2026 Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team

[Y-250.A]

ANT lost the race in the first two laps
And then lack of luck with the VSC.

Anyway, both drivers on the podium, and on top of the championship. Battle will continue.

mostly with the medium stint and that brake issue ; both his stints on the hard were amazing

[Lasssept]

[SB15]

And then you remember what the next race is... and George's, results in previous years...

[matt_b]

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.

[erudite450]

Mercedes strategy team are always too conservative. They just threw away a one-two with their usual passive approach to racing. There were two clear options: either undercut Verstappen when Antonelli closed the gap before the last stop or allow him get to lap 55 and put him on a set of softs. They ended up giving the boy too much gap to close without any significant tyre advantage. It would have even been better to follow Verstappen into the pits as Antonelli had a fundamental speed advantage. Crazy.

[Lasssept]

[Lasssept]

Toto Wolff: "It's always the balance between next year and this one, and we're pushing hard with updates in the tunnel. On paper, we have a decent decent upgrade, but we're not deploying it yet, you have to do it at the right time. Ferrari has been throwing things at their car massively. I guess they'll be running out of the cost cap soon, because we couldn't do it, we simply haven't got the margin financially. So, let's see where that leads them."

[Matt2725]

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.

They also had large tyre offsets.

[nitrotech]

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.

[OverheatedTurbo]

He needs to stop doing this.

[proteus]

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

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.

[aMessageToCharlie]

Mercedes strategy team are always too conservative. They just threw away a one-two with their usual passive approach to racing. There were two clear options: either undercut Verstappen when Antonelli closed the gap before the last stop or allow him get to lap 55 and put him on a set of softs. They ended up giving the boy too much gap to close without any significant tyre advantage. It would have even been better to follow Verstappen into the pits as Antonelli had a fundamental speed advantage. Crazy.

They pitted under yellow flags when a car was standed on track instead of waiting one more lap for the 100% certain VSC.
THAT'S where they threw it away.

[maygun]

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

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.

[Badger]

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.

[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.