[Formu1a.uno] Wolff: “The opponents will regret Mercedes' difficulties, we learned a lot”
formu1a.uno/wolff-gli-avversari-rimpiangerann...
formu1a.unoPosted Dec 20, 2023, 10:47 AM UTC
1.2K340
formu1a.unoI can understand their difficulties in nailing ground effect regulations, that's understandable. But consistently having a 3+ seconds pitstop and not making any efforts to improve, enrages me as a fan. Just why ;(
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Yea, when red bull had terrible engines during the hybrid era you at least saw a massive improvement in strategy and pit stop times whereas Mercedes is yet to have any significant improvement in aspects other than the cars speed
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When your car is the best you typically want to avoid risk. Why would you risk a retirement by having a pitstop half a sec faster, when even with that half a sec extra you are still most likely to win the race. This extends to so much more like tire selection, choosing when to pit and what target lap times to give your drivers.
When you don't have the fastest car risks are much more acceptable. Be the first to make a call for slicks after the rain and you might end up dead last if it's the wrong call, but might end up in the points if it's a good time to switch. So if all things being equal to the competition you probably won't end up in the points, then the negatives are mostly negated and taking risks is heavily rewarded.
Similarly but to a lesser extent teams might care more for the chance of a win than a safe podium place. This means more risk acceptance and faster pitstops.
RB has totally nailed this. They went from the fastest pit crew when they were the underdog for the occasional win to a super consistent crew the years Max is dominating. And even within the team, PER often has faster stops than VER these days because Verstappen in most races just needed to reach the finish line to win the race.
Mercedes has, in my opinion, dropped the ball here. They still take the safe and consistent path way too much while they have a lot less to lose and a lot more to gain than in their dominant years.
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What you're saying is fully correct except Mercedes hasn't been the fastest car for two whole years now. And pit stops are something one can see marked improvements within a single season. So them still being around 3 seconds is straight up inexcusable for me.
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Check their last paragraph
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That average of 3 seconds still puts them around 4th or 5th and only four tenths off Red Bull. It’s not as horrendous as you’re making it out to be.
The goal is to get the quickest car not the quickest pit stop. Toto would say the latter is for Wikipedia.
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I thought about this a few weeks ago. Serious question: Has this cost them any podiums, positions or wins? I get being the best you can at everything, but at what cost? All things being equal, losing 1 - 1.5 seconds per race can't be considered a massive deal. If they had a slightly longer pitstop than RB at Monaco and lost track position, then eventually the race because RB did a 1.9 and Merc did a 2.8 while they pit simultaneously, I'd be disappointed.
I think the person you responded to has a good point that they were so good for so long that they didn't need to be fast while RB REALLY pushed that aspect. They went from not needing to be the fastest in pit to it not mattering at all because RB was so dominant.
I do get the aggravation that they don't seem to want to push this aspect of the sport. I imagine if they lose a race win or a podium because of it, they will raise their game.
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They still take the safe and consistent path
They make way more errors in their "safe" pitstops than Redbull do in their blazing fast pitstops though.
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Mclaren is having the same problem with strategy gone from securely in the midfield to fighting in the back of the front. Their strategy calls are too conservative to compete with Red Bull, and they were so far ahead of Alpine that they could have taken more risks, like at Zandvoort
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Personally, I don't blame McLaren for this yet. They have only recently jumped up in performance. Merc should have changed their risk assessment in 2021 already.
Hopefully next year McLaren can compete for wins or at least get to that level where a risky call that pays off can get them in contention.
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You say this as if the teams with faster pit stops didn’t train to maintain quality while being faster.
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I expect they all do their very best to train to be as fast and consistent as possible.
Compare it to the relatively simple task of cutting up your veggies in the kitchen. A chef has trained this skill for many years and can make fast and consistent cuts. You probably have not. You can still perform all the motions but you cannot do it as fast as the chef.
Neither of you is moving the knife as fast as you possibly can though, that would turn into a bloody mess sooner rather than later. You have to move fast but coordinated and accurately to be successful at a task.
For the chef. If they slice something and want more consistent cuts they can slow down a bit. They will still be much faster than you but maybe 90% of what they do if they were in a rush. If they were to slow down all the way to your fastest pace they'd be able to cut damn near perfect cubes while yours look super uneven.
So back to the pit crews. They train all the motions to be as fast and consistent as possible. But if the race result is not going to be impacted by being half a sec slower they can just perform it at slightly reduced speed to reduce the chance of a mistake significantly.
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They still take the safe and consistent path way too much while they have a lot less to lose and a lot more to gain than in their dominant years.
This sounds reasonable and wise on the surface, but doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Mercedes finished second in the constructor's this year by a 3 point margin. It's not like they were fourth or fifth.
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When it's this close the pitstop times are especially important. That 0.5 sec might be one position up or more.
It's for Verstappen that this 0.5 sec is pretty much irrelevant and it was the same for Mercedes for many years in a row. But it's not any more.
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Mercedes was always a strategy shitshow in critical conditions, masked by a beast of a car.
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Merc has been lucky to have Lewis and now George because they constantly seem to be bailing the team out when they fumble a pit stop or get the strategy wrong.
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Often a shitshow but not always - Spain 2021 for example
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Often a shitshow but not always - Spain 2021 for example
i disagree. Their options were:
- don't pit and finish 2nd
- pit and finish 2nd or 1st
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Wait until you hear about Ferrari :)
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I mean you can see the pit stop trauma haha
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Mercedes philosophy:
…speed trumps all …
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Mercedes still has two elite drivers. Red Bull didn't at the time (Danny Ric and Kvyat weren't)
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Danny Ric was absolutely elite at the time. 2014 and 2016 P3 in the drivers championship by a solid margin. Consistently a top 5 driver from when he joined Red Bull to his McLaren drop off.
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But they didn't have two elite drivers. I would say that Danny Ric was probably slightly better than George at this point
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I think they have made improvements, they're pretty slow, but i don't wince like i used to as they seemed to have a sticky wheel or a bad stop every other race in 2021
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They seem to be an around half a second slower than the other top teams for pit stops this season which is really bad, even Ferrari had faster stops this year
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You are right, but they were very consistent and error free, even RB had a few mistakes with Perez's car.
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The Germans love their tech.
Hitler's WWII Wehrmacht Strategy:
Peak War: Tiger
Signs of Losing War: bigger Konigstiger
Absolutely going to lose War: Massive Maus
Near end of life: super massive Ratte
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That's because red bull had to put in the work to stay competitive. Mercedes just slapped an unbeatable engine in a car that was mediocre. They didn't really have to build a proper car to win. Now they do and I think maybe we are seeing the effects of it.
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I think that's a bit unfair, it's true that in 2014-16 they had a huge engine advantage that could hide the flaws of their cars, but after 2017 their aero was key, especially in 18 and 19 where Ferrari was at the same level or even faster.
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Well to be fair Ferrari was cheating at that point. After they got caught, the car was not nearly as good.
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Dude now you’re just being unnecessarily biased. Mercedes during their domination had the best engines but they also built the best chassis with the best aero in most if not all of those season (remember the W11?). Their car was never mediocre.
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Best chassis and aero based on what? The VAST majority of performance during the hybrid era was coming from the engine, aero was practically irrelevant. Mercedes nailed the engine regs and then benefited from the dumbest ruleset in the history of the sport, a ruleset that literally made it impossible for anyone else to catch them until the laws of diminishing returns finally started to cap their performance.
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That’s what they wanted the grid to think. Truth is, the chassi was solid!
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The mediocre car that required regulation changes to clip its wings
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Even Red Bull recognizes Mercedes also had a great chassis and aero.
Yes their engine was formidable, but to think their car was "mediocre" and they "didn't have to build a proper car to win" is absolutely ridiculous.
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From what I understand, the cost cap is why they haven’t made a step forward with pit stops. They haven’t invested in newer equipment so they could allocate that money into the car. I believe they are looking to fix that possibly in 2024.
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Training to sync actions is slso an improvement. Doesn't need new equipment
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Of course but the wheel guns had a change I believe in 2021 or 2022 and that’s part of the reason why Mercedes are behind in this regard. They didn’t update their wheel guns.
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Maybe I’m underestimating the cost of wheel guns, but that cost was worth reallocating towards the car? How much are wheel guns? Couldn’t they make up the cost of that by Toto flying commercially just one trip?
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how much time is being lost here you think ?
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I read in several interviews that they are aware of the issue and that it's partly due to cost cap preventing them from improving the equipment.
Some also suggested that they never trained to be the fastest but rather the most reliable as possible. Which would make sense as for 7 years they only had to ensure a good enough stop and the car would close the gap on track.
I agree it's not a good strategy anymore and they need to make serious improvement. I especially wonder how much can be gained from new equipment, I wouldn't expect it to be that much tbh
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If they are losing 1-2 seconds per pit stop… that is quite a bit , considering how close the times are now with the current level of performance…(max excluded). I mean we are talk hundredth of second between 1 and 10th position . Even under race conditions where there are two pit stops on average a 2-4 second deficit is a difficult ask for the current generation of cars to make up.
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It’s two jacks and 4 wheel guns. I get that the wheel guns are probably really expensive, but what kind of performance gain could really be had there? I’m sure they’re already maxed out to peak allowable performance. I think it’s the pit crew training and strategy
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Thats not the equipment he means, you do realise the likes of Williams and RB had very elaborate set ups for simulating pit stops at the factory so pit teams can practice. Particulars are not fully known but there was significant investment put into building it.
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Williams has a sled built into a wall for each "corner" team to practice on, and then like everyone else they practice on the full car.
Red Bull has an old chassis with an electric motor installed in it which they drill on constantly. Particulars are known, they are both featured in videos released by the team.
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fix your fuckin pitcrew
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I agree but honestly the most important thing is solving their car issues. Then once you get that solved you can work on fixing the easier stuff. I kind of chuckled seeing all the comments about pit stops under Merc Youtube videos. Like, guys, you’ve got bigger issues than the pit stops lol.
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I mean, they're separate departments and a team can do more than 1 thing at a time. The pit team isn't sitting behind drafting tables working on the aero.
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I know I just found it funny how there was so much focus on the pit stops when realistically that’s marginal gains compared to a better car.
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I always bring this up. When they had a massively better car they ignored the importance of pit crew efficiency and strategy. Once they realized they were on the back foot with the car they should have done what RB did when they had that crappy Renault engine and get better at everything that is controllable. McLaren improved tremendously in pit crew efficiency, and even Ferrari was much better than Mercedes in pit stops. Strategy will remain the joke with Ferrari, but they were fast and efficient.
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Merc needs to do what a lot of NASCAR teams have done. Hire athletes who are very good but not quite make the cut for professonal sports.
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Cool Runnings
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What good is 0.5/1sec difference in a pitstop when you are finishing 20+ seconds behind the leaders.
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Because if you are a very small number of seconds ahead of someone and they pit to undercut, you can respond a lap later and maybe not end up behind them from your pitstop being slower than theirs.
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They nailed it for George to pass Lando when it counted.
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Can’t remember which race it was this year, but I think I recall that Lewis finished second by less time than his pit stop was long over??
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Red Bull aims for quick pit stops because it’s there brand. Red Bull gives you wings, or awesomeness, or whatever. McLaren took the quickest pit stop record off of them, so in jest, they had to respond with ‘the quickest pit stop in the dark’ record??
Their quick pit stops almost killed a man, and over the decade they’ve been plagued with loose wheel incidents. So that begs the question, why risk a DNF, DSQ, or at the very least a severe penalty for two tenths that can be easily lost in a lock up on the out lap or from pit traffic on release?
It’s on brand, is all.
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Their quick pit stops almost killed a man, and over the decade they’ve been plagued with loose wheel incidents.
What loose tire incidents? I can't think of any for RB in the turbo hybrid era, but i might be forgetting. I really doubt there was so many as to be considered "plagued" by that however
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Yeah i know about that one, but that wasn't in the turbo hybrid era
One incident that happened going on 12 years ago doesn't mean that RB's pit stop approach leaves them plagued with incidents.
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Why does he keep saying stuff like this? He should wait for their performance to speak for itself.
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He should book Hans Niemann as a performance coach
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Google en porpoisant
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Holy Hill!
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New aerodynamic oversight just dropped
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Toto seems to be in the process of degrading himself down to Hans' level of maturity, that's for sure.
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Vibrating anal beads to be specifically banned as part of the jewelry rule
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I think Toto would destroy Piers Morgan in a 1 on 1 interview
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He didn't
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He didn't what?
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It's not a quote from him, F1 "media" outlets have a bad habit of wildly extrapolating from real quotes to make up these clickbait headlines.
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Two Redbull guys defending Toto. Love it.
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Toto-800 is no more…..next year it’s Toto-1000 time !!!!
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Starting to get used to him talking shit that doesn't materialize.
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Dark Wolff timeline
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Main character syndrome
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I mean, is it main character syndrome when you're literally one of the main characters of the whole show?
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They know the benchmark for other cars, they know the performance of their own cars.
Aston and McLaren found huge leaps going down a particular design route, to the point they were rapidly closing the gap to RB. Mercedes have learned a lot with their troublesome set up, if Aston and McLaren can make a huge leap, i would expect Mercedes to make an even bigger leap to close the gap.
There is a lot of talk coming from the Mercedes camp, they seem to genuinely believe they've found something. If any team out there is going to do that, it's Mercedes.
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Nah they said similar things pre season in 2022 and 2023. I'm not going to believe them until I actually see it.
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They had correlation issues in the wind tunnel for 2022, making them think they were generating massive amounts of downforce. Which they have since fixed.
They had a very strong end of the season in 2022, looking like they had finally cracked their concept, and convinced them to stick with it in 2023.
Switching to the RB concept brought instant gains to Aston and McLaren, no reason to suggest they won't do the same. We also don't know how deep the development goes with the RB concept, if RB are near the end then there will be a convergence in pace.
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I don't doubt that all that could be true but the last two years have made me skeptical. It could well happen but I'm not going to take their word for it until I see it.
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Probably because a journalist asked him about it?
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Then he should have said something like "we're optimistic about next year but of course we'll have to wait until testing to know for sure"
I don't think it's wise to make such definitive statements
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Well considering he didn't actually say what was in the headline...
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He is salesman very good one, he has to because of stake holders
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Also "our opponents will regret that we were slow”, like, your opponent didn't do that. You did lol
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Because he loves the attention.
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I remember when Toto used to say that they did their talking out on track. Now they seem to talk far more than any other team. It's getting annoying hearing all Merc's promises only for them to disappoint.
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I’m sure the sponsors would love a good “yeah the car was shit and we still have no idea what to do. No way we’re coming close to Red Bull next year”
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No but something like "we're optimistic for next year but we'll have to wait until Bahrain to know for sure" would be a bit better surely
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Yeah I'm sure Red Bull really regrets these past two years. All they got from it was a record breaking season and a head start for the final two years of the regulations
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Terrible for Red Bull.
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Yeah, everyone hyping red bull up for no reason
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RIP Red Bull shout out to its family
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They were so washed at Singapore
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Honestly? I don't think they will last long in the sport if they continue performing like that...
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Should've made more mistakes, then they'd have learned more
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Did you see the complete lack of progress this year at RB? Ver only had 68 overtakes on the whole season, thats a P5 stat. Whole team is going down hill.
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Yeah RB really messed up here
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Didn’t you know? They had a target on their backs. Toto and Wolff were coming for them.
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"At the beginning of the season I would have said that there was no difference between P2 and P3, on the contrary, on a sporting level P3 gives you more time in the wind tunnel. However, there is a financial component but also motivation for the whole team. That night (after the race in Abu Dhabi) I saw the emotion and morale of the team and it was important."
I like this answer, because I always felt like P3 is "better" than P2 with the new regulations.
Also, the headline isn't actually in the article for context. I think this is closest:
"You may not get the most out of every single season, but in the long run you can get a lot more out of it." 2023 was an important year in terms of learning, and "I wouldn't be able to pick one because we've analyzed so many aspects that will help us progress next year."
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Lmao so the title here is just pure misinformation 😭
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TIL that Wolff has secretly been a strategic advisor to Renault/Alpine all these years.
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An austrian man telling the world they'll regret Germany's troubled times doesn't historically end up well.
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I hate that I chuckled at this...
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Incoming at race 4 or 5: "Lewis, we know the car is crap. Please drive it"
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‘Cars so slow guys’
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everyone target, team no mistakes, etc
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This fuckin guy lol
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Yeah man, trying to keep a team focused and positive, what a loser
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You know what's better than having difficulties? Having known how to avoid said difficulties in the first place
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In a perfect world perfection is but a myth
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Wishful thinking but okay
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I mean, yes, it is an ideal scenario, but saying "we are better off because we did things wrong" is similarly wishful
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It's not an incorrect statement. A lot of pitfalls other teams may fall into in the next couple seasons, Merc may have already been in and worked their way out of.
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Boy this is gonna age like milk if they don’t deliver on it.
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Narrator: they didn't deliver
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He didn't even say it in the interview. He said that they learned a lot this season. The interview is on Mercedes' youtube for reference. THe title of this "article" is misinformation or translated wrong.
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Jfc. Just undersell and over perform. It’s not hard.
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They went from sandbagging and dominating, to bragging and being dominated.
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Kinky
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Just read the article it's not that hard. If you did you'd see you fell for the headline and he didn't say that
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The more they run their mouth, the worst I want them into do.
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Please read the article I'm begging you
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Each time Toto talks a big game like this, I hope they screwed up. It’ll be real funny when Mercedes still aren’t fighting for race wins in 2024. Toto needs to keep his mouth closed and let the racing do the talking. He’s embarrassing himself right now.
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You should read the article because the headline doesn't appear anywhere in it.
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This guy just needs to stop talking. You can start making statements like these when the car is 2 tenths quicker than Redbull in Bahrain.
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Please let next year's car have so many problems. This guy deserves it.
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Kinda sounds like Ryan coming back to the Office and saying "I'm making a list of people who wronged me, so when I'm back on top they'll be sorry..."
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If Toto is right and Mercedes is actually up there with Red Bull, he's going to look like a total bad ass after saying this. If not, Toto and Merc might even become bigger memes than Xavi and Ferrari next year.
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lets be real, Toto is gonna sound like Ocon in mexico city
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Narrator: No one regrets Mercedes’ difficulties
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I think is better to do the talking once we can see the car on track. Remember the W13 was unprecedented in terms of speed and the everybody has a target on their backs
Merc pre-2022 were constantly cynical about their performance and always played down their chances while talking about how Ferrari and Red Bull were faster than them.
Toto likes the strategy 'Act weak when your tough, act tough when your weak'.
Toto is a fan of Sun Tzu then
Yeah the good ole sting like water, flow like a bee
Float like a floatbot, sting like an automatic stinging machine
That's Bruce Lee
In Ross Brawn's book, "Total Competition", he mentions Sun Tzu a lot. So it's an interesting observation.
That book is basically the Art of War but F1, and it's less Brawn's book than an edited transcript of a discussion with him from what I recall
Schan Zoo 🇩🇪
But who doesn't understand what is happening, if Toto is aggressive it means that they are not in a position which they want to be in and if he isn't aggressive and praising others then they are winning. Since 2013, when has he ever thrown a curveball? Him and Binotto are quite literally the two sides of a coin. Binotto always tells it how it is, Toto never does.
What does it even matter? What team would change their behavior based on how Merc are doing?
Just trying to find a logical reason behind his actions other than Sun Tzu.
You’re
You’re*
“We do our talking on track.” 😂
Everything everyone is saying in this circus should be taken with a grain of salt.
Except Hakkinen. He only speaks facts.
Sabbatical ends when?
It really should, he's milked it long enough now!
Exactly!
Actually it’s all about money. He wouldn’t even answer this question unless someone had given them money and this was a mandatory thing they had to do.
Unprecedented in terms of speed was Ferrari at the start of the 23 season
W13 talk was pre-2022.
Well, then fix your fucking car Toto. 😀
-Christian Horner
That was the Ferrari. I think Mercedes were pretty tame in their messaging during the off-season.
Yeah it's all about a bit Enstone this.
unprecedented speed was the f1-75
It’s obvious teams do this in the off season to get better paying sponsors, never getting new sponsors if you admit the car is a dog. Totos just playing the game here
Well that's no way to have fun in the off season...
That was the SF-23, it was I believe the CEO of Ferrari who said that.
The target on their backs thing was in fact said by Mercedes (Toto)
The 'we do the talking on the track' has been long since gone.
They are speaking to sponsors right now, not us.
Toto has always been all talk. A sore winner and a sore looser.
They won so much the past decade it somehow opened a wound that he keeps shaking salt into.
He wasn't lying though. If you're so far behind, you can actually SEE the targets on everyone's backs.
Yeah, this feels like a statement which could either be foreshadowing or very very very very very very very very very very very very very very funny in hindsight. A bit of a silly gamble to take, especially with knowledge of how Lady Luck tends to act.
I think the 'target of their back' comment was just to forewarn everyone about Russel.