It was during the race as well, Russell was always driving away from verstappen in any range of acceleration. I watched Ver's race onboard in full with telemetry overlays (and with mini sector timings from f1 multiviewer) and it's clear just about every car had more acceleration than RB.avantman wrote: ↑Sun Nov 19, 2023 5:47 pmI think Juzh refers to qualifying performance. It's very visible on telemetry overlays, both Merc and Ferrari have steeper acceleration curves. Mercedes also suddenly raised their top speed massively, which is a function of both drag and power.NL_Fer wrote: ↑Sun Nov 19, 2023 10:59 amProbably just tuned them down a bit, because they saw some potential problems at the end of their life.Juzh wrote: ↑Sun Nov 19, 2023 10:51 amWin is a win, but at what point do we start discussing RBs continual decline in straight line speed? At this stage mercedes engine is clearly faster on full throttle, better even than ferrari, and honda is without a doubt down on power like 10-15 hp. I've seen it now too many times now to be a "coincidence". RB actually loses a lot of time on un-DRSed straights during the race since Qatar at least.
I've seen it now many times, on every track as of late almost. Sometimes it gets masked as RB is the best car and manages to negate some of the loses with better corner exits, but then when straight is a bit longer deficit is seen. In Brazil this was "partly" to blame why perez couldn't overtake alonso.
Verstappen didnt really have that much downforce on the car (organic, AR3?) and still couldn't do much against russell on straights. Russell had around +5-8 kmh on Ver on long straight, and sometimes +10 on start/finish straight, those are quite significant numbers.DoctorRadio wrote: ↑Sun Nov 19, 2023 4:56 pmIt has also to be said that Red Bull had a higher downforce rear wing at Las Vegas than both Mercedes and Ferrari; Ferrari had Monza rear wing but coupled with a double components beam wing.Juzh wrote: ↑Sun Nov 19, 2023 10:51 amWin is a win, but at what point do we start discussing RBs continual decline in straight line speed? At this stage mercedes engine is clearly faster on full throttle, better even than ferrari, and honda is without a doubt down on power like 10-15 hp. I've seen it now too many times now to be a "coincidence". RB actually loses a lot of time on un-DRSed straights during the race since Qatar at least.
Looking at the speed traces in qualifying, Mercedes (Rus) had worse corner speeds than Ver and Lec, suggesting maybe the lowest downforce config; he had an advantage on the straights vs Ver and same time spent on the straights as Lec (taking Leclerc’s last Q2 run), with Lec gaining in acceleration until around 290 (Albano talked about Ferrari having early ERS release in acceleration for better lap time), then Mercedes coming a bit back after 300, suggesting a different ERS strategy for them (however at that point drag should be the most important factor).
In the race, especially with the tows making the difference along those big straights even at a few seconds of distance, I think it’s harder to compare.
Said that, all in all, I think it was reasonable to expect Max slower on the straights.
Also, even assuming Mercedes had an advantage on Honda here (again, didn’t see it on Ferrari in qualifying), we are at the end of the season, the manufacturers are doing all they can to avoid failures and it’s possible that Honda pushed more in the first two thirds of the season and now Mercedes is able to have a bit more juice than them.
It’s hard to see it black and white at this stage of the season, with old engines.
Looking forward to your reply, as your posts are often very insightful.
As was mentioned it's possible cold temps really helped merc and ferrari PU on this track, and not so much the honda.
About albano, the guy is good in generating and analysing telemetry graphs, but doesnt know much about technical side of things, or so it seems. The supposed ferrari "early ERS release" doesn't actually exist, and they dont operate their ERS in any special way that's meaningfully different than other engines. Honestly i dont understand where or why people came up with this idea. The reason why ferrari accelerates faster (especially in early 2022) is because they simply had more engine power and were closer to weight limit. Some tiny advantage remained in 2023, but not as much.
What we're seeing from mercedes lately is more worrying in my opinion. They went from absolute trash in early 2022 to now suddenly fastest on some occasions. If they manage to produce a decent car they will be dangerous.
There are all valid considerations, however i'm only talking about horsepower in the end and general trends I'm observing. One race could be an oddity, but now it's been going on for too long to not mean something. In brazil merc team had problems, but mclaren hadn't and was faster again in straights, also alonso pulling away from perez etc etc... Little things that are forming bigger picture. Like russell flying past cars even before DRS zone just earlier today, meanwhile RB needs entire straight to pull alongside..avantman wrote: ↑Sun Nov 19, 2023 5:44 pmDon't you think Juzh, Mercedes started to push engine harder lately trying desperately to win one race this year? At COTA, Interlagos and clearly in Vegas as well. Doesn't it look similar (to much lesser extent though) to the end of 2021 season? Do you think they have the same power as Mclaren and Aston now? Is it sustainable power they could maintain coming forward, not compromising engine mileage or reliability? They looked like they had big struggles in Mexico race, having to do a lot of lift and coast, a lot more than Honda, Ferrari and even more than Mclaren. Russell struggled with overheating and had to retire ultimately in Brazil. He was by his own words heavily compromised on fuel for half of the race at COTA.Juzh wrote: ↑Sun Nov 19, 2023 10:51 amWin is a win, but at what point do we start discussing RBs continual decline in straight line speed? At this stage mercedes engine is clearly faster on full throttle, better even than ferrari, and honda is without a doubt down on power like 10-15 hp. I've seen it now too many times now to be a "coincidence". RB actually loses a lot of time on un-DRSed straights during the race since Qatar at least.
Anyway, just my thoughts and observations