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.

[Badger]

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

Kimi was 0.049 quicker in terms of race pace delta.

Not really. When in free air Kimi was faster, mostly due to better tyre life. The relative pace looks closer because Kimi lost a lot of time being stuck behind other cars and he ran a slightly suboptimal strategy by staying out really long on his first stint.

[Badger]

I sense some tension between the two drivers.

[SB15]

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

Kimi was 0.049 quicker in terms of race pace delta.

Lol Clean air vs Overtaking other cars

[zibby43]

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

Kimi was 0.049 quicker in terms of race pace delta.

Lol Clean air vs Overtaking other cars

Do you have better data to share? I’d enjoy seeing it.

[Lasssept]

The Race

- Mercedes has improved its F1 engine - but not with ADUO

Mercedes has ruled out using its ADUO token for the time being, with fresh Formula 1 engines introduced at last weekend's Austrian Grand Prix already delivering a "bit more spiciness" with performance.
..
So while at the Red Bull Ring George Russell and Kimi Antonelli were given a host of fresh power unit components - including new internal combustion engines, turbo chargers, batteries and control electronics - none of these were actually upgrades.

However, it is understood that Mercedes did use the opportunity to introduce a raft of reliability tweaks across the board aimed at addressing concerns that had emerged in the opening part of the season.

The combination of reliability tweaks, which will have given Mercedes confidence to run the power units a bit more aggressively, plus gains that come from new engines that are not suffering from end-of-life degradation, were suggested by Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff to have given it a small power boost anyway.

So, despite the door being open for Mercedes to work on upgrades to further cement its championship domination, Wolff said it is happy to remain with what it has right now.

[venkyhere]

The Race

- Mercedes has improved its F1 engine - but not with ADUO

Mercedes has ruled out using its ADUO token for the time being, with fresh Formula 1 engines introduced at last weekend's Austrian Grand Prix already delivering a "bit more spiciness" with performance.
..
So while at the Red Bull Ring George Russell and Kimi Antonelli were given a host of fresh power unit components - including new internal combustion engines, turbo chargers, batteries and control electronics - none of these were actually upgrades.

However, it is understood that Mercedes did use the opportunity to introduce a raft of reliability tweaks across the board aimed at addressing concerns that had emerged in the opening part of the season.

The combination of reliability tweaks, which will have given Mercedes confidence to run the power units a bit more aggressively, plus gains that come from new engines that are not suffering from end-of-life degradation, were suggested by Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff to have given it a small power boost anyway.

So, despite the door being open for Mercedes to work on upgrades to further cement its championship domination, Wolff said it is happy to remain with what it has right now.

In other words :
Run the ICE conservatively (enough to win all races) and win ADUO, use it to develop the electrical side even stronger, and then just update the ECU software that will run the ICE stronger.

They have played this ADUO game like Carlsen plays chess, and guaranteed themselves 4-5 years of total domination.

[Quantum]

The Race

- Mercedes has improved its F1 engine - but not with ADUO

Mercedes has ruled out using its ADUO token for the time being, with fresh Formula 1 engines introduced at last weekend's Austrian Grand Prix already delivering a "bit more spiciness" with performance.
..
So while at the Red Bull Ring George Russell and Kimi Antonelli were given a host of fresh power unit components - including new internal combustion engines, turbo chargers, batteries and control electronics - none of these were actually upgrades.

However, it is understood that Mercedes did use the opportunity to introduce a raft of reliability tweaks across the board aimed at addressing concerns that had emerged in the opening part of the season.

The combination of reliability tweaks, which will have given Mercedes confidence to run the power units a bit more aggressively, plus gains that come from new engines that are not suffering from end-of-life degradation, were suggested by Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff to have given it a small power boost anyway.

So, despite the door being open for Mercedes to work on upgrades to further cement its championship domination, Wolff said it is happy to remain with what it has right now.

Red Bull ran a pretty good challenge running a used and already allocated pool engine vs 2 brand new merc engines.

[zibby43]

The Race

- Mercedes has improved its F1 engine - but not with ADUO

Mercedes has ruled out using its ADUO token for the time being, with fresh Formula 1 engines introduced at last weekend's Austrian Grand Prix already delivering a "bit more spiciness" with performance.
..
So while at the Red Bull Ring George Russell and Kimi Antonelli were given a host of fresh power unit components - including new internal combustion engines, turbo chargers, batteries and control electronics - none of these were actually upgrades.

However, it is understood that Mercedes did use the opportunity to introduce a raft of reliability tweaks across the board aimed at addressing concerns that had emerged in the opening part of the season.

The combination of reliability tweaks, which will have given Mercedes confidence to run the power units a bit more aggressively, plus gains that come from new engines that are not suffering from end-of-life degradation, were suggested by Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff to have given it a small power boost anyway.

So, despite the door being open for Mercedes to work on upgrades to further cement its championship domination, Wolff said it is happy to remain with what it has right now.

Red Bull ran a pretty good challenge running a used and already allocated pool engine vs 2 brand new merc engines.

My only caveat to this would be that Max probably took that car to another level on that circuit. He’s magic there.

[zibby43]

From Shovlin re: George’s lap times in Austria:

“We were giving him target lap times and he was going just fast enough to achieve that. The reason he does that is making sure he's got rubber on those tires if he needs to defend at any point in the race."