Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes

[Sharrowgirl]

A lot of talk yesterday about how poor the car is and Lewis ‘deserves better’.

But no one is talking about how well Russell is doing in comparison. He drove from 11th to 4th yesterday while Hamilton stayed stuck in 14th the whole race. He’s currently 21 points ahead of Hamilton, after 4 races. They’re driving the same car?

I’m wondering if Hamilton has just lost motivation after Abu Dhabi and his heart’s not in it anymore. Or is there another explanation?

I remember that! I commented on social medial at the time about Seb concentrating so much that his tongue was all over the place, you know, that thing that happens with your tongue when you start to concentrate really hard? Well he was doing it! 😛 😆

You seem to be mistaken. This is the 'Lewis is awesome' echo-chamber. The F1 thread is that way ---->

:p

I think with each race that goes by it looks increasingly unlikely however I'm a never say never kind of girl, and stranger things have happened in F1.

I can't understand how so many people are writing Mercedes and Hamilton off after 4 races. This is one of the longest F1 seasons with 23 races in total. 3 of those races weekends also have the Sprint so there are still 19 races to go (475 points for the races), 19 fastest laps (19 points) and 2 more sprints (16 points), so if he started winning in Miami, there is a total of 510 points going a begging for the driver who finishes first in the two sprint races and gets the fastest lap and finishes the grand prix races in first. That's a huge amount of points that are on offer.

If Mercedes manage to fix the biggest issue (the porpoising), they could still go on to win the Constructors Championship with both cars in the points and Lewis could go on to win the season.

@LookItsMeAgain For the record, I absolutely do not count Mazaspin as a F1 driver!

He was a rich tourist, is all

To be fair, nobody else did too! 😆

Don't discount he may still be struggling with Long Covid.

@LookItsMeAgain

The reason some people are writing Mercedes off is because it's beginning to look like their specific issue with porpoising isn't something that can be remedied without a total redesign of their entire car, and that's not something that can be done in a matter of a few weeks, and may mean that ultimately they'll just have to accept that they went with a fundamentally flawed concept, the car is an unsalvagable mess, and they need to start devoting those resources into their 2023 car instead of wasting them trying to correct something that can't be fixed.

Unfortunately for Lewis Hamilton, it seems that his team mate is less affected by the instability through the braking zones, or at least, he's better able to overcome it, so not only is Hamilton at the mercy of being dependent on the designers and engineers fixing a broken car design, he is also facing being miles behind LeClerc, Verstappen, AND his own teammate by the time the car is drivable, IF Mercedes ever get to that point.

This.
I’m quite a few days late as I’ve only just spotted this thread.
But I also turned off once Verstappen crossed the line as I can’t bear him and Horner being smuggo squared.

Thank god for Leclerc.

He can still win it this year but only if they get that car working in the next race or two, tops.

Most of the rest of the internet is the Lewis is lucky/ shit/ arrogant/ son of the devil. It's nice to have a break from it.

*echo chamber that was meant to say

Why do we think Mercedes are having the very specific issues with porpoising? I know other teams are experiencing it too, but not to the same extent. Could it be those vertical sidepods? I have absolutely no expertise in aerodynamics but the sidepods are by far the biggest difference between the Mercedes and other cars.

The hate Lewis gets is awful. He gets far more than any other driver and it's hard to believe that is not because of his colour.

As I said before, this season his haters are beside themselves with glee at the fact his car has such big problems.

I still can't believe he got fined for saying in an interview the line that Sacha Baron Cohen used to say when he was Ali G "Is it because I am black?"
He is the only driver on the grid that could say that about himself, we knew it was a line from Ali G and yet he was handed a fine from the FIA after he said it. It's from 2011.

Guardian News Article that refers

You'd have to be from another planet to wonder why he was getting and still is getting such a level of abuse.

He's a phenomenal driver and from what I've seen a genuinely lovely bloke. My 88 year old F1 loving mum loves him too!

Sorry - can't edit my post but he didn't get fined but he had been in to see the stewards so often that was what triggered the Ali G response.

@LemonRedwood If their very clever engineers can’t work it out, then I definitely can’t. I did see a theory somewhere online that their lack of sidepods might be making their floor less rigid than those with more typical sidepods. They have stays attached to the floor but compared to Ferrari there’s a lot more floor sticking out at the side of the car that isn’t given support from the sidepods. The theory is that the flexing of the floor is making porpoising worse. They suggested that if they can make the floor less able to flex whilst keeping their car shape without the sidepods, then they would be significantly faster. I have no idea if that is an adequate explanation though.

Very glad I found this thread! I started watching F1 late last year and I’m working my way through the Netflix series. Horrified by the abuse Hamilton gets

Got to hate a guy who got in to one of the world's most exclusive clubs in the world on talent and not on Daddy's money/coattails eh. The nerve.

That does make some sense though, thanks!

Another issue compounding the porpoising issue is that in their wind tunnels, they can't replicate (to the same degree) the issue at all. So when they developed the car for the start of the season based on what they had tested in their wind tunnels, it looked fine. Except it wasn't in the real world situations in any way fine.

I really hope they're able to sort out their car this season. It'd be a shame if they dropped to the mid-field or even to the back of the grid.

Is anyone looking forward to the Miami GP?

I can't believe the news that broke about the two race directors, can you??

Race directors both test positive for Covid

This is the coverage on Sky Sports F1:
Miami - 6th to 8th May 2022

im dreading it in a way tbh, the cringe level will be risen up a notch imo and be on a par with the US GP in 2017 where they had an announcer introducing all the drivers
i could be wrong but with this race attempting to be their flagship event its hard not to see why it go overboard

Have you seen the fake marina? I knew they were transporting the cars by road but I didn't know about the fake water!

More money than sense.