj]

Max is no better or worse than the other drivers at turning a slow car to a winner.
Even his own Rb21 when it has a slightly off day, the great Max struggles and locks up and gets flustered. This concept of driving a donkey of a car to P1 is patently false.
Drivers will win one offs with poor cars. Gasly, Perez, Etc. But even Max isnt going to make a good car like a W16 fly around a track like the McL39.
I agree that mercedes has nothing to gain but toxicity from Max's joining. Great driver, but when you have the future in George and Kimi, it's hard to justify bringing him if he's not even working magic in his slightly slower but problematic car. Also what happens when he comes to Merc and has those crazy exist clauses and #2 driver clauses like he did at Redbull? He would leave the minute things look a little difficult.
I think George has a strong footing in the team. He is not like the disposable Sainz who was the bridesmaid to the prodigy and chosen one born in a manger at thw Scuderia Leclerc.

Forgot Suzuka already? No other driver could have won that weekend/race in the RB21. Toto absolutely wants Max, that is well documented and makes total sense. Every team principal has him at the top of the list period.

Yet, the same driver and same car couldn't win in Bahrain, not even a podium. Wonder why. It just proves that when the car works, good drivers can get great results. When the car worked, George put a dog of a Williams on, almost pole, in Belgium 2021 on a rainy day. Pulled a rabbit out of hat in Spa last year and dominated Vegas. That's what good drivers can do when car works. When the car is bad, it makes them look second rate like in Bahrain for Max. So, the car is the key, more than the driver. More such miserable weekends for Max and a few more shiny weekends for George will completely tilt the opinions by the end of the year.

Success masks obvious flaws and Max has rode the success wave very well, credit to him. But he is still the same driver that struggles in wheel to wheel racing and can't have respectable on track fights without incurring penalties and getting car damages. That's not the kind of driver you want when the other cars are a tad bit faster.

[rbirules]

Petronas opted for biofuels over synthetic fuel, and rumour has it the deal didn't work out.

https://www.motor.es/formula-1/informe- ... 07728.html

Mark Hughes:

Of the five manufacturers, one looks to be in good shape, there is a dearth of information about another, the bio-fuel choice made by one (with the other four opting for synthetic) is reportedly uncompetitive and the remaining two PUs seem a long way behind. Furthermore, many of the key components and fuels have been homologated, potentially freezing-in a very unhealthy competitive spread.

www.motorsportmagazine.com/articles/sin ... tens-erupt

So who is in good shape, can we do a guess work..

From the first article linked above . . .

Ferrari uses Shell fuel; Mercedes and its clients McLaren, Aston Martin, and Williams use fuel from Malaysia's Petronas; Red Bull Racing and Racing Bulls rely on ExxonMobil for its Mobil1 products. Alpine uses fuel and oils supplied by BP and Castrol, the same ones Audi will use starting next year. Aston Martin will switch to Aramco in 2026, which has commercial interests in the team and is rumored to have the best firewater of all.

Petronas, a 40% supplier of gasoline, opted for biofuels instead of synthetic fuel, and rumor has it that the process has been only average . The main difference between biofuels and synthetic gasoline lies in their origin and production process.

I assume "best firewater" means best fuel.

[K1Plus]

https://www.motor.es/formula-1/informe- ... 07728.html

Mark Hughes:

www.motorsportmagazine.com/articles/sin ... tens-erupt

So who is in good shape, can we do a guess work..

From the first article linked above . . .

Ferrari uses Shell fuel; Mercedes and its clients McLaren, Aston Martin, and Williams use fuel from Malaysia's Petronas; Red Bull Racing and Racing Bulls rely on ExxonMobil for its Mobil1 products. Alpine uses fuel and oils supplied by BP and Castrol, the same ones Audi will use starting next year. Aston Martin will switch to Aramco in 2026, which has commercial interests in the team and is rumored to have the best firewater of all.

Petronas, a 40% supplier of gasoline, opted for biofuels instead of synthetic fuel, and rumor has it that the process has been only average . The main difference between biofuels and synthetic gasoline lies in their origin and production process.

I assume "best firewater" means best fuel.

All that talk about "two engines long way behind", a few pages earlier. This assumes Mercedes and Ferrari good, Honda, RBPT Ford bad?

[rbirules]

So who is in good shape, can we do a guess work..

From the first article linked above . . .

Ferrari uses Shell fuel; Mercedes and its clients McLaren, Aston Martin, and Williams use fuel from Malaysia's Petronas; Red Bull Racing and Racing Bulls rely on ExxonMobil for its Mobil1 products. Alpine uses fuel and oils supplied by BP and Castrol, the same ones Audi will use starting next year. Aston Martin will switch to Aramco in 2026, which has commercial interests in the team and is rumored to have the best firewater of all.

Petronas, a 40% supplier of gasoline, opted for biofuels instead of synthetic fuel, and rumor has it that the process has been only average . The main difference between biofuels and synthetic gasoline lies in their origin and production process.

I assume "best firewater" means best fuel.

All that talk about "two engines long way behind", a few pages earlier. This assumes Mercedes and Ferrari good, Honda, RBPT Ford bad?

Seems the assumption is Ferrari good, Mercedes good but fuel is "uncompetitive", and then two a long way behind and one we know very little about. Those last two statements pertain to Honda, RBPT, and Audi, assuming the assumption about Ferrari being good is correct.

As for the two a long way behind, I would assume one is Audi, but it's just a guess. They said there's a dearth of information about one of the PUs, that could be RBPT or Audi. I haven't heard a lot about Honda but they are a current engine supplier unlike Audi and RBPT, maybe they are the other "good one".

Pretty crazy if Mercedes are uncompetitive due to fuel and they supply four teams (or at least three, will Alpine switch to Petronas when they become a Mercedes customer?), and two other PUs are also not good as that could be two teams, three teams (if RBPT), or four teams if Ferrari, along with RBPT, are the "bad ones" as they supply Haas.

Edit: Thinking about that last scenario, Ferrari and RBPT are "bad". They were the two teams pushing for V10s or delaying the new regulations. If they are bad, and Mercedes has uncompetitive fuel, then that means Honda is likely the other "good one" and Audi is the one we know little about. Honda will supply one team in 2026 (AM) and then you have Audi as a wild card, every other team is supplied by RBPT, Ferrari, or Mercedes. This could be Lawrence's best chance to make his son WDC.

[ringo]

I don't buy the fuel story. Merc3des wouls have assessed all non fossil fuel alternatives for the multiples of characteristics that they want to see from the fuel. Petronas have enough labs and computing power, I would assume, to do alternative assessments and different studies to select the optimum path to walk along for their fuel development.
If we are still talking about pre chamber combustion for the ICE then not much quantum leaps will take place there.
The active aero and the electric drive is the pandora's box.

[Paa]

There's a huge assumption that putting Max in the car will suddenly make it 3 tenths faster over Russell

I don't want to ruin the topic too much with this offtopic.
But I think the assumption is not like Max sits in the same car as Russell and he is suddenly 0.5s faster.
But more like he sits in, gives feedback to engineers that they can go more extreme with changes/setup. And slowly they tune the car to be few tenths faster, but gets so sensitive that very few drivers could tame it.

[AR3-GP]

There's a huge assumption that putting Max in the car will suddenly make it 3 tenths faster over Russell

That just isn't true. We know how Max likes his cars and it's extremely likely he'd be slower than Russell in the same Mercedes if we put them together this weekend.
Does Merc really want to become another Formula Verstappen where the team is all about him, second driver be damned? I'm not sure they do being honest.

You should go crawl the pubs in Brackley. You never know who you might run into…Some things which are believed within the Mercedes camp will in fact surprise you, and I’ll leave it at that…

[SB15]

There's a huge assumption that putting Max in the car will suddenly make it 3 tenths faster over Russell

That just isn't true. We know how Max likes his cars and it's extremely likely he'd be slower than Russell in the same Mercedes if we put them together this weekend.
Does Merc really want to become another Formula Verstappen where the team is all about him, second driver be damned? I'm not sure they do being honest.

You should go crawl the pubs in Brackley. You never know who you might run into…Some things which are believed within the Mercedes camp will in fact surprise you, and I’ll leave it at that…

Like Max staying at Redbull which is very likely, would be surprising for all the people who believes he's leaving Redbull this year and I'll leave it at that...

[AR3-GP]

There's a huge assumption that putting Max in the car will suddenly make it 3 tenths faster over Russell

That just isn't true. We know how Max likes his cars and it's extremely likely he'd be slower than Russell in the same Mercedes if we put them together this weekend.
Does Merc really want to become another Formula Verstappen where the team is all about him, second driver be damned? I'm not sure they do being honest.

You should go crawl the pubs in Brackley. You never know who you might run into…Some things which are believed within the Mercedes camp will in fact surprise you, and I’ll leave it at that…

Like Max staying at Redbull which is very likely, would be surprising for all the people who believes he's leaving Redbull this year and I'll leave it at that...

My comment wasn't about who is driving for Mercedes next year.

[AR3-GP]

Antonelli's words
"It will be a pretty fast track, I won't lie, but also very exciting. This track is really high-intensity, so it will definitely be important for everyone to try to find the right rhythm, and start the weekend in a positive way, but I'm looking forward to it," said the Italian ahead of the Saudi Arabian GP.

"For sure Bahrain was the most difficult race of the season so far, obviously a lot of things didn't go the right way, but overall I saw where I could have done better: certainly also in tyre management," he continued. "Obviously it's very different the approach you have to have when you follow the cars, it was a good learning and I hope this will be a good weekend."

"Sakhir was a good step forward at least in qualifying, because I finally felt more comfortable. Maybe I pushed a bit too hard at the start of Q3. Overall this is a real street track, and it is the first time with an F1 car. Even though I know it, driving in an F1 will be a bit different than in F2. But the car has been consistent so far on different types of tracks, so there's no reason why we shouldn't think we can fight for a good position: for sure the goal is to try to start the weekend well with a good pace, especially because it's a street track, and try to build on that base, session after session. a better result than Bahrain."

https://www.formulapassion.it/f1/f1-new ... n-imparato

[Lasssept]

Max Verstappen was reportedly offered $300 Million for 3 years by Aston Martin, as per Gazzetta dello Sport.

Negotiations with Mercedes were halted due to Max’s financial demands.

[Matt2725]

Max Verstappen was reportedly offered $300 Million for 3 years by Aston Martin, as per Gazzetta dello Sport.

Negotiations with Mercedes were halted due to Max’s financial demands.

I'm 99% certain they were halted last year, hence we got Kimi in the car for this year. They were openly courting Max for a seat at Merc for this season.

[OverheatedTurbo]

Mercs are running a new engine cover with cooling outlets and bulge around the suspension wishbone