Russell is simply faster. Hamilton is used to having by far the quickest car on the grid, Russell been grinding his way to the top on back of shitboxes. It's showing this season.
F1 2022 Season
- Thread starter pauldyson1uk
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Russell is simply faster. Hamilton is used to having by far the quickest car on the grid, Russell been grinding his way to the top on back of shitboxes. It's showing this season.
Again, this is not just a Mercedes issue. Even the Ferrari's are experiencing porpoising and they have the fastest car in quali.
Haha some serious down playing of an 8 time world champion in here. It’ll be a few things as to why Russell is outperforming him this season. The disappointment of being robbed the championship last year, the horrific car setup this year and the fact that Russell is the hungry up and coming driver. Anyone saying he’s a better more talented driver must be joking. All careers come to an end and the realistic answer is probably that he’s lost some hunger after last year, especially when the car is an absolute dog.
Mercedes basically only works at tracks with billiard table surfaces, not sure how a winning machine like them could get it so badly wrong, if an F1 car doesn't work on the bumps then its useless for 70% of the tracks.
They need to stop with the experiments in practice and dump the philosophy now and concentrate on next year, trying to feck about making this car work just puts them on the backfoot by quali/race.
They need to stop with the experiments in practice and dump the philosophy now and concentrate on next year, trying to feck about making this car work just puts them on the backfoot by quali/race.
Russell did have the benefit of the tow...
When they switched in Q2 briefly Lewis had the faster lap.
If you view their pace in a logical view, generally they've been very similar throughout the season.
But then again, many comments in here seem to just attack Lewis for no reason.
Russell will make Mercedes great again!
In Q3 hamilton gave russell a tow on fresh softs.
Russel is 24 and at the start of his career and Hamilton is 37 and nearing the end of his. No shame in him being a bit slower than the former who has everything to prove compared to a 7 time champ that doesn’t need to prove anything anymore. Lewis has shown he still has it though this year and probably has the best drive of the season so far out of the two of them.
Yeh anthony davidson said RB are 9kph faster in the straight. Ferrari could have affordes to trim some wing off and reduce the straight line deficit. I think it will be a RB 1 & 3, not sure which driver will be first but leclerc the meat in the RB sandwich.
7 time
And, no, last year has no bearing on current year. Car is porpoising a lot and it's more physically taxing for a driver to go quick, Hamilton is 37 so it makes sense his struggles. Also, Russell is used to driving a sub-par car, Hamilton is used to coasting.
Lewis had to act like a back-marker and fecked over Norris in the process to get a tow of Russell to get into Q3 in the first place. Mercedes made the call in Q3 to let the faster driver get a tow. Russell has been lucky with some of the races this season but he's extracting more out of the car.
Lewis is having problems with the back wnd of the car not sticking as he wants. He's not the only one having problems. Max is finding the RB too understeering for his liking which is helping perez get closer to him in laptime and beat him sometimes.
Once RB get the understeer of the RB sorted i expect max to consistently outperform perez again. Cant really judge lewis and russell properly until the car stops bouncing but russell has been fantastic so far this season.
Stuff about lewis's age is just rubbish, seeing how wuick he was in spain when the car didnt porpose.
Your right I think he will.
Lewis is not finished yet, the car is a shed so far, Russell is getting more out of his than Lewis is.
Its looking unlikely that Mercedes will get the car right this season.
Good post.
Azerbaijan GP Qualifying Result
Of this car, there is no doubt about that.
I don’t think it is rubbish. Clearly it’s possible to win races and championships in your late 30s but a man of early 20s is going to have a younger body and reaction time than a man in his late 30s. I indicated in my post that Lewis probably has the best drive/result out of each of them and he’s still obviously very quick, just struggling with the style of car more than Russell but I don’t think that the age thing is a complete non-factor in terms of both what their body will be like and where they’re at in their careers.
An exception for the suspension package would be unfair for the teams that did get it right. The cost cap will probably be raised a bit anyway considering everything is getting more and more expensive which wasn't factored in.
The two was unplanned, Lewis was within the delta time as well and off the racing line so can't see what the issue is with this one.
So the team can fix it. They just don’t want to because it will impact performance. That’s the teams problem.
What makes you think Red Bull wouldn't welcome active suspension returning to F1?
But tearing or adjusting the rulebook is what the FIA have already done this season. Stays werent allowed on the cars and Alpine designed a more rigid heavier floor that didnt flex. Then after the first test in Barcelona the FIA allowed the teams to add stays to stablise the floor and reduce the flexing. Alpine suffered massively as they had done alot of work on the more rigid floor without stays. How many WC points have they lost becuase of the rule change? You could argue if the stays werent allowed, Alpine would have alot more WC points than they do already.
When schmacher came back to F1 with Rosberg with his teammate, Schmacher had lost none of his reaction times in comparision to a young rosberg. The problem was the Mercedes at the time didnt suit Schumacher's driving style. He liked cars with a pointy front end which required a stable rear end. Seeing as the Mercedes back then was eating its rears like a true AMG road car, schmacher ended up looking average against Rosberg and people were saying he'd lost "it". Its similar to lewis at the moment, his differential to his teammates has always been the speed he can carry into a corner, brake later and get on the power earlier. He cant do that in a car as unstable as the current Mercedes but Russell can cope better with the current car. That doesn't mean he's lost "it". Its just the car currently doesnt suit his driving style.
Cool as long as you’ve spoken to him about it and he’s fine about it all.
I don’t think he’s lost anything. I just don’t think it is a factor that can be ignored that drivers nearing the end of their career will be different compared to a driver at the beginning. Especially when the young driver is one of Russell’s talent (would put him ahead of Rosberg).
Tbf Latifi and Mazespin are in a set of their own.
I never mentioned Red Bull and I don't think you mentioned active suspension so I don't follow
Its probably also harder for someone used to winning to motivate himself to battle for 5th. For Russell, it’s still a lot better than a Williams and he knows he’s got time to wait for Merc to improve.
It would be great if Merc could solve this issue, as the Barcelona race with them being a lot closer to the lead two teams was a great race. Hopefully there will at least be a few races like that for the two Merc drivers to showcase their talents without suffering whiplash on every straight.
Get out of this thread and take your common sense with you!
It's also fair to say he's simply just not enjoying/struggling more with the bouncing. Maybe Russell can handle that better too.
When the car was behaving at Spain he was clearly the faster, so.
Leclerc and Perez really dancing with the cars. Hopefully Ferrari can see this pole to a race win and not get caught out with strategy.
Im not arguing for the sake of it, just giving my opinion that Schuamcher had lost some of his powers, namely his ability to adapt to a different car not in ideal conditions. That comes with age and happens to every race race driver. Lewis of 10 years ago would probably have adapted far better to the current car.
Valentino Rossi was the same in Moto GP.
I was listening to a podcast from Tomas Mezzera (czech v8 supercar driver) yesterday and he simply said that the pace is there, but its your ability to do everything else that diminishes as you get older in a race car. He referenced anti roll-bar adjustments as an example.
This is far too balanced and nuanced for the "Lewis is slow" simple posts.
Is Quals had points Ferrari would be unbeatable.n
That was an incredible pole position lap by LeClerc. However, I think RBR have the Race Car and they should overtake Ferrari at some point sadly. It's good to see Ferrari have this incredible consistency in qualifying. Time to take that one step further now.
Yeah that Ferrari is just unbeatable when it comes to one lap pace. Their race pace has been getting better too. Should be an interesting race.
Totto's input on the matter according to BBC.
Lewis Hamilton defended by Toto Wolff after Azerbaijan Grand Prix qualifying
Mercedes Formula 1 boss Toto Wolff has defended Lewis Hamilton after the seven-time champion was out-qualified by team-mate George Russell for the third consecutive race.
Hamilton qualified seventh for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, two places and 0.212 seconds behind Russell, who was 1.353secs adrift of the pole time set by Charles Leclerc's Ferrari.
Wolff said Hamilton had been trying out different set-ups on his car as the team try to get to the bottom of their performance problems.
"Lewis has been trying some quite experimental parts of the car and there was a different floor solution on his car that didn't work," Wolff said.
Wolff said that although Hamilton has now lost out to Russell in Spain, Monaco and Baku, it was "too early to identify a pattern".
Wolff said: "I am very close to it and I see one session one is faster and then next the other is. And because the car is on a knife edge, if you put a foot wrong, in terms of experiments on the car - which need to be done in order for us to learn how to perform and where to put the car - there is 0.2-0.3secs immediately between them.
"And the last three races these experiments have gone wrong with Lewis and not with
Russell is five-three ahead in the Mercedes' drivers qualifying head-to-head, but the score is three-all when only races in which a fair comparison is possible are taken into account, and then Hamilton is actually slightly faster on average.
Wolff said that in Baku Hamilton's car had a different set-up that was exacerbating the problems with bottoming with which Mercedes have been struggling this season.
Lewis seems to be messing around with his set up more than Russell or Mecedes are using his car has the test car
Russell looks to be in a happyish place, getting pace out of his car and is getting decent Ish results.
Lewis is in a horrible place with his, experimental parts that are not working, it will be frustrating for him ,he is used to a re he has confidence in.
He is used to a car that will do what he wants.
The one qualifying where they looked to have the right balance both cars were fast and pretty close to top
Russell looks to be in a happyish place, getting pace out of his car and is getting decent Ish results.
Lewis is in a horrible place with his, experimental parts that are not working, it will be frustrating for him ,he is used to a re he has confidence in.
He is used to a car that will do what he wants.
The one qualifying where they looked to have the right balance both cars were fast and pretty close to top
Apparently both lewis and george have backpain from yesterday. God knows how they will get through a GP. I think both Mercedes might retire as they will destroy their floors during the race.
And as Toto Wolff says, they are closer to the back than the front of the grid.
Must be an awful car to drive.