planetf1.com

Are you kidding? rumours? normal way? this is for gods sake a forum, I've read unsupported claims and accusations here for years : ) try google Mercedes Cheating and you will find so many answers you can spend a couple off days reading, no need to copy that in here..

There are certain posters its easier to just not engage with

I would agree. Merc have conceded he was as driving flat out, ultimately doing qualifying laps to keep the seemingly quicker Ferrari (certainly according to most analysts/reports)-at bay.

“it was nine or 10 laps of qualifying - heavy, fast laps as he was very quick and I had to do some very fast laps to stay ahead”

Talking about this. No evidence of cheating, I only read Ferrari got caught out with 2 oil tanks.

http://m.gpupdate.net/en/f1-news/358173 ... situation/

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PF1 Pick 10 Competition

2016: 24th place
2017: 4th place
2018: 12th place

Wins: Spain 2016, Canada 2017, Malaysia 2017
Podiums: 2nd Germany 2016, 3rd Mexico 2016, 3rd China 2018, 3rd Japan 2018, 2nd Mexico 2018

Fully agree : )

I think the difference between you and I is that I don't put stock in unsubstantiated internet rumors and I certainly don't make claims based solely on them.

Those are all good and valid points.

But I think the Mercedes top form this year has been around the same as Red Bull's top form in 2011 in the following races (i.e. about 0.4+ a lap advantage in race and qualifying)

Baku, Silverstone, Canada and Monza. 4/13. 31%

The 2011 Red Bull was probably in the 50-60% range of having this kind of untouchable advantage. So, whilst at this stage the Red Bull was a better car than the 2017 Mercedes, there is still enough of the season left for Mercedes to achieve a similar level of this dominance.

Certainly Monaco on wards has been very 2011 Red Bull'esque - 5 wins in 7 for Mercedes, should be 6 without the head rest issue and only getting beaten on a track tailored to there rival. This run of 7 races also included all 4 of there strongest performances this year.

A long way to go to see how it ends up, who would have guessed the 2013 Red Bull would end up being the greatest with 9 races to go in 2013.

Wasn't it Ferrari that were the worst offenders for that?

The lengths some people will go to to discredit others is quite remarkable!

Mercedes themselves keep talking about it as a weak track. And based on results at high downforce tracks this year I'd tend to agree with them

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I don't rely entirely on God

I rely on Prost

Unfortunately reality matters very little to some people these days.

Interesting little video on the Mercedes engine -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGDJqTDXgtg

Engine number 50 for the 2017 season!? That must include all there customers surely? Even so, that is a huge amount of development engines through the year.

I also read that the Mercedes engine has gained 109 BHP from the start of 2014 to now, I believe Mercedes have stated that figure themselves.

Is it true no Mercedes customer has had to take a PU related grid penalty?. I know the main team did with Lewis last year but I heard on Sky the FI boss talking and I missed whether he meant them or the customers as a whole.

Great effort if true and you'd think they'd be well placed for next year when you have to do the whole season with 3 units.

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"Clark came through at the end of the first lap so far ahead that we in the pits were convinced that the rest of the field must have been wiped out in an accident."
-Eddie Dennis, describing the dominance of Jim Clark in the Lotus 49 at Spa 1967

I've heard him say that FI never have one, I can't remember Williams having one or Mclaren in 2014-2016.. surely one of them did, maybe not? One thing is they get the engine unit usually a race or two after the works team so if anything shows up it can be fixed before they get it. They also don't run them so hard, gaining an extra 0.100-0.150 putting it into top mode in Q3 just isn't worth it for FI or Williams when an additional PU is £5 million I believe.

Since Rosberg blew his engine in Monza 2015 Mercedes works team have had quite a few. Rosbergs engine that day was a very old unit as his new one had failed. They predicted it could just about go the race distance before failing, it blew 2 laps from the end. Always impressed me how they pinpointed its failure so accurately.

Hamilton then had one in Singapore 2015 and then subsequent failures in Russia 2016, China 2016 and Malaysia 2016. Bottas also had his engine go in Spain this year, which again was a switch to an older unit as a precaution.

That is 5 engine failures for the works team in the last 40 races and I pretty sure no customers have had issues over that period. Mercedes are clearly pushing the envelope more with there own PU.

Do you honestly believe that the oilburning is a Ferrari invention, talk about hiding from reality.
If true, and I have no problem believing that the qualifying and one lap advantage, and also reliability can be explained.

Until you provide some credible evidence for your claims that Mercedes have been blatantly cheating then your words are as the buzzing of flies in my ears.

They didn't invent it no. But it's like this - if both have been breaking the rules around oil burning, Ferrari have been breaking them more than Merc have (not that two wrongs make a right). Merc exploited a loophole, Ferrari took the p!ss

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I don't rely entirely on God

I rely on Prost

Which, if true, pretty much underlines that Works teams treat their customers differently, for those that still insist otherwise. It would be strange indeed if Mercedes' own team kept getting all these failures while their customers had none, if they were indeed being subject to the same tolerances. Clearly the customers run at much more reliability-friendly settings

FI and Williams may prefer to run this way, it saves them a lot of money. An extra engine per year for maybe as little as 0.1- is terrible value for them on there budgets.

Cost dictates usage massively with these engines, I have read that Lance Stroll's Dad bought two 2014 Mercedes spec engines for Lance to use during his extensive testing program this year - $8 million for what are out of date "useless" engines that were likely spares hanging around after 2014.

I should be interested to see how these contracts are set up (not that that would ever happen). It would seem to me to be ludicrously poor commercial negotiating to not have some kind of warranty built in for failing manufacturer-supplied parts. And if their terms only allow them to run at x percent of capacity to fall under warranty, then that still demonstrates how customer teams get a worse deal. I'm sure I read a while back that customers had to request permission to use certain higher engine modes, while the Works team of course could use whatever they wanted

Mercedes may force their customers to run at sub-optimal settings (by keeping them proprietary). Thankfully, McLaren have a contractual commitment from Renault to have the same settings as the works team thereby eliminating one of the key objections from the peanut gallery.

Your comment was that Mercedes were "blatantly cheating". First of all, exploiting a loophole is not cheating. Second of all, when clarification was provided to remove the loophole, it turned out that Ferrari were exploiting it to a greater degree. So in other words; your statement was bogus.

Not entirely clear on the peanut gallery reference, but I feel I should point out that there's no actual source for the claim that "McLaren have a contractual commitment from Renault to have the same settings as the works team." But in any event, it doesn't change the above

[quote="Zoue"][quote="Herb Tarlik"][quote="Zoue"][quote="lamo"]I've heard him say that FI never have one, I can't remember Williams having one or Mclaren in 2014-2016.. surely one of them did, maybe not? One thing is they get the engine unit usually a race or two after the works team so if anything shows up it can be fixed before they get it. They also don't run them so hard, gaining an extra 0.100-0.150 putting it into top mode in Q3 just isn't worth it for FI or Williams when an additional PU is £5 million I believe.

Since Rosberg blew his engine in Monza 2015 Mercedes works team have had quite a few. Rosbergs engine that day was a very old unit as his new one had failed. They predicted it could just about go the race distance before failing, it blew 2 laps from the end. Always impressed me how they pinpointed its failure so accurately.

Hamilton then had one in Singapore 2015 and then subsequent failures in Russia 2016, China 2016 and Malaysia 2016. Bottas also had his engine go in Spain this year, which again was a switch to an older unit as a precaution.

That is 5 engine failures for the works team in the last 40 races and I pretty sure no customers have had issues over that period. Mercedes are clearly pushing the envelope more with there own PU.[/quote]
Which, if true, pretty much underlines that Works teams treat their customers differently, for those that still insist otherwise. It would be strange indeed if Mercedes' own team kept getting all these failures while their customers had none, if they were indeed being subject to the same tolerances. Clearly the customers run at much more reliability-friendly settings[/quote]

Mercedes may force their customers to run at sub-optimal settings (by keeping them proprietary). Thankfully, McLaren have a contractual commitment from Renault to have the same settings as the works team thereby eliminating one of the key objections from the peanut gallery.[/quote]
Not entirely clear on the peanut gallery reference, but I feel I should point out that there's no actual source for the claim that "McLaren have a contractual commitment from Renault to have the same settings as the works team." But in any event, it doesn't change the above[/quote]

I think it's wishful thinking, based on the fact that the deal mentioned engine parity with the works team. That just means they get the same engine, it doesn't mean they have complete freedom and they're hardly going to leak details and subdue this good news by highlighting the cons.

So Merc dominates for 3 years and as soon as Ferrari explores the "loophole" they are right up there with Merc and you believe they are worse? Strange reasoning about fuel limits, fuel additives, able to rise turbo pressure due to oil burning?

Mercedes have been misting oil that the engine was using in using the crankcase and some funky part tolerances, Ferrari just whacked a second oil tank in the car and put oil in it specifically to inject into the fuel mixture. Mercedes found the loophole, I imagine Ferrari got wind that they were burning oil somehow but either couldn't work out how or couldn't copy the behaviour with their own unit, so took the nuclear option of making it very obvious that they were doing it, probably in the hope that it would be banned completely.

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PF1 Pick 10 Competition 2019:
Current positon: 2nd | 3 Podiums | 3 Wins
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Interesting article (Autosport). Of the remaining 6 tracks, the writers claim Mercedes only has a clear edge at Sepang and Austin.


"Suzuka is going to be much closer, with sections of the track playing to the strengths of both cars.Austin then looks like Mercedes territory, but after that comes a run of tracks that could swing the performance advantage back to Ferrari. Mexico City's high altitude and thin air makes drag less of a concern and allows teams to bolt on more downforce, making it potentially Ferrari-friendly despite its long straight. Interlagos also looks good for Ferrari, with the tight, twisty infield perfect for the SF70H. Ferrari should fare well on finale venue Yas Marina's short-sharp 90-degree corners too."

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/13205 ... itle-runin

Mercedes also said Mexico should suit Ferrari. The only issue right now is that Bottas has a higher probability of finishing second at Merc tracks than Raikkonen #2 at Ferrari tracks.

Malaysia highlights why I said it was partly meaningless to state which tracks each car were better on and it was more meaningful to look at Hamilton and Vettel at an individual basis. Ferrari is the best car in Malaysia, no good if it blows up though.

Ferrari seem to be catching up again, but it's little too late unfortunately.

Those 10 extra horsepower in their new engine can't come soon enough.

Vettel won't get it though will he?

All those millions spent to develop it and its unlikely the he will even get it.

Why won't he get it? Ferrari will probably make Vettel take a 25 place penalty this weekend as they replace all his power units.

They'll both get the new engine in Japan.

Vettel will take a new engine for this race yes.

But if Vettel takes the new spec engine in Japan he will start last (or 11-13th if they take just the ICE) and effectively ends his title bid. Japan is very hard to overtake on, he would be lucky to get top 6 starting last there and likely to finish behind Hamilton if he starts 11th.

The new spec engine isn't ready and won't be for Japan. That is my understanding.

Edit -

This was incorrect. Vettel has taken the lastest spec engine after his P3 issue. So when he does an engine change before the race he is going to have another brand new latest spec engine - all components. He will have that and also lastest generation new ICE and MGU-H to finish the season on.

He will be a in a great position engine wise but that is little consolation if he is in a poor one points wise.

I agree with that as a way of comparing them to each other overall. The bottom line though is that your insistence that Mercedes have had the better car seems more and more absurd with each passing race weekend.

It doesn't because the more races we see, my numbers change. I had it at 60/40 before Malaysia. This is almost equal.

I think this is going to be a Ferrari weekend, so 55-45 in Mercedes favour now or even 50-50.

Pre Singapore, Mercedes were quite a bit ahead overall. But Ferrari have had the last 2 weekends if Malaysia goes as expected.

Over the past 5 race weekends it can be easily argued to be Ferrari where even in qualifying they could have lead 3-2, but they haven't made hay during the period due to a couple of incidents, albeit it's a good track for Vettel to still make something happen in Malaysia and Kimi should be a serious threat for the race win.

Ferrari have had the faster car in 4 of the last 5 race weekends. Only in Monza have Mercedes been quicker in the last 5. Ferrari were also fastest in 4 of the first 6 races. Not sure how anyone at this point can claim Mercedes have had the faster car over the season. My position is that it is a close matchup. If you wanted to make an argument for one car being quicker, the argument would be for Ferrari at this stage. Japan will likely be another track where they are quicker as will Mexico, Brazil and possibly Abu Dhabi...

Yeh.

It's close enough that for the two teams the driver matters more than the car. As has been said, if Vettel or Hamilton were swapped out for an average F1 driver while the other remains, then they'd be coasting to the title in either team.

This again. Ferrari were nowhere in qualifying at Spa and the race was pretty much won on Saturday. It's debatable which was the better car on Sunday but there was a clear winner in qualifying, which made it the car to have. Italy was also clearly Mercedes, as was GB. The only races where Ferrari was the clear fastest were Hungary and Singapore.

edit: brain fade and forgot Singapore

Nonsense. Ferrari were faster in Australia, Spain, Monaco, Hungary, Belgium, Singapore and Malaysia without question and at least as fast as Mercedes in China, Russia and Bahrain. Mercedes were faster in Canada, Baku, Silverstone and Monza. Even if you call Beligium a wash because of qualifying, Ferrari have been quicker at more tracks than Mercedes this season. The facts don't fit your narrative.

If it is a 1 stopper or a track that is hard to overtake on, qualifying is very important. Unless you believe Hamilton to have a slight advantage over Vettel over 1 lap - then the Mercedes has been better in qualifying over the year.

Not massively so, somewhere around 9-6 in qualifying if we assume Hamilton = Vettel, so still close.