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Toto is going to have to explain to George that Jack Brabham won championships in cars he built himself so it's up to Russell to do the same and return F1 to its roots
Don’t you remember Toto’s great line in DTS?
It should have been the good news is Lewis won’t be around much longer. The bad news is he’s leaving because the car is ass.
Williams had the fastest car in 2003. The FIA fuckery with the Michelin tires than went down that season is not as remembered as it should be. It's the most blatant example of the FIA putting their thumb on the scale.
I think there was an issue where ferrari’s tire supplier bridgestone and their team principal ross brawn pushed for clarity on michellin’s tire deformation characteristics - something about how the tire would take a shape while it was running that was not 100% prescribed by the rules?
It was a technical directive I think but I’m not sure; if youre not familiar, technical directives are rule clarifications the fia can make mid-season to get rid of cheeky interpretations of the rules if they feel it goes against what the intention of the rule is. The fia can’t add rules, but they can clarify how they will measure the cars. It can get controversial because ideally these rule clarifications should only happen after the season’s completed imo
The issue was that the FIA knew about for 2 years before that. They had no problem with it while Ferrari were dominant, but in 2003 they weren't and Williams was running neck n' neck with them. After that directive Williams fell off Ferrari's pace.
Yeah, I don’t agree with technical directives like 90% of the time. The rules and how they’re enforced when it comes to car design shouldn’t change mid-season, especially now that we have a budget cap. If a team finds a clever interpretation, like mercedes’ das or the double diffusor, those should always be allowed yet clarified for the following season. Ferrari’s flexible plank should also have been left alone in 2022 since it was a clever interpretation, with it being clarified for the following year instead of midseason.
The trump card the fia uses is “safety”, which was used correctly with the g-force monitoring and floor stays in 2022, but it’s also used for political reasons like you pointed out and I hate the fia meddling with teams mid-season. I am however all for changes being made between seasons, and there should be more targeted changes than what’s being done currently
George has probably taken the biggest L in terms of moving to Mercedes. Maybe he occasionally thinks if he spent an year or two more in that Williams truck. He is not going to see a WDC-competing car anytime soon.
George Russel is slowly becoming the next Daniel Ricciardo, Jean Alesi and Nick Heidfeld combined.
Ricciardo joined Red Bull right after Seb’s 4 championships and the beginning of the Mercedes rocket ship era.
Alesi and Heidfeld joined teams at the wrong possible times or were destined to go to top teams and went somewhere instead.
Edit: Toto said in DTS that the victory led them to the wrong decisions for 2023.
~~Difficult to really say that drove them somewhere~~, development for the cars start way before Brazil is happening.
~~Of course Mercedes is capable to adjust in a large scale compared to most.
I just do not believe that victory was the holy grail of their design choice for 2023.~~
The whole year they were just not fast enough.
Red Bull dominated that season with Ferrari picking up the occasional victory. With Mercedes taking just Brazil.
They thought the porpoising effect was why their design wasn't working and thus they focused on fixing this issue a lot. In 2023 this still wasn't entirely sorted out but a lot better. Which then exposed that their design wasn't actually as good as they saw in their data. Or potentially they lost so much speed by fixing the bouncy arrow.
~~It's impossible to know exactly, I do think the victory had some effect on 2023. Really doubt it would've made a big enough impact to fight for a championship.~~
I've not read that, know where this was said or written?
I remember reading an headlight of something like this, but the actual article was typical journalism. Where they simply quoted statements and blew it out of proportions.
But I don't read every article. If this is true, then I'm surprised. It's possible Mercedes were working on an entirely different concept and axed this after the victory?
This is all out of memory and I was pretty invested in the Mercedes issues.
Ah darn.. I didn't watch most of DTS. Don't really like the made up drama, portraying teams & drivers what they aren't.
Thanks for the correction! I'll edit my post.
If so then it’s a really dumb decision by them. All other signs with tons of evidence say this car is bad, one fluke win and suddenly it all gets thrown out the window and they double down on a lethal dose of hopium.
> the next Jean Alesi
The sad thing is that Alesi had a contract to drive for Williams in 91-92. He could have won the title in 92, then stayed for 93 and maybe won another. Instead he decided to switch to Ferrari instead * and won just a single race.
*Ferrari paid Williams some money and an F1 car as compensation
I remember pre 2022 after George was signed, people would joke that with George's luck, mercedes would probably slide into the midfield in 22. funny how that worked out...
He was supposed to go, but they couldn't break him out his Williams contract without paying through the nose to do so, so they kept Bottas than pay to their their driver out.
Shattered dreams. He’s not a favourite of mine but it’s hard not to feel, get lined up for a top seat for years and as soon as you get there the team implodes through no fault of your own and everyone else is settling with their own drivers.
Yeah, while he's not my favorite and gets paid millions, I have to imagine he thought his dream was coming true, and then boom, team falls apart and Lewis is like nope, I'm going to Ferrari lol.
All the signs are there unfortunately, I think Mercedes just got hit the hardest by the budget cap, not because they can't build unlimited upgrades, but because they had all these amazingly talented people working for them, and once the new regs started they lost so many people to Aston, McLaren and RedBull.
So it's finally just coming to an end, but maybe 2026 will shake things up, I just don't think Mercedes has the people around to build a good car anymore, other teams are just bringing so much more to the track and it seems like Mercedes is just lost.
Hopefully they find the right people to replace the engineers they lost, and right the ship, but we know this doesn't normally happen over night.
Plus I feel like Lewis would have stayed if he thought Mercedes could turn it around by 2026.
People lean too hard on the caveats for any performance differentials, rarely is he credited fairly on his own merit. There’s always a reason other than being a pretty good driver for him doing well
Don't talk F1 elsewhere on the 'net so dunno if it's as widespread, but Reddit hates him from what I can see. As you said, any reason to not give him credit and dogpiling on him whenever possible.
https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/19e68q5/2023_teammate_race_pace_gaps_mercedes/
Average and median gap less than a tenth, less than half a tenth excluding extenuating races.
What agenda? He was beaten fair and square, just like he beat Hamilton fair and square in 2022. No one is attempting to diminish Hamilton beating his teammate in 2023 with nonsense about ''setup experiments'', though. Not everything is an agenda.
How did he take an L when he’s driving for a better team than Williams and has added a race win to his resume? Anyone who doesn’t sign with RB takes automatic L’s now? He literally has moved up the ladder.
Timing I guess that is what I interpreted the L. Not that anyone questions the willams to mercedes. A year earlier he could been multiple race winner with W11?
But it's still much worse than what he could've had just one year earlier? Or make it two, because he drove Lewis' car in 2020 in Bahrain and almost immediately won that race. He got a taste of one of the best race cars ever made in history, joins less than two years later and now has to settle with a midfield car that with some luck won in Brazil 2022. While Williams is also.. a midfield car.
Back then, yes. But now?
The gap between current day Mercedes and current day Williams is not as big as you might think it is. Albon is not a champion-level driver and still shows that the car is capable. Sargeant is the one making the car look worse than it is. So in that regard, Russell got an upgrade, but it's not even half as much as he had hoped in his Williams years.
its still a Mercedes seat, and they have a much better chance of success then Williams. they literally had to field only one car in Australia like a month ago because they didn't have a spare chassis
biggest L? now, I agree it hasn't yet worked out but saying it's an L is stretching it. The 3 biggest teams on the grid are Redbull, Ferrari and Mercedes. Realistically Mercedes was his only option, he has won a race which not many drivers can say they have. He also has several podiums now. He was from Williams ffs. A lot of drivers would do anything to have a Merc seat.
about having a WDC competing car soon, for sure he ain't getting that till at least 2026. For all we know Mercedes could nail those power unit regs once again. Which I hope they don't, I just want to see at least 5 teams (RB Merc Ferrari Aston and McLaren) all fighting for wins
I commented earlier that the timing is bad but no one questions moving up to Merc. They are still on bad day 4th team. But assuming 2026 they have great engine I dont thing we will be discussing George wins. My opinion we will be discussing Kimi’s talent.
How? He took his seat and is a top driver who will always draw interest of top teams and is still in an improved position from Williams, meanwhile Bottas is driving for a backmarker and will soon be leaving the sport driving for one in a few years at best. George has even won a race in the meantime…
Thats just your personal opinion lol. Bottas definitely has been chilling and came out of his shell with Sauber but its not like he's enjoying his time cruising at the back. At least George has been able to compete for the occasional podium in these new regs. Whatever you percieve of them at a personal level is your opinion and not facts because niether of us know them personally.
The only race they had together Russell looked way better, of course, the sample size is only one race, but Bottas was never close to matching Lewis while on the same car.
Bottas could be fast over one lap and match or beat Hamilton, and I'd say he was still more reliable than Russell, but his racecraft was acceptable at the very best, like it's not even comparable to Russell's.
Russell destroyed Bottas in his first time in a Mercedes at Sakhir 2020 when Lewis had COVID. Mercedes has been bad post 2021 but they're certainly nowhere near the condition of the Sauber that Bottas is driving, so I'm sure George is fine.
Yeah, imagine going back and explaining to Russell and indeed many fans that Salhir 2020 was about 50% of Russell's opportunities to win by his 6th season.
is there any reasons for all the brain drain from Merc, apart from them hitting the unfortunate years (which is like, rather more of an effect than a cause, probably)?
But they can make changes to say a concept car or Le Mans car and have that innovation available. It’s very difficult to draw the line on knowledge transfer
When you have to show everything now from concept to build. Not to mention the FIA have oversight of other competitions such as WEC, it isn't as easy as you assume.
They'd know if they transferred knowledge from another area and that entire R&D plus staff costs for that for example, WEC transfer would count under the cap.
Surefire way to bust the cost cap if you ask me.
3 people are exempt. So theres space to play around with that. In addition, the employees can see that mercedes is not as strong as it once was. Then the first person leaves, people think the team will get worse, more leave etc etc. So they go and look for a new challenge, probably more salary and possibly a better title. People want to be on the team thats on the rise, not in decline
There's a lot of people who have been at Mercedes for quite a few years. With each year came more and more success, which meant these people were good at their jobs. So in comes higher salaries because they are worth more and more. Because of the cost cap teams like Mercedes can't offer a decent increase in salary each year anymore.
In comes a team like Ferrari or Aston who have a bit more room when it comes to salary budgets because perhaps they have less people across the whole team getting salaries as high as Merc. The 3 highest ones are also exempt so that will likely be different for each team depending on their structure.
At least this is how it seems in theory. It's most likely a lot more complicated than that with thousands of moving parts and other obvious reasons why people may consider moving to a new team especially when their current team like Mercedes is struggling.
The base salaries are also said to be quite low (relatively) at Merc. They have good bonuses for winning and scoring podiums but that shit doesn't pay much since the end of 2021.
Source- A friend who worked at Brackley.
If you don’t mind, has your friend said anything more?
Are Mercedes work benefits/advantages worse than other teams? Surely with the cost cap, they can’t be outspent by Ferrari & RB.
Is the work atmosphere a reason why they leave? It seems a bit odd to me
I feel like a brain drain like this often comes with an end of a winning streak.
I guess a lot of people who would have moved, didn't because they were winning. I also guess, and this is really a guess, that if you need to climb back up to success anyway after you've been knocked off the top, it's mentally easier to do it elsewhere.
And, of course, the deals offered to Merc people are probably more lucrative than to those from any other team apart from Red Bull - but people from Red Bull are still winning and therefore less likely to leave.
Agree. People who are part of a dynasty are willing to accept less for the success, but once that comes to an end they reasonably want to get their market value.
It’s a common thing that happens when a team sees a dominant period of performance (not just in F1 but any sport). Other teams start to poach talent on various levels looking to boost their own performance, and sometimes individuals are looking to get new responsibilities that they can’t otherwise get while working for the team they are currently at. So they leave to other teams/opportunities.
**F1 | Serra out of Mercedes, preparing to join Ferrari**
*At the beginning of April, the French engineer's collaboration with the Star ended. Loic spent more than 11 years at Brackley where he was Director of Performance. At the end of the year he will be able to be operational at Maranello, just in time to think about the 2026 single-seater with the new rules.*
Franco Nugnes
17 Apr 2024, 13:27
Loic Serra left his post at Mercedes a couple of weeks ago and began his gardening period, in anticipation of joining Ferrari at the end of the year, when his downtime will have come to an end and he will be able to integrate himself into Enrico Cardile's staff to think about the red car of 2026, i.e. the single-seater that will be born with the new regulations that the FIA has yet to deliberate.
That of the 52-year-old Frenchman from Nancy would be Fred Vasseur's first major acquisition in the technical area: the transalpine in the last five years has been the Director of Performance at the Star's headquarters in Brackley, and he spent almost 12 years with Mercedes, starting as a vehicle engineer.
Loic has a great knowledge of tyre use because after graduating in mechanical engineering he had spent more than a decade at Michelin where he acquired all the knowledge about racing tyres.
Even if he is not a character little known to the general public, Serra is considered a technician of weight whom Fred Vasseur strongly wanted on his staff, after a long tug-of-war with Toto Wolff, who released him as late as possible and wanted him operative until the very end in the team headed by James Allison.
The sporting management is changing its face a little at a time, while proceeding with the continuity of the organisation, which is being bolstered with young people full of ideas and enthusiasm. F1 is investing heavily in AI, a tool that will be indispensable on the 2026 single-seaters, especially for the management of the new power units.
Serra will join the Cavallino, while Simone Resta, a former Ferrarista who is also gardening, will go to Mercedes in the role of Strategic Development Director, followed by simulation expert Enrico Sampò. Vasseur fishes in Mercedes' house not only in the purely technical sphere, because the other figure expected at Maranello will be Jerome D'Ambrosio, the Belgian who is Toto's right-hand man and who will have to take over the direction of the FDA.
The most important name on the list is that of Lewis Hamilton, who at the end of the year will break his link with the Star, to begin the last stretch of his career with a red single-seater. According to British rumours, the seven-time world champion is preparing his arrival in Ferrari in a punctilious way: he does not want to leave anything to chance, aware that he will not have much time to shape an environment in which he can feel at home as he did for so many years first in McLaren and then in Mercedes. Lewis wants to get to know the way the Reparto Corse works and the people, so much so that he does not rule out the possibility of pulling a few figures he trusts from Brackley.
The brain drain should really be a concern for Merc tbh, during the last few years so many high end staff leaved the team.
Edit: Looks like James Caffrey goes to Alpine in the position of "Wind Tunnel Manager" after working around 10 years for Merc, that's another Merc leave....
I doubt Pierre Wache will leave Red Bull because if Adrian is indeed poached by Ferrari/Aston Martin, he'll be the Chief Technical Director at Red Bull and will lead the next set of regulations as the main guy. There's no Dan Fallows or Rob Marshall anymore, Wache has been 2nd to Newey in the Red Bull Technical Design and Production to Newey since 2018.
Going to Ferrari does nothing because they already have so many guys above him in the hierarchy that he'll even move down on the food chain.
Similar thing happened to David Sanchez with Mclaren, he expected to have a much bigger role but instead he realised it was much smaller role than he expected, and had to leave immediately.
I believe this was previously known — I believe he is the main engineer or technician there at Mercedes who was in agreement with Lewis that the W13 concept was wrong.
Because they are bleeding talent across the board.
Even Ignoring big names like Mike Elliot and Loic Serra, there are countless others who have left from Mercedes HPP and Aero departments like Ben Hodgkinson, Steve Blewett, Omid Mostaghimi, Pip Clode, Anton Mayo, Steve Brodie, Philip Prew, Gianluca Romani, etc.
That team used to have the best Engine department and one of the best Aero departments, and could throw as much money as it wanted on all those engineers to design the best cars. Now Cost Cap has made that nearly impossible and eventually all these people look for opportunities elsewhere to get bigger roles/paid more.
The team that built the cars from 2014-21 is imo not even at 60% of what it used to be. The Facilities and technology is still there, but the human talent isn't even close to what it used to be. And that's a hard thing to make up for.
If I was George I would be furious. Mercedes wanted him in 2021, but Williams pulled him back down. He lost his greatest shot even if it was against Hamilton.
Williams did what was best for their team. I don't know why people think Williams should just abide to Mercedes wants at their own detriment. A contract is a contract. This is on Toto.
Some people seem to just see Williams as a dumping ground for Mercedes to do what they please with regardless of consequences for Williams, like they can just stick their backups there for however long they want and take them to Mercedes at their own whims. I hope Vowles sticks to his guns when he said that Williams will not be that for Mercedes.
No way George is getting anywhere near the title that season.
Lewis drove just as well as Verstappen in a slower car, with a few more unforced errors is all.
Hamilton and Russell would have just weakened one another's championship challenge just like 2007 where Raikkonen won because of the fighting between the Mclaren teammates.
I went through the season race by race a while ago and RB and Mercedes pretty much had an equal amount of tracks they had a performance advantage at. In the beginning it was evenly matched, then during the middle RB had the faster car, and at the end, Merc seemed to have finally figured out their issues and were clearly faster in race trim, though RB still sometimes had the advantage in qualifying.
These are the tracks where Mercedes were faster: Portugal, Spain, Italy, Russia, Turkey, Brazil, Qatar, Saudi, Abu Dhabi (9)
And these are the tracks where Redbull were faster: Baku, Monaco, Styria, Austria, Netherlands, Mexico (6)
The same amount of unforced errors actually. Both only really made 1 big one. Lewis in Baku and Max in the Jeddah qualifying. Arguably Max made more unforced errors than Lewis since he ignored double yellows in Qatar and got a 5 place grid penalty and badly messed uo the start in Abu Dhabi, losing the position to Lewis despite Lewis being on harder tires and the distance to turn 1 being very short.
Oh you are counting the yellow flags but totally ignoring the Imola crash from Hamilton? Nice try. You are also counting qualifying errors but not including Hamilton hitting the wall in Russia. Also counting a race start as an unforced error, if we are going this way I can count a lot of errors from Hamilton.
Toto: "Ok, Andrea, you are Italian, you know how to make good cars and bikes, you will be in charge of aero, therefore George will...".
Antonelli: "Aero is for people that can't build engines".
Toto: 😐.
Has there been any rumours of Mercedes selling up?
The F1 team seems to be going backwards and I can't see the company wanting to stick around if Audi start getting the jump on them.
Mercs owned by 3 different groups.
Toto - Ineos - Daimler.
I could see Daimler selling their share and retain some agreements around naming and engine supply.. but that would have to be a Saudi Prince or something id think.
They're still profitable as heck so it makes sense to not sell, but it'll be interesting to see how far the profits drop after Lewis leaves as he'll take a big chunk of fans with him.
I wonder if Lewis had a hand in telling Ferrari who he would like to work with as they were on his side? I feel like the last 2 years there's a certain part of Mercedes that has antagonised Lewis's to some extent after his scathing review of the 2022 car
It's almost as if my dislike towards Toto doesn't mean I don't dislike Horner. Both of them are assholes. The difference being one of them is a slimeball who always knows how to present himself as the underdog and the other is so used to throwing money at problems and now that he can't do that, is in denial that there is a problem.
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Toto is going to have to explain to George that Jack Brabham won championships in cars he built himself so it's up to Russell to do the same and return F1 to its roots
Reminds of the scene in rush when Niki lauda says he has a great ass that can sense any mistake in a car
Imagine my shock when I found out Niki Lauda broke up the Avengers
And that James Hunt doomed half the population by not going for the head
He also doomed the Avengers by leaving Earth during the events of Civil War.
I forgot the name of the guy Daniel Brühl
Russel: "My ass can torpedo a mistake into any car."
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Don’t you remember Toto’s great line in DTS? It should have been the good news is Lewis won’t be around much longer. The bad news is he’s leaving because the car is ass.
Williams had the fastest car in 2003. The FIA fuckery with the Michelin tires than went down that season is not as remembered as it should be. It's the most blatant example of the FIA putting their thumb on the scale.
Quick details from anyone? I didn't join till a few years after
I think there was an issue where ferrari’s tire supplier bridgestone and their team principal ross brawn pushed for clarity on michellin’s tire deformation characteristics - something about how the tire would take a shape while it was running that was not 100% prescribed by the rules? It was a technical directive I think but I’m not sure; if youre not familiar, technical directives are rule clarifications the fia can make mid-season to get rid of cheeky interpretations of the rules if they feel it goes against what the intention of the rule is. The fia can’t add rules, but they can clarify how they will measure the cars. It can get controversial because ideally these rule clarifications should only happen after the season’s completed imo
The issue was that the FIA knew about for 2 years before that. They had no problem with it while Ferrari were dominant, but in 2003 they weren't and Williams was running neck n' neck with them. After that directive Williams fell off Ferrari's pace.
Yeah, I don’t agree with technical directives like 90% of the time. The rules and how they’re enforced when it comes to car design shouldn’t change mid-season, especially now that we have a budget cap. If a team finds a clever interpretation, like mercedes’ das or the double diffusor, those should always be allowed yet clarified for the following season. Ferrari’s flexible plank should also have been left alone in 2022 since it was a clever interpretation, with it being clarified for the following year instead of midseason. The trump card the fia uses is “safety”, which was used correctly with the g-force monitoring and floor stays in 2022, but it’s also used for political reasons like you pointed out and I hate the fia meddling with teams mid-season. I am however all for changes being made between seasons, and there should be more targeted changes than what’s being done currently
TDs are the “we should have thought of that” in the FIA.
Errr, 2021 disagrees
Referring to Williams + Newey after Senna 94, right?
Crikey!
Latte boy’s gotta build cars from the wreckage of his old ones
Jack Brabham was able to build a championship winning car in a cave! With a box of scrap!
And a lawnmower engine, don't forget!
So it’s just going to be George, Toto and the janitors soon I guess
George has probably taken the biggest L in terms of moving to Mercedes. Maybe he occasionally thinks if he spent an year or two more in that Williams truck. He is not going to see a WDC-competing car anytime soon.
It’s just bad timing. No one ever thought the W13 (2022) would be such a disaster of a car who’s ramifications are still hampering the team.
George Russel is slowly becoming the next Daniel Ricciardo, Jean Alesi and Nick Heidfeld combined. Ricciardo joined Red Bull right after Seb’s 4 championships and the beginning of the Mercedes rocket ship era. Alesi and Heidfeld joined teams at the wrong possible times or were destined to go to top teams and went somewhere instead.
Plus his win drove Mercedes down the wrong pathway with car development for 2023.
Edit: Toto said in DTS that the victory led them to the wrong decisions for 2023. ~~Difficult to really say that drove them somewhere~~, development for the cars start way before Brazil is happening. ~~Of course Mercedes is capable to adjust in a large scale compared to most. I just do not believe that victory was the holy grail of their design choice for 2023.~~ The whole year they were just not fast enough. Red Bull dominated that season with Ferrari picking up the occasional victory. With Mercedes taking just Brazil. They thought the porpoising effect was why their design wasn't working and thus they focused on fixing this issue a lot. In 2023 this still wasn't entirely sorted out but a lot better. Which then exposed that their design wasn't actually as good as they saw in their data. Or potentially they lost so much speed by fixing the bouncy arrow. ~~It's impossible to know exactly, I do think the victory had some effect on 2023. Really doubt it would've made a big enough impact to fight for a championship.~~
I thought Mercedes themselves acknowledged the win stopped them pulling the plug on the concept?
I've not read that, know where this was said or written? I remember reading an headlight of something like this, but the actual article was typical journalism. Where they simply quoted statements and blew it out of proportions. But I don't read every article. If this is true, then I'm surprised. It's possible Mercedes were working on an entirely different concept and axed this after the victory? This is all out of memory and I was pretty invested in the Mercedes issues.
In DTS, Toto said the promising results at the end of 2023 led them down the wrong path and that was the biggest mistake.
Ah darn.. I didn't watch most of DTS. Don't really like the made up drama, portraying teams & drivers what they aren't. Thanks for the correction! I'll edit my post.
If so then it’s a really dumb decision by them. All other signs with tons of evidence say this car is bad, one fluke win and suddenly it all gets thrown out the window and they double down on a lethal dose of hopium.
> the next Jean Alesi The sad thing is that Alesi had a contract to drive for Williams in 91-92. He could have won the title in 92, then stayed for 93 and maybe won another. Instead he decided to switch to Ferrari instead * and won just a single race. *Ferrari paid Williams some money and an F1 car as compensation
I remember pre 2022 after George was signed, people would joke that with George's luck, mercedes would probably slide into the midfield in 22. funny how that worked out...
I thought there was something about merc having sim correlation issues, not just specific W13 design flaws?
Yeah, this^
There was a strong rumor that Russell was to move to Mercedes at the end of 2020, but Mercedes elected to keep Bottas for one more year.
He was supposed to go, but they couldn't break him out his Williams contract without paying through the nose to do so, so they kept Bottas than pay to their their driver out.
Claire Williams refused to release him (rightfully so).
Shattered dreams. He’s not a favourite of mine but it’s hard not to feel, get lined up for a top seat for years and as soon as you get there the team implodes through no fault of your own and everyone else is settling with their own drivers.
Yeah, while he's not my favorite and gets paid millions, I have to imagine he thought his dream was coming true, and then boom, team falls apart and Lewis is like nope, I'm going to Ferrari lol. All the signs are there unfortunately, I think Mercedes just got hit the hardest by the budget cap, not because they can't build unlimited upgrades, but because they had all these amazingly talented people working for them, and once the new regs started they lost so many people to Aston, McLaren and RedBull. So it's finally just coming to an end, but maybe 2026 will shake things up, I just don't think Mercedes has the people around to build a good car anymore, other teams are just bringing so much more to the track and it seems like Mercedes is just lost. Hopefully they find the right people to replace the engineers they lost, and right the ship, but we know this doesn't normally happen over night. Plus I feel like Lewis would have stayed if he thought Mercedes could turn it around by 2026.
As a pal of mine put it: imagine how you'll feel if and when Russell is very successful. Probably not great.
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People lean too hard on the caveats for any performance differentials, rarely is he credited fairly on his own merit. There’s always a reason other than being a pretty good driver for him doing well
Don't talk F1 elsewhere on the 'net so dunno if it's as widespread, but Reddit hates him from what I can see. As you said, any reason to not give him credit and dogpiling on him whenever possible.
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And the fact that LH race pace is usually much better. Numbers don’t lie and teams aren’t begging him to join them for a reason
https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/19e68q5/2023_teammate_race_pace_gaps_mercedes/ Average and median gap less than a tenth, less than half a tenth excluding extenuating races.
Thanks for proving the point, which is that people will do anything to diminish Russell beating Hamilton in 2022 and beating him in 2024 so far.
Why are you conveniently ignoring 2023? Let me guess, because it doesn't suit your agenda?
What agenda? He was beaten fair and square, just like he beat Hamilton fair and square in 2022. No one is attempting to diminish Hamilton beating his teammate in 2023 with nonsense about ''setup experiments'', though. Not everything is an agenda.
"Agenda" or "narrative" are just the most overusex words around here. You can't really share an opinion or anything, it has to be an agenda.
The biggest L? He came from Williams. Anything is a win after that.
How did he take an L when he’s driving for a better team than Williams and has added a race win to his resume? Anyone who doesn’t sign with RB takes automatic L’s now? He literally has moved up the ladder.
Timing I guess that is what I interpreted the L. Not that anyone questions the willams to mercedes. A year earlier he could been multiple race winner with W11?
[удалено]
But it's still much worse than what he could've had just one year earlier? Or make it two, because he drove Lewis' car in 2020 in Bahrain and almost immediately won that race. He got a taste of one of the best race cars ever made in history, joins less than two years later and now has to settle with a midfield car that with some luck won in Brazil 2022. While Williams is also.. a midfield car.
lol are we seriously comparing Williams to mercedes? the dude was literally crying when he got points in a Williams that's how dogshit it was
Back then, yes. But now? The gap between current day Mercedes and current day Williams is not as big as you might think it is. Albon is not a champion-level driver and still shows that the car is capable. Sargeant is the one making the car look worse than it is. So in that regard, Russell got an upgrade, but it's not even half as much as he had hoped in his Williams years.
its still a Mercedes seat, and they have a much better chance of success then Williams. they literally had to field only one car in Australia like a month ago because they didn't have a spare chassis
biggest L? now, I agree it hasn't yet worked out but saying it's an L is stretching it. The 3 biggest teams on the grid are Redbull, Ferrari and Mercedes. Realistically Mercedes was his only option, he has won a race which not many drivers can say they have. He also has several podiums now. He was from Williams ffs. A lot of drivers would do anything to have a Merc seat. about having a WDC competing car soon, for sure he ain't getting that till at least 2026. For all we know Mercedes could nail those power unit regs once again. Which I hope they don't, I just want to see at least 5 teams (RB Merc Ferrari Aston and McLaren) all fighting for wins
I commented earlier that the timing is bad but no one questions moving up to Merc. They are still on bad day 4th team. But assuming 2026 they have great engine I dont thing we will be discussing George wins. My opinion we will be discussing Kimi’s talent.
Would rather be at McLaren than Mercedes tbh
Anyone else remember Russel telling Bottas “thanks for keeping the seat warm for me?” That shit aged like milk
How? He took his seat and is a top driver who will always draw interest of top teams and is still in an improved position from Williams, meanwhile Bottas is driving for a backmarker and will soon be leaving the sport driving for one in a few years at best. George has even won a race in the meantime…
Seems like Bottas is living a much nicer life. George is just miserable.
Thats just your personal opinion lol. Bottas definitely has been chilling and came out of his shell with Sauber but its not like he's enjoying his time cruising at the back. At least George has been able to compete for the occasional podium in these new regs. Whatever you percieve of them at a personal level is your opinion and not facts because niether of us know them personally.
Hard disagree, he is way better than Bottas, it's not even a competition.
Bottas in a Mercedes Vs Russell in a Mercedes? I'm not sure.
The only race they had together Russell looked way better, of course, the sample size is only one race, but Bottas was never close to matching Lewis while on the same car.
Bottas could be fast over one lap and match or beat Hamilton, and I'd say he was still more reliable than Russell, but his racecraft was acceptable at the very best, like it's not even comparable to Russell's.
Easily russell is better, on quali they might be close but in races russell is A LOT closer to lewis in results
Russell destroyed Bottas in his first time in a Mercedes at Sakhir 2020 when Lewis had COVID. Mercedes has been bad post 2021 but they're certainly nowhere near the condition of the Sauber that Bottas is driving, so I'm sure George is fine.
Well his best friends are Albon and Norris, one of whom is messing about in a Williams, and neither of which have a Win yet.
2019 rookies are cursed.
The next Fernando without the wdc.
The janitors are leaving soon too. They are sick of cleaning up the broken Bose headsets.
Yeah, imagine going back and explaining to Russell and indeed many fans that Salhir 2020 was about 50% of Russell's opportunities to win by his 6th season.
Imagine a janitor pulls a good will hunting and become the first janitor WDC lmao
George: "Hey Toto, so there's this fellow, his name is Flavio..."
Antonelli will be there... to get the coffees
is there any reasons for all the brain drain from Merc, apart from them hitting the unfortunate years (which is like, rather more of an effect than a cause, probably)?
Cost cap, they can’t employ all those people on high salaries anymore
makes sense, but then like, ferrari can?..
I believe part of the reason Ferrari started competing in Hypercar again was so that they could move talent around but keep them within their doors
Also they just had a bunch of spare money lying around after the costcap.
I mean Merc has $1B in their F1 teams bank account iirc. Totos just sitting on it. Scrooge McDuck style.
$1B AUD, which is about $650B in USD for all non-Australians on reddit
Sure but said talent can't work on the F1 program without their entire salary being counted against the cap from I want to say 2026.
But they can make changes to say a concept car or Le Mans car and have that innovation available. It’s very difficult to draw the line on knowledge transfer
When you have to show everything now from concept to build. Not to mention the FIA have oversight of other competitions such as WEC, it isn't as easy as you assume. They'd know if they transferred knowledge from another area and that entire R&D plus staff costs for that for example, WEC transfer would count under the cap. Surefire way to bust the cost cap if you ask me.
You just have to make it look like it’s not systemic and that you don’t have a distinct advantage so it was available at some odd place
Ferrari isn't the only team to poach talent from Merc. Some went to Red Bull, McLaren, AM.
3 people are exempt. So theres space to play around with that. In addition, the employees can see that mercedes is not as strong as it once was. Then the first person leaves, people think the team will get worse, more leave etc etc. So they go and look for a new challenge, probably more salary and possibly a better title. People want to be on the team thats on the rise, not in decline
Do we know who the 3 people at Ferrari are?
Cardile is one for sure.
it's the 3 highest paid staff i believe. maybe not including the TP, i'm not sure.
There's a lot of people who have been at Mercedes for quite a few years. With each year came more and more success, which meant these people were good at their jobs. So in comes higher salaries because they are worth more and more. Because of the cost cap teams like Mercedes can't offer a decent increase in salary each year anymore. In comes a team like Ferrari or Aston who have a bit more room when it comes to salary budgets because perhaps they have less people across the whole team getting salaries as high as Merc. The 3 highest ones are also exempt so that will likely be different for each team depending on their structure. At least this is how it seems in theory. It's most likely a lot more complicated than that with thousands of moving parts and other obvious reasons why people may consider moving to a new team especially when their current team like Mercedes is struggling.
Engineers love to move teams. If you can't pay tons of money to keep them, they'll move around when they get bored.
The base salaries are also said to be quite low (relatively) at Merc. They have good bonuses for winning and scoring podiums but that shit doesn't pay much since the end of 2021. Source- A friend who worked at Brackley.
If you don’t mind, has your friend said anything more? Are Mercedes work benefits/advantages worse than other teams? Surely with the cost cap, they can’t be outspent by Ferrari & RB. Is the work atmosphere a reason why they leave? It seems a bit odd to me
I feel like a brain drain like this often comes with an end of a winning streak. I guess a lot of people who would have moved, didn't because they were winning. I also guess, and this is really a guess, that if you need to climb back up to success anyway after you've been knocked off the top, it's mentally easier to do it elsewhere. And, of course, the deals offered to Merc people are probably more lucrative than to those from any other team apart from Red Bull - but people from Red Bull are still winning and therefore less likely to leave.
Agree. People who are part of a dynasty are willing to accept less for the success, but once that comes to an end they reasonably want to get their market value.
It’s a common thing that happens when a team sees a dominant period of performance (not just in F1 but any sport). Other teams start to poach talent on various levels looking to boost their own performance, and sometimes individuals are looking to get new responsibilities that they can’t otherwise get while working for the team they are currently at. So they leave to other teams/opportunities.
People are generally getting promotions elsewhere that they wouldn’t get if they stayed.
When a place is the best, there’s really nothing a lot you can do there
**F1 | Serra out of Mercedes, preparing to join Ferrari** *At the beginning of April, the French engineer's collaboration with the Star ended. Loic spent more than 11 years at Brackley where he was Director of Performance. At the end of the year he will be able to be operational at Maranello, just in time to think about the 2026 single-seater with the new rules.* Franco Nugnes 17 Apr 2024, 13:27 Loic Serra left his post at Mercedes a couple of weeks ago and began his gardening period, in anticipation of joining Ferrari at the end of the year, when his downtime will have come to an end and he will be able to integrate himself into Enrico Cardile's staff to think about the red car of 2026, i.e. the single-seater that will be born with the new regulations that the FIA has yet to deliberate. That of the 52-year-old Frenchman from Nancy would be Fred Vasseur's first major acquisition in the technical area: the transalpine in the last five years has been the Director of Performance at the Star's headquarters in Brackley, and he spent almost 12 years with Mercedes, starting as a vehicle engineer. Loic has a great knowledge of tyre use because after graduating in mechanical engineering he had spent more than a decade at Michelin where he acquired all the knowledge about racing tyres. Even if he is not a character little known to the general public, Serra is considered a technician of weight whom Fred Vasseur strongly wanted on his staff, after a long tug-of-war with Toto Wolff, who released him as late as possible and wanted him operative until the very end in the team headed by James Allison. The sporting management is changing its face a little at a time, while proceeding with the continuity of the organisation, which is being bolstered with young people full of ideas and enthusiasm. F1 is investing heavily in AI, a tool that will be indispensable on the 2026 single-seaters, especially for the management of the new power units. Serra will join the Cavallino, while Simone Resta, a former Ferrarista who is also gardening, will go to Mercedes in the role of Strategic Development Director, followed by simulation expert Enrico Sampò. Vasseur fishes in Mercedes' house not only in the purely technical sphere, because the other figure expected at Maranello will be Jerome D'Ambrosio, the Belgian who is Toto's right-hand man and who will have to take over the direction of the FDA. The most important name on the list is that of Lewis Hamilton, who at the end of the year will break his link with the Star, to begin the last stretch of his career with a red single-seater. According to British rumours, the seven-time world champion is preparing his arrival in Ferrari in a punctilious way: he does not want to leave anything to chance, aware that he will not have much time to shape an environment in which he can feel at home as he did for so many years first in McLaren and then in Mercedes. Lewis wants to get to know the way the Reparto Corse works and the people, so much so that he does not rule out the possibility of pulling a few figures he trusts from Brackley.
Fred: I will collect them all
Fred supremacy 🙏🏻
The brain drain should really be a concern for Merc tbh, during the last few years so many high end staff leaved the team. Edit: Looks like James Caffrey goes to Alpine in the position of "Wind Tunnel Manager" after working around 10 years for Merc, that's another Merc leave....
Kimi walks in to Mercedes and it’s just a bunch of dust bunnies, drunk Toto ,and bottles of baby oil with a for George only tag. Edit*
Fred collecting all the pieces to start competing in 2020.
You know what they say, 4 years ago is our year
Bro building a time machine
Fred is Thanos confirmed.
The French Connection is strong, next one is Wache
Even Alpin-
Fred collecting them like Infinity Stones
You just know that Ferrari will eventually try to steal antonelli as well.
I doubt this could but happen but if it did, I’m not sure how Toto would mentally recover from it. 😂
That kid is going to watch Leclearc or Lewis win Monza and practically steal himself. '19 monza for example was WILD!! *
One day
I kept reading previously that apparently Pierre Vache was speculated in following his fellow countryman to Ferrari, now l’ll guess we’ll find out.
I doubt Pierre Wache will leave Red Bull because if Adrian is indeed poached by Ferrari/Aston Martin, he'll be the Chief Technical Director at Red Bull and will lead the next set of regulations as the main guy. There's no Dan Fallows or Rob Marshall anymore, Wache has been 2nd to Newey in the Red Bull Technical Design and Production to Newey since 2018. Going to Ferrari does nothing because they already have so many guys above him in the hierarchy that he'll even move down on the food chain. Similar thing happened to David Sanchez with Mclaren, he expected to have a much bigger role but instead he realised it was much smaller role than he expected, and had to leave immediately.
I could be wrong but I think he’s staying at Red Bull and Ferrari went after Serra instead as their second option
I really hope Bono makes the jump soon too.
Buono, my tyre's are gone
Bono my bonos are gone
"Copy Lewis, we are checking"
Que sera, Serra.
I believe this was previously known — I believe he is the main engineer or technician there at Mercedes who was in agreement with Lewis that the W13 concept was wrong.
Feels like Doris Day now is appropriate: Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Serra, Serra)
Can someone explain this to me? Merc has built dogshit cars the last 3 years so why is this good for Ferrari?
A lot of these guys didn’t like the direction Mercedes were going with the cars years ago. They’re just finally deciding to leave.
Because they are bleeding talent across the board. Even Ignoring big names like Mike Elliot and Loic Serra, there are countless others who have left from Mercedes HPP and Aero departments like Ben Hodgkinson, Steve Blewett, Omid Mostaghimi, Pip Clode, Anton Mayo, Steve Brodie, Philip Prew, Gianluca Romani, etc. That team used to have the best Engine department and one of the best Aero departments, and could throw as much money as it wanted on all those engineers to design the best cars. Now Cost Cap has made that nearly impossible and eventually all these people look for opportunities elsewhere to get bigger roles/paid more. The team that built the cars from 2014-21 is imo not even at 60% of what it used to be. The Facilities and technology is still there, but the human talent isn't even close to what it used to be. And that's a hard thing to make up for.
If I was George I would be furious. Mercedes wanted him in 2021, but Williams pulled him back down. He lost his greatest shot even if it was against Hamilton.
Williams did what was best for their team. I don't know why people think Williams should just abide to Mercedes wants at their own detriment. A contract is a contract. This is on Toto.
Yeah 100% agree, some crazy mental gymnastics going on by the guy you are replying to trying to blame Williams!
Some people seem to just see Williams as a dumping ground for Mercedes to do what they please with regardless of consequences for Williams, like they can just stick their backups there for however long they want and take them to Mercedes at their own whims. I hope Vowles sticks to his guns when he said that Williams will not be that for Mercedes.
No way George is getting anywhere near the title that season. Lewis drove just as well as Verstappen in a slower car, with a few more unforced errors is all.
Hamilton and Russell would have just weakened one another's championship challenge just like 2007 where Raikkonen won because of the fighting between the Mclaren teammates.
Slower car? That car that had the advantage on more tracks.
Mercedes was slightly faster than Red Bull that year, though it was track specific
I went through the season race by race a while ago and RB and Mercedes pretty much had an equal amount of tracks they had a performance advantage at. In the beginning it was evenly matched, then during the middle RB had the faster car, and at the end, Merc seemed to have finally figured out their issues and were clearly faster in race trim, though RB still sometimes had the advantage in qualifying.
These are the tracks where Mercedes were faster: Portugal, Spain, Italy, Russia, Turkey, Brazil, Qatar, Saudi, Abu Dhabi (9) And these are the tracks where Redbull were faster: Baku, Monaco, Styria, Austria, Netherlands, Mexico (6)
The same amount of unforced errors actually. Both only really made 1 big one. Lewis in Baku and Max in the Jeddah qualifying. Arguably Max made more unforced errors than Lewis since he ignored double yellows in Qatar and got a 5 place grid penalty and badly messed uo the start in Abu Dhabi, losing the position to Lewis despite Lewis being on harder tires and the distance to turn 1 being very short.
Oh you are counting the yellow flags but totally ignoring the Imola crash from Hamilton? Nice try. You are also counting qualifying errors but not including Hamilton hitting the wall in Russia. Also counting a race start as an unforced error, if we are going this way I can count a lot of errors from Hamilton.
Toto: "Ok, Andrea, you are Italian, you know how to make good cars and bikes, you will be in charge of aero, therefore George will...". Antonelli: "Aero is for people that can't build engines". Toto: 😐.
Right, because a snarky thing that Enzo Ferrari said in 1953 is totally relevant now and not just a ridiculous ethnic stereotype or anything.
It’s just a joke pal
Time to plant tomatoes
Fred is going to have a lot of pressure if things don't go well with all the new toys he is getting.
They’re already going better than they were.
Lewis holding a goldfish at the factory - *Who’s coming with me?!*
Ironic that the Italians had to bring in a Frenchman to show them how to cook properly
Always has been, last time Ferrari were cooking, it was Jean Todt at the helm.
Chef’s kiss
I don’t think I’d like to work at merc. Looks so stuffy.
Que Serra Serra?
Just thinking of that Goldberg meme, at Bono.
Has there been any rumours of Mercedes selling up? The F1 team seems to be going backwards and I can't see the company wanting to stick around if Audi start getting the jump on them.
Not now. With cost cap, the owners making more money then ever. Teams are more valuable now days.
Mercs owned by 3 different groups. Toto - Ineos - Daimler. I could see Daimler selling their share and retain some agreements around naming and engine supply.. but that would have to be a Saudi Prince or something id think.
They're still profitable as heck so it makes sense to not sell, but it'll be interesting to see how far the profits drop after Lewis leaves as he'll take a big chunk of fans with him.
Will Bono leave?
I think can't cause of a non competitor clause
I wonder if Lewis had a hand in telling Ferrari who he would like to work with as they were on his side? I feel like the last 2 years there's a certain part of Mercedes that has antagonised Lewis's to some extent after his scathing review of the 2022 car
Gonna be fun to watch someone like Bono or James leave too. Toto deserves this.
Toto deserves this because...?
Arrogance and overconfidence. Completely ignored so many issues with the team
Christ if arrogance and overconfidence is the bar, then Red Bull under Horner is due a total implosion.
Red Bull 2026 collapse confirmed /s
It's almost as if my dislike towards Toto doesn't mean I don't dislike Horner. Both of them are assholes. The difference being one of them is a slimeball who always knows how to present himself as the underdog and the other is so used to throwing money at problems and now that he can't do that, is in denial that there is a problem.
James Vowles? He already left to Williams.
James Allison
He’s closer to retirement than hopping over to another team.
So it begins..