2021 AMG Mercedes F1 Team

[PlatinumZealot]

I also considered Niki to be just hanging about in search of his glory days, but now have to admit I was wrong.
While is would never be possible to nail down what he did, we so often hear team members say he was a driving force.
It also seems the team has lost something from the time his influence was fading off.
OK, there are others that left, but possibly due to the same thing.

I quickly agree that there is and can be no 'proof' but I feel it is so.

Yes. I would agree that the team has lost it's "racing edge" that Niki had. Things are just too reliant on the computer now. I definitley agree that Mercedes has suffered when it comes to making split-second race or die decisions. I even wonder if Lewis would have won France, Hungary and Austin if Niki was there.

[e30ernest]

I'm sure he would have included the 'Niki factor' in his calculations, and I feel equally as sure the missing Niki factor is costing them this year. Not a quantifiable factor, but there is 'something' missing

Remember Niki was one of Lewis biggest detractors next to Jackie Stewart at the time.
So Lewis was not expecting Niki to be good freinds but he knew that Niki Lauda was a serious man. I think Niki may have been that pinhole-lense into what was building up at Mercedes. Other than that, Niki seemed like another of the other "team advisors" up and down the grid. I remember no one was convinced it was a great move! Not even at the end of 2013!

I also considered Niki to be just hanging about in search of his glory days, but now have to admit I was wrong.
While is would never be possible to nail down what he did, we so often hear team members say he was a driving force.
It also seems the team has lost something from the time his influence was fading off.
OK, there are others that left, but possibly due to the same thing.

I quickly agree that there is and can be no 'proof' but I feel it is so.

I will admit I was in the same camp. I never really understood what Nikki was there for until his passing. I'm still not 100% on his internal role but it seems rather clear now that he had a pretty strong influence in the team and the team is feeling his loss.

[Ryar]

If driving a "Red Bull" stable F1 car gives inside information of the opposition teams, especially of the bitter rivals, then every single Red Bull driver is a genius.

If you've ever talked with someone who spends time in the paddock they will tell you it's a much tighter community than it looks from the outside. In many ways it's not much different than a small town, everyone knows about everyone else's business.

hence, having actually raced in F1, JV is a part of that community. He knows the rivalries, the politics, what it takes to compete at that level, what the different teams are like! He will also have had many private conversations with other drivers and members of the paddock.

If you've ever been in the paddock, you'll know that everyone talks to everyone else. These guys - from mechanics to drivers to team principals - have worked with each other in junior formulae. Drivers have been team mates, mechanics have worked on the same car. Everyone works their way up to F1 and all of them have been involved with others during that journey. F1 is not a sterile environment. It's why some drivers are known to be decent even if they're in a back marker team - the paddock see them all coming up through the junior formulae. They might not like an individual for personality reasons (jus as any of us may not like a colleague), but they know how good they are at their job because they know what they have done to get where they are. Rich-Daddy playboy drivers excluded, of course.

It amazes me how the Johnny-come-lately fans appear to see F1 as a silo environment. So naïve.

viewtopic.php?p=1008240#p1008240

Attack the post, not the poster.
Following that easy rule makes everything so much enjoyable for everyone.
We all come here to talk about cars, and F1 and drivers and teams.
Not to talk about what poster A thinks that poster B thinks about what moderator C did to a post from user D about user E.
Anything falling in the last category might be subject to deletion without explanation, and without consistency: treated as background noise: something to be cleaned, but not to obsess about cleaning perfectly.

Attack the post, not the poster.

Some words of wisdom there.

[Just_a_fan]

Some words of wisdom there.

By all means refute my post if you think it's in error.

[Ryar]

Some words of wisdom there.

By all means refute my post if you think it's in error.

That's precisely why I copied the mod's post there. Besides, when posters start throwing personal jibes, the argument ends there.
I would leave all the ganged up, repetitive downvoting for mods to handle. I haven't seen another thread where there is such an abuse of downvoting.

[SiLo]

Some words of wisdom there.

By all means refute my post if you think it's in error.

That's precisely why I copied the mod's post there. Besides, when posters start throwing personal jibes, the argument ends there.
I would leave all the ganged up, repetitive downvoting for mods to handle. I haven't seen another thread where there is such an abuse of downvoting.

Probably because the post was worthy of being rated negatively. I'm not even sure what the point of it was. Just_a_fan made a very good and clear point.

Just to bring us back on track slightly, I think Niki was almost there as a sounding board for execs and other staff, and was very grounded. A straight talker that appears to have offered a way to see through a lot of bullshit in the sport for the team. I feel he had a bigger impact on them than we may ever know.

[atanatizante]

At this stage of the season let`s say they need to change something very costly due to an accident/PU failure and so on but in order to do that they'll have to overpass the budget cap allowed for this year ... what happens next?

[dans79]

At this stage of the season let`s say they need to change something very costly due to an accident/PU failure and so on but in order to do that they'll have to overpass the budget cap allowed for this year ... what happens next?

Depending on how far they are over, potentially nothing. The financial rules have a bunch of clauses about overages.

[SiLo]

At this stage of the season let`s say they need to change something very costly due to an accident/PU failure and so on but in order to do that they'll have to overpass the budget cap allowed for this year ... what happens next?

Depending on how far they are over, potentially nothing. The financial rules have a bunch of clauses about overages.

Of which I am sure every single team will be pushing to the max.

[dans79]

That's precisely why I copied the mod's post there. Besides, when posters start throwing personal jibes, the argument ends there.

What exactly do you call this?

The lengths people go to, to try and make Lewis success seem any greater.

[Ryar]

By all means refute my post if you think it's in error.

That's precisely why I copied the mod's post there. Besides, when posters start throwing personal jibes, the argument ends there.
I would leave all the ganged up, repetitive downvoting for mods to handle. I haven't seen another thread where there is such an abuse of downvoting.

Probably because the post was worthy of being rated negatively. I'm not even sure what the point of it was. Just_a_fan made a very good and clear point.

Just to bring us back on track slightly, I think Niki was almost there as a sounding board for execs and other staff, and was very grounded. A straight talker that appears to have offered a way to see through a lot of bullshit in the sport for the team. I feel he had a bigger impact on them than we may ever know.

A different perspective, isn't worthy of being downvoted. Abusive, rude, discriminatory, outright lies (with reasonable evidence against it) can qualify for a downvote. There are rules that people should read to understand it well. Just because a post written about a driver or a team, isn't inline with someone sensibilities, doesn't automatically become worthy of negative rating. I don't think there is a solution for this problem, but it is a problem.

I agree with that assessment of Niki. That man knew how to build things and turn around teams. In case of Mercedes, there were many such technical/administrative folks that played a key role in putting together this team and it's foundation. The attempts to coronate a wrong man, is questionable.

That's precisely why I copied the mod's post there. Besides, when posters start throwing personal jibes, the argument ends there.

What exactly do you call this?

The lengths people go to, to try and make Lewis success seem any greater.

Answer to that question is in the genesys of the response. Besides, you should distinguish between an outright personal jibe and defining the attempt being made by some as an exercise. Don't mix them to drive a non existent narrative please. I have never resorted to personal attacks on anyone and woudn't mind apologizing if it comes across that way, even unintendedly.

[dans79]

I have never resorted to personal attacks on anyone and wouldn't mind apologizing if it comes across that way, even unintendedly.

That's your opinion! No one has innate knowledge of what someone else might consider a personal attack, trolling, antagonism, etc etc. You learn that throw communicating with others and seeing how they reasoned to you. I know users who speak a different language than me, and have vastly different viewpoints than me, but they don't garner downvotes at nearly the same rate as some users on the forum.

[ringo]

Redbull undisputably and factually fastest car this year. Mercedes have a lot of work to do. I think they are unlikely to win this year. It's possible but i think magically turnarounds donf exist in modern F1.
Redbull can drive the nail in the coffin with another win in Mexico.

[SiLo]

Redbull undisputably and factually fastest car this year. Mercedes have a lot of work to do. I think they are unlikely to win this year. It's possible but i think magically turnarounds donf exist in modern F1.
Redbull can drive the nail in the coffin with another win in Mexico.

I have to agree with this. Mercedes probably would have been in a better position if they were perfect, and capitalised on the issues Red Bull have had with accidents this year. Lewis dropped points in Hungary, lost 25 in Baku and maybe with a different strategy could have won in Austin.

I think the WCC is going to get really tight, and I expect Verstappen to pull away in the WDC now. I hope I am wrong though and we get a really tight fight for both going into the last race.

[dans79]

So is it just me, or does anyone else think Merc was testing out vastly different set-ups?

Bottas was substantially faster in sector 2, while Lewis was substantially faster in sector 3.