jlanka

Thanks for that perspective, and it sounds like this is the most boring era then. New question: When will either Red Bull or Ferrari catch up to Merc? Is what they're doing so super secretive that those other teams can't figure it out?

JustinL

It's never been this dominated by a team as far back as I can remember. 2012 was the last great season. The first 7 races had 7 different winners with 5 different types of cars. In the last 3 years dominated by Mercedes, only Ferrari and Red Bull have been able to manage a combined 8 victories of the 58 races. That's less than 3 non-Mercedes wins per year.

multi21

No secret at all. The biggest thing Merc did was split their turbos -- something no one else did or thought of which gave them more torque and horse power. With more power, they are able to run more downforce as compared to others that can't feather their DF off for the straights, hence why the Merc is good at every track they go.

The Merc is superior in every way to competitors cars with the exception of their chassis where Red Bull has the slight edge, but because RB can't compete on horse power, they are often left behind.

The rumor is that with the new 2017 regulations and with Adrian Newey back working on the new car, that Red Bull will be good right out of the gate for next year and challenge Mercedes. Winter testing will show if that rumor is correct or not. Ferrari just resigned Rory Burne from their glory years of the 2000s, time will tell if they can recapture any momentum back because they are way off the pace.

MarcD147

this is the real issue this year. Max and Ricci are wringing out their cars and the Mercs are comfortably faster.

there have been moments in the past few races that max or Ricci was gaining on a M because of tire strategy and the call goes out on the radio and immediately the Mercs lap .5 or a even a whole second faster...

also of note is that the M get pole on their first run in Q3 and have a read on how fast the RBR cars can go. They then know if they have can keep the car for the second run on the same PU setting or if they need to dial it up a notch...

Cory M

Yes, F1 has jumped the shark. The racing on track is boring and predictable. I have fallen asleep so many times when watching F1. They have great technology but it's all hidden from the public so who cares. The engine specs are frozen and testing is so limited these days. The drivers are usually so (rightfully) concerned about commercial issues that they appear to have no personality. It's just not very fun or exciting to watch.

jlanka

OK so that being said (and pardon my ignorance on this) why hasn't one of the other teams done the same thing? This is the third year for them, by now it makes no sense to me that it hasn't been duplicated.

multi21

What one needs to watch is the qualifying times from Q1 to Q2 to Q3. Basically what Mercedes have done is run 8/10s in Q1 and just put in a decent time. In Q2 they have figured out that they are so fast that they are putting on a harder compound tire to just get past Q2 and often times that qualifying time is faster than all competitors but the margin is thin. The advantage is that the tire used to put in the quickest lap in Q2 is the tire you will start the race with and can run longer before the first pitstop.

In Q3 is where you see their outright speed and usually gap the field by nearly 1 second and it's a competition between the two teammates for pole -- no one else need apply.

multi21

The FIA regs do not allow for engine development. They used to be completely frozen, but more recently they've allowed for engine "tokens" for slight upgrades to performance or reliability. These "power plants" are so complex that it's not as easy as it sounds by spliting the turbos.

If you look at F1 teams that have developed far more simple components to their cars which have paid dividends in performance (Brawn GP with a double diffuser and Red Bull with their blown diffuser), it still took other teams a while to develop their own versions and play "catch up" to the originators and by that time, it was too late with regard to the championship. With no in season testing, it also makes it hard to catch up as well. Most development is all conducted on computers and wind tunnels these days... no real test track conditions....

jlanka

Again I appreciate the education here. My follow up question is: If the regs don't allow for engine development how did Merc do it?

multi21

They got it right the first time, i.e. before the last set of regulations came out they probably figured out that a split turbo engine design had advantages over the traditional set up and had objective numbers to prove it with a bench dyno.

My guess is that Mercedes knew they were onto something BIG when they did this split turbo and as a result, were able to convince Hamilton to jump a top team (at the time) like McLaren and go to Mercedes who had only won a handful of races up to that point. At the time it was inconceivable that a top driver would leave a top team for a mid pack runner. Hamilton was shown objective findings of what the Mercedes power plant could do and made a calculated risk in jumping ship. Obviously it's worked out well for both team and drivers.

jlanka

Oh man, I think I get it now. So it was just a matter of timing that Merc is staying on top, due to the other teams not being able to replicate that as a result of the new regs. Man talk about luck.

Again thanks for all the info. It's very helpful.

Jeff

DTMiller

Yes, it's fairly easy to locate a list of people who thought Hamilton going to Mercedes at that time officially made him an idiot. Time has proven otherwise, obviously, but that's a classic case of hindsight being 20/20. On that note, I'm off to buy Apple stock in the early 2000s.

ghostryder

F1 has been boring for many years. Not because of the benzo's, but because of regulation to slow down the cars and the aero that is responsible for not allowing cars to get close to each other.

ProCoach

Hah! Nailed that one...

LuigiVampa

Don't worry - it's going to be much better in 2017!