Formula 1 Wags #189 ATTENZIONE Monza Rawe Ceek ATTENZIONE Gran Premio d'Italia

[fryolyfe]

Yeah I agree about Lewis. He's the one person in the team I feel has reached the level of acceptance needed!

I think Merc were actually faster than AM on pure pace yesterday but the stats are affected both by George being on the hard tyres and both drivers being stuck in much slower traffic whereas Fernando's only real battle for most of the race was Checo in a RB. On pure pace in clear air, they and McLaren were on a par this weekend but McLaren still suffer from their hideous drag issues which not only affects them so much in traffic but hurt them through the vital second sector into the DRS zone, so over the course of a racing lap Mercedes were a fair bit faster. (Didn't help that McLaren chose not to run the new rear wing which would have helped massively with drag, after Oscar totalled the first one in FP2. They had a second one ready to be flown out for Lando for the Saturday and opted to leave it as they know it's going to vitally important for Monza and didn't want to risk any further damage to a second one and then not being able to fully repair things in the week's gap).
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Yeah I don't think Mercedes are closing the gap, nor will Ferrari. Even if they make sweeping changes to the philosophies over the winter, they will be miles behind in terms of development and won't have time to catch up. The main problem is that the base cars they have simply aren't able to be upgraded as they need to to reach the much higher performance ceiling so they have to start over.

The only team I think might have a chance (and it's a VERY big if) is McLaren, of closing in by 2025 in a similar way to how Red Bull did by 2021. Only reason I'm saying that though they are currently effectively a year behind in development for the new regs, murmurings out of the aero team are very interesting in the sense that they seem to know exactly what they need to do to close the gap, it's just whether or not they can get there in time before the regs changes, as RB will obviously also keep evolving. All the talk from Stella, Promrodrou etc points in a very focused direction development-wise as opposed to the floundering statements from their direct competitors right now. The current car is effectively still completely un-upgraded this year in terms of parity to the other teams (it's basically the base car they should have started the year with) and they have some big upgrades due to address suspension and drag and are already working on a DRS package as well. The base they have now is potentially very upgradeable in the right direction and that's the reason they started over, so they have that base. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next two years. AM are the only other ones I think may have an outside chance if they can nail their winter upgrades because again, they started over and have a potentially upgradeable base to work from even though they are behind in development (about 6 months ahead of McLaren).

It’ll be interesting to see for McLaren. I’m very wary of reading too much into any rumours about potential data because 9 times out of 10 they’re wrong, think the only one that ever came true was Aston for this year. Didn’t Ferrari claim their car was like 2/3 seconds faster than last years? And it’s definitely not. But again I think it’s hard to tell with Ferrari and Merc because they’re working with a flawed concept. McLaren and Aston actually have a solid base. And remember for Red Bull to catch Merc in 2021 it required reg changes. Those floor changes completely screwed over the low rake cars and massively favoured the RB style ones. Without that they’d have had another 2020 style year. Merc also barely upgraded the 2021 car, ironically so they could focus on 2022 but it was a completely different scenario to where RB are now, especially considering I don’t think they’re even stretching their legs rn. If there’s any fear of anyone catching them I think they’re holding a lot back that they can easily utilise

 

[kubnikol]

(but notably not with him)

Well he left to visit Max . so she has to do something

 

[matto]

No sign of her...

i dont think papa sainz would allow him to bring Rebecca for a paddock walk JUST yet

 

[kubnikol]

So are you telling me that first someone sends this site a picture of Carlos and Rebecca from a private plane (secret source) and now Lando with someone (they claim Magui, but that cannot be her objectively) taken what it looks like a back from that car (private follower)? Are people who hang around these guys ok? Or what else would they do for attention?
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He should check his follow list

 

[sofiamae1994]

Uhm, ok then
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Alpine going the Williams route...

 

[Pippi11]

Daniel starting in the beginning of 2024 at AT seat.
After a few races back to Red Bull.
Together with Max.
MAXIEL forever.
With Blake.

 

[kubnikol]

No penalty for Ferrari

 

[Pole er bear]

All I'm going to say is: Melissa is one lucky woman

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those arms, damn

Did he always have that tattoo?

 

[sofiamae1994]

No sign of her...

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i dont think papa sainz would allow him to bring Rebecca for a paddock walk JUST yet

I wonder how many NDAs the Sainzes have made her sign before letting her anywhere near them

 

[OOps2022]

wonderful. apparently, op was waiting by carlos' hotel (and if she was can i get pics of papa sainz? i can share).

are we counting down to "secret source" sending pics to that one IG account
(btw it is again the same, someone mentions something what is impossible to be verified and also sounds like an accidental sighting, and not an information directly from them)

 

[kiiwiih]

I really do wonder if they are only acting like they are stupid or they are stupid for real?

made me think of this gif but yeah, they really are a) stupid, b) hypocrites, c) dumb

 

[SophiaL123]

I have no problem with that. If you do, well again, I'm never going to agree with. you there, sorry.

You don't have to apologize for disagreeing with someone
People think different things, you don't have to apologize for that, nobody gets mad if you disagree with something like this, it's fine

 

[fryolyfe]

Just my opinion but I think this comment, especially Mercedes part, little bit lacks context. Mclaren in early 2000s never had dominating years as Mercedes did and the moment they had in 2008, not only they created one of the probably most memorably toxic work environements, they also commited one of the biggest scandals of f1. Definitely deserved but not being allowed to bring developments to 2009 car, being stripped of constructors money and most importantly being fined 100 million dollars (around 150 million dollars with current inflation apparently) would throw even Redbull from their domination now and it is definitely not something easy to recover from in the upcoming years. In that sense, i don't think Mclaren and Mercedes have any similarity.
Ferrari post-schumacher era is more similar but again I think Ferrari is unique in the sense of populist nationalism mixed with internal struggle for power. I mean back then this whole Santander situation led Kimi to literally quit F1, and this man is still their last champion lol.

At the end, everything comes back to 2021. None of these teams were cheated out of historic record and expected to just deal with it. I believe their "revenge arc" kind of led them to more extreme concepts of which they couldn't still grasp even after a whole season. I think in AM and Mclaren cases, new blood (like pouching the head of aerodynamics of rbr) has more effect than just admitting they got it wrong bc Mercedes also admitted their concept was nothing like they envisioned on theory multiple times but with the budget cap, you don't have any other option than just trying to improve what you have it on your hand. Though, i don't wanna sound as if i am diminishing what AM and Mclaren had achieved bc outdeveloping your engine supplier is nothing but remarkable and embarrassing on Mercedes side.

My point is not Mercedes didn't make any mistakes, they did plenty of them but while points like Mercedes being used to spend money (but somehow rbr is still the only team exceeded the budget cap), being used to winning and got lazy etc are always listed, them being cheated on 2021, its affects on team dynamics as well as Mercedes' political power is rarely mentioned which is imo the reason why Mercedes is like this rn.

Yeah I agree. McLaren haven’t been a force in the sport in the way Merc have for a long time, they were lucky to win 2008 because their car was by no means the best. Engineers have a lot of pride and admitting when you’re wrong isn’t an easy thing to do, especially when all the data you have is telling you that you’re right. Aston just splashed the cash around and naturally people were drawn to them, there’s nothing wrong with that and fair play to them but that’s evidently what’s made the difference there