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I figured that we've run this thread for the last couple of seasons so I thought I'd start one for 2019. After qualifying in Melbourne; Mercedes look to have a very strong overall package. It's just one data point and Melbourne has often been an outlier. It was an outlier last year in fact. That said, so far this season is starting to look like the early years of the hybrid era.

My initial thoughts on Mercedes' apparent dominance at the moment are that they have totally overhauled their power unit for this year and it shows. I think complacency with the PU kind of set in last year and they were overtaken in engine performance by Ferrari. If today is anything to go by though. Mercedes have surpassed Ferrari in this area once again. It also seems likely that the Mercedes and Red Bull front wing solution may be superior to the Ferrari/Renault solution. We won't know until we go to some of the higher speed circuits but so far, this is looking to be the case. If things continue like this, it's entirely possible that Red Bull will actually surpass Ferrari this season. Verstappen was able to split them in Australia and Red Bull are notoriously slow starters to the season. I expect them to get a lot stronger as we progress.

Then again, Australia could be a fluke and we might see Ferrari lock out the front row in Bahrain. It happened in 2018. Who knows at this point!?

Well I guess at least Australia is nice and simple, Mercedes are quicker, maybe a bit more to debate regarding Ferrari and Red Bull though, I guess we will have to see how they perform in the race?

So far it's looking pretty similar to last year. Mercedes on pole in Australia by a sizable margin doesn't mean very much - they've always had a big advantage in Melbourne. I'll be interested to see if they can carry this advantage into the race, but either way I won't start to judge the season until we get to the more traditional tracks. If they're still ahead in Bahrain, that's a much bigger sign for the season to come.

Exediron wrote:So far it's looking pretty similar to last year. Mercedes on pole in Australia by a sizable margin doesn't mean very much - they've always had a big advantage in Melbourne. I'll be interested to see if they can carry this advantage into the race, but either way I won't start to judge the season until we get to the more traditional tracks. If they're still ahead in Bahrain, that's a much bigger sign for the season to come.

Agree.

I'm very interested to see what the pecking order is in Spain as we can see whether one team has improved etc as we can compare to what we thought the testing pecking order was

What I find annoying is when Ferrari and Red Bull was dominating, FIA tried every trick in the book to slow them down. Mercedes has been more dominant for a longer period of time, and FIA have just let it happen.

We are currently in a period of the sport where one team has won everything since 2014, and only 6 drivers have a realistic chance at a podium. If that isn’t a sign of an unhealthy sport then I don’t know what is.

Australia can be an anomaly, so I’ll wait until China to pass proper judgement. But initial thought is absolute dominance for Merecedes. Last year Hamilton dominated qualifying but that was more of a perfect storm of a great lap, Vettel not doing a good lap and Ferrari having a setup issue. Race pace was also quite similar. The next race Ferrari locked out the front row too, so we shall see.

KingVoid wrote:What I find annoying is when Ferrari and Red Bull was dominating, FIA tried every trick in the book to slow them down. Mercedes has been more dominant for a longer period of time, and FIA have just let it happen.

We are currently in a period of the sport where one team has won everything since 2014, and only 6 drivers have a realistic chance at a podium. If that isn’t a sign of an unhealthy sport then I don’t know what is.

They have changed the regulation of the cars twice and with the engines we are seeing convergence, Ferrari seemed to have the best engine last season and a car good enough to win the title these past 2 seasons especially last year.

pokerman wrote:

KingVoid wrote:What I find annoying is when Ferrari and Red Bull was dominating, FIA tried every trick in the book to slow them down. Mercedes has been more dominant for a longer period of time, and FIA have just let it happen.

We are currently in a period of the sport where one team has won everything since 2014, and only 6 drivers have a realistic chance at a podium. If that isn’t a sign of an unhealthy sport then I don’t know what is.

They have changed the regulation of the cars twice and with the engines we are seeing convergence, Ferrari seemed to have the best engine last season and a car good enough to win the title these past 2 seasons especially last year.

I was thinking about this. If Mercedes are dominant this year, you can expect that the 2021 regulations will be explicitly designed to break their strangle-hold on the sport. What's not clear is how exactly that might be accomplished. Any change that is made to the regs; Merc will be able to throw more money and resources at it than anyone else. They are a far larger corporate entity than any of the other teams. They make Ferrari look like a mom and pop shop.

I think that the current plan of only removing the MGU-H from the engines in 2021 is not very smart. Cost cutting and simplification are the paths to greater competitive balance. They should make radical changes to the engine formula IMO but not to make things more complex; to make things simpler.

KingVoid wrote:What I find annoying is when Ferrari and Red Bull was dominating, FIA tried every trick in the book to slow them down. Mercedes has been more dominant for a longer period of time, and FIA have just let it happen.

We are currently in a period of the sport where one team has won everything since 2014, and only 6 drivers have a realistic chance at a podium. If that isn’t a sign of an unhealthy sport then I don’t know what is.

I agree with you completely sir.

pokerman wrote:

KingVoid wrote:What I find annoying is when Ferrari and Red Bull was dominating, FIA tried every trick in the book to slow them down. Mercedes has been more dominant for a longer period of time, and FIA have just let it happen.

We are currently in a period of the sport where one team has won everything since 2014, and only 6 drivers have a realistic chance at a podium. If that isn’t a sign of an unhealthy sport then I don’t know what is.

They have changed the regulation of the cars twice and with the engines we are seeing convergence, Ferrari seemed to have the best engine last season and a car good enough to win the title these past 2 seasons especially last year.

Vettel was pretty much out of title contention with 5 races to go last year, that was not a close fight. Ditto with the year before too. It doesn't matter if he led the title race in the early or middle parts of the season if he falls away spectacularly well before the end.

F1 Racer wrote:

pokerman wrote:

KingVoid wrote:What I find annoying is when Ferrari and Red Bull was dominating, FIA tried every trick in the book to slow them down. Mercedes has been more dominant for a longer period of time, and FIA have just let it happen.

We are currently in a period of the sport where one team has won everything since 2014, and only 6 drivers have a realistic chance at a podium. If that isn’t a sign of an unhealthy sport then I don’t know what is.

They have changed the regulation of the cars twice and with the engines we are seeing convergence, Ferrari seemed to have the best engine last season and a car good enough to win the title these past 2 seasons especially last year.

Vettel was pretty much out of title contention with 5 races to go last year, that was not a close fight. Ditto with the year before too. It doesn't matter if he led the title race in the early or middle parts of the season if he falls away spectacularly well before the end.

Your reasoning here is pretty shoddy. Vettel fell out of contention because he made too many mistakes last year; not because Mercedes were dominant. In fact, Mercedes were not dominant last year at all. Ferrari had the faster car more often than not last season. In 2017, Ferrari and Mercedes were also closely matched but, again, Ferrari made more errors (that year they also had some reliability issues later in the season).

As predictable as it is that people would attempt to apply revisionist history now that Mercedes may have regained their dominance, it is still disappointing to see it so early in the season. We haven't even had the first race yet.

sandman1347 wrote:

F1 Racer wrote:

pokerman wrote:

KingVoid wrote:What I find annoying is when Ferrari and Red Bull was dominating, FIA tried every trick in the book to slow them down. Mercedes has been more dominant for a longer period of time, and FIA have just let it happen.

We are currently in a period of the sport where one team has won everything since 2014, and only 6 drivers have a realistic chance at a podium. If that isn’t a sign of an unhealthy sport then I don’t know what is.

They have changed the regulation of the cars twice and with the engines we are seeing convergence, Ferrari seemed to have the best engine last season and a car good enough to win the title these past 2 seasons especially last year.

Vettel was pretty much out of title contention with 5 races to go last year, that was not a close fight. Ditto with the year before too. It doesn't matter if he led the title race in the early or middle parts of the season if he falls away spectacularly well before the end.

Your reasoning here is pretty shoddy. Vettel fell out of contention because he made too many mistakes last year; not because Mercedes were dominant. In fact, Mercedes were not dominant last year at all. Ferrari had the faster car more often than not last season. In 2017, Ferrari and Mercedes were also closely matched but, again, Ferrari made more errors (that year they also had some reliability issues later in the season).

As predictable as it is that people would attempt to apply revisionist history now that Mercedes may have regained their dominance, it is still disappointing to see it so early in the season. We haven't even had the first race yet.

My reasoning is not shoddy because I view the fight as a car/driver package rather than separating the two.

You can have a close title fight between a weaker driver in better equipment vs a stronger driver in worse equipment and it is still entertaining and legitimate, (think 1997, 1998, 2009, 2012 etc.).

So to decide if a title fight was close, I just ask myself the simple question that going into the last 2 or 3 races of the season, was it still fairly uncertain which package would win the title, and if the answer is 'yes' then the fight was a close one. The last two seasons the answer to this question is 'no', hence why I feel we are still waiting for a genuinely close title fight since 2012 which is very concerning to be honest, and the sport seems in bad shape.

pokerman wrote:

KingVoid wrote:What I find annoying is when Ferrari and Red Bull was dominating, FIA tried every trick in the book to slow them down. Mercedes has been more dominant for a longer period of time, and FIA have just let it happen.

We are currently in a period of the sport where one team has won everything since 2014, and only 6 drivers have a realistic chance at a podium. If that isn’t a sign of an unhealthy sport then I don’t know what is.

They have changed the regulation of the cars twice and with the engines we are seeing convergence, Ferrari seemed to have the best engine last season and a car good enough to win the title these past 2 seasons especially last year.

They weren’t particularly big regulation changes. An example of an extreme regulation change would be to change the engine rules altogether, or maybe horsepower parity (the max power your engine is allowed to produce is 850 hp) or something like that.

We certainly haven’t seen any regulation change comparable to the extreme measures taken in 2005, for example.

Red Bull is the only team that can beat Mercedes on the chassis front, and they have been held back with the new PU’s since 2013 now. FIA have done nothing about this in 6 years.

Not enough has been done to slow down Mercedes.

KingVoid wrote:

pokerman wrote:

KingVoid wrote:What I find annoying is when Ferrari and Red Bull was dominating, FIA tried every trick in the book to slow them down. Mercedes has been more dominant for a longer period of time, and FIA have just let it happen.

We are currently in a period of the sport where one team has won everything since 2014, and only 6 drivers have a realistic chance at a podium. If that isn’t a sign of an unhealthy sport then I don’t know what is.

They have changed the regulation of the cars twice and with the engines we are seeing convergence, Ferrari seemed to have the best engine last season and a car good enough to win the title these past 2 seasons especially last year.

They weren’t particularly big regulation changes. An example of an extreme regulation change would be to change the engine rules altogether, or maybe horsepower parity (the max power your engine is allowed to produce is 850 hp) or something like that.

We certainly haven’t seen any regulation change comparable to the extreme measures taken in 2005, for example.

Red Bull is the only team that can beat Mercedes on the chassis front, and they have been held back with the new PU’s since 2013 now. FIA have done nothing about this in 6 years.

Not enough has been done to slow down Mercedes.

Yeah, I agree with this too, and it is making it easy for Hamilton to notch up easy records where he isn't properly having to dig deep and push. He's winning at a canter and it's boring, even though I have nothing against Hamilton personally.

F1 Racer wrote:

sandman1347 wrote:

F1 Racer wrote:

pokerman wrote:

KingVoid wrote:What I find annoying is when Ferrari and Red Bull was dominating, FIA tried every trick in the book to slow them down. Mercedes has been more dominant for a longer period of time, and FIA have just let it happen.

We are currently in a period of the sport where one team has won everything since 2014, and only 6 drivers have a realistic chance at a podium. If that isn’t a sign of an unhealthy sport then I don’t know what is.

They have changed the regulation of the cars twice and with the engines we are seeing convergence, Ferrari seemed to have the best engine last season and a car good enough to win the title these past 2 seasons especially last year.

Vettel was pretty much out of title contention with 5 races to go last year, that was not a close fight. Ditto with the year before too. It doesn't matter if he led the title race in the early or middle parts of the season if he falls away spectacularly well before the end.

Your reasoning here is pretty shoddy. Vettel fell out of contention because he made too many mistakes last year; not because Mercedes were dominant. In fact, Mercedes were not dominant last year at all. Ferrari had the faster car more often than not last season. In 2017, Ferrari and Mercedes were also closely matched but, again, Ferrari made more errors (that year they also had some reliability issues later in the season).

As predictable as it is that people would attempt to apply revisionist history now that Mercedes may have regained their dominance, it is still disappointing to see it so early in the season. We haven't even had the first race yet.

My reasoning is not shoddy because I view the fight as a car/driver package rather than separating the two.

You can have a close title fight between a weaker driver in better equipment vs a stronger driver in worse equipment and it is still entertaining and legitimate, (think 1997, 1998, 2009, 2012 etc.).

So to decide if a title fight was close, I just ask myself the simple question that going into the last 2 or 3 races of the season, was it still fairly uncertain which package would win the title, and if the answer is 'yes' then the fight was a close one. The last two seasons the answer to this question is 'no', hence why I feel we are still waiting for a genuinely close title fight since 2012 which is very concerning to be honest, and the sport seems in bad shape.

That's all well and good and I agree that there are more ways to have a close fight than simply having closely matched cars but within the context of a discussion about whether or not the FIA needs to step in and kneecap Mercedes, it's a bit misleading.

sandman1347 wrote: That's all well and good and I agree that there are more ways to have a close fight than simply having closely matched cars but within the context of a discussion about whether or not the FIA needs to step in and kneecap Mercedes, it's a bit misleading.

It's not really misleading, it just means that with Merc having the best driver too, the need to slow them down is even more pertinent.

At least in the mid-1990's there was no need to try and slow Williams down as they didn't have Schumacher and instead employed drivers on the cheap as they felt the car was mostly what was needed to get the job done. Imagine if they had broken the bank to sign Schumacher from Benetton after 1995, then there would have been urgent need to slow the Schumacher/Williams package down somehow like the Hamilton/Mercedes package of 2014 to 2019.

sandman1347 wrote:

pokerman wrote:

KingVoid wrote:What I find annoying is when Ferrari and Red Bull was dominating, FIA tried every trick in the book to slow them down. Mercedes has been more dominant for a longer period of time, and FIA have just let it happen.

We are currently in a period of the sport where one team has won everything since 2014, and only 6 drivers have a realistic chance at a podium. If that isn’t a sign of an unhealthy sport then I don’t know what is.

They have changed the regulation of the cars twice and with the engines we are seeing convergence, Ferrari seemed to have the best engine last season and a car good enough to win the title these past 2 seasons especially last year.

I was thinking about this. If Mercedes are dominant this year, you can expect that the 2021 regulations will be explicitly designed to break their strangle-hold on the sport. What's not clear is how exactly that might be accomplished. Any change that is made to the regs; Merc will be able to throw more money and resources at it than anyone else. They are a far larger corporate entity than any of the other teams. They make Ferrari look like a mom and pop shop.

I think that the current plan of only removing the MGU-H from the engines in 2021 is not very smart. Cost cutting and simplification are the paths to greater competitive balance. They should make radical changes to the engine formula IMO but not to make things more complex; to make things simpler.

I thought that removing the MGU-H has been put to bed now, they were only going to remove it to attract new engine manufacturers but none are joining so the engines will now remain the same?

F1 has always been an engineering exercise and not a spec series and the best financed teams tend to come out on top, one way to equalise things is with a budget cap but that comes with the loss of jobs.

Mercedes are just a great team that will be successful whatever the regs, I'm not sure that Mercedes get credit for the cars they produce as opposed to someone like Red Bull, when Red Bull were winning people were more accepting of their success in being able to build the best car but with Mercedes some people still seem to be wrapped up with the engine they produce despite the obvious engine convergence.

Now going into this season it is more about who actually builds the best car, that's the DNA of F1, this article goes into the different design philosophies that are going to decide who ends up with the best car.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/47527705

F1 Racer wrote:

pokerman wrote:

KingVoid wrote:What I find annoying is when Ferrari and Red Bull was dominating, FIA tried every trick in the book to slow them down. Mercedes has been more dominant for a longer period of time, and FIA have just let it happen.

We are currently in a period of the sport where one team has won everything since 2014, and only 6 drivers have a realistic chance at a podium. If that isn’t a sign of an unhealthy sport then I don’t know what is.

They have changed the regulation of the cars twice and with the engines we are seeing convergence, Ferrari seemed to have the best engine last season and a car good enough to win the title these past 2 seasons especially last year.

Vettel was pretty much out of title contention with 5 races to go last year, that was not a close fight. Ditto with the year before too. It doesn't matter if he led the title race in the early or middle parts of the season if he falls away spectacularly well before the end.

How many points did Vettel lose of his own making, a car at least the equal of the best is not good enough for him perhaps?

KingVoid wrote:

pokerman wrote:

KingVoid wrote:What I find annoying is when Ferrari and Red Bull was dominating, FIA tried every trick in the book to slow them down. Mercedes has been more dominant for a longer period of time, and FIA have just let it happen.

We are currently in a period of the sport where one team has won everything since 2014, and only 6 drivers have a realistic chance at a podium. If that isn’t a sign of an unhealthy sport then I don’t know what is.

They have changed the regulation of the cars twice and with the engines we are seeing convergence, Ferrari seemed to have the best engine last season and a car good enough to win the title these past 2 seasons especially last year.

They weren’t particularly big regulation changes. An example of an extreme regulation change would be to change the engine rules altogether, or maybe horsepower parity (the max power your engine is allowed to produce is 850 hp) or something like that.

We certainly haven’t seen any regulation change comparable to the extreme measures taken in 2005, for example.

Red Bull is the only team that can beat Mercedes on the chassis front, and they have been held back with the new PU’s since 2013 now. FIA have done nothing about this in 6 years.

Not enough has been done to slow down Mercedes.

The engine regulations are part of the Concorde agreement that ends in 2020, the FIA are powerless to affect change on that front before then, same as special payments to certain teams, bringing in budget caps etc.

We are actually beginning to see convergence with the engines now but I guess it's no surprise to see the issue is with Red Bull not winning, this is Red Bull that wouldn't agree to a budget cap back in 2010 to make F1 more fair for all the teams, this because they didn't want to see their advantage of being to outspend the other teams being removed, I don't feel sorry for Red Bull.

pokerman wrote:

F1 Racer wrote:

pokerman wrote:

KingVoid wrote:What I find annoying is when Ferrari and Red Bull was dominating, FIA tried every trick in the book to slow them down. Mercedes has been more dominant for a longer period of time, and FIA have just let it happen.

We are currently in a period of the sport where one team has won everything since 2014, and only 6 drivers have a realistic chance at a podium. If that isn’t a sign of an unhealthy sport then I don’t know what is.

They have changed the regulation of the cars twice and with the engines we are seeing convergence, Ferrari seemed to have the best engine last season and a car good enough to win the title these past 2 seasons especially last year.

Vettel was pretty much out of title contention with 5 races to go last year, that was not a close fight. Ditto with the year before too. It doesn't matter if he led the title race in the early or middle parts of the season if he falls away spectacularly well before the end.

How many points did Vettel lose of his own making, a car at least the equal of the best is not good enough for him perhaps?

Like I said, it's about the overall package and the Vettel/Ferrari combo came up well short last year. There were races where Vettel delivered but the car did not, for example Austria, Russia and Singapore, and races where Vettel made some mistakes through desperation partly from the car not being quick enough, so both parts of the package were found wanting in different moments.

F1 Racer wrote:

KingVoid wrote:

pokerman wrote:

KingVoid wrote:What I find annoying is when Ferrari and Red Bull was dominating, FIA tried every trick in the book to slow them down. Mercedes has been more dominant for a longer period of time, and FIA have just let it happen.

We are currently in a period of the sport where one team has won everything since 2014, and only 6 drivers have a realistic chance at a podium. If that isn’t a sign of an unhealthy sport then I don’t know what is.

They have changed the regulation of the cars twice and with the engines we are seeing convergence, Ferrari seemed to have the best engine last season and a car good enough to win the title these past 2 seasons especially last year.

They weren’t particularly big regulation changes. An example of an extreme regulation change would be to change the engine rules altogether, or maybe horsepower parity (the max power your engine is allowed to produce is 850 hp) or something like that.

We certainly haven’t seen any regulation change comparable to the extreme measures taken in 2005, for example.

Red Bull is the only team that can beat Mercedes on the chassis front, and they have been held back with the new PU’s since 2013 now. FIA have done nothing about this in 6 years.

Not enough has been done to slow down Mercedes.

Yeah, I agree with this too, and it is making it easy for Hamilton to notch up easy records where he isn't properly having to dig deep and push. He's winning at a canter and it's boring, even though I have nothing against Hamilton personally.

Well I guess if you consider Vettel to be no competition as well, Vettel did make it quite easy for Hamilton since 2016, in particular last year.

pokerman wrote:

F1 Racer wrote:

KingVoid wrote:

pokerman wrote:

KingVoid wrote:What I find annoying is when Ferrari and Red Bull was dominating, FIA tried every trick in the book to slow them down. Mercedes has been more dominant for a longer period of time, and FIA have just let it happen.

We are currently in a period of the sport where one team has won everything since 2014, and only 6 drivers have a realistic chance at a podium. If that isn’t a sign of an unhealthy sport then I don’t know what is.

They have changed the regulation of the cars twice and with the engines we are seeing convergence, Ferrari seemed to have the best engine last season and a car good enough to win the title these past 2 seasons especially last year.

They weren’t particularly big regulation changes. An example of an extreme regulation change would be to change the engine rules altogether, or maybe horsepower parity (the max power your engine is allowed to produce is 850 hp) or something like that.

We certainly haven’t seen any regulation change comparable to the extreme measures taken in 2005, for example.

Red Bull is the only team that can beat Mercedes on the chassis front, and they have been held back with the new PU’s since 2013 now. FIA have done nothing about this in 6 years.

Not enough has been done to slow down Mercedes.

Yeah, I agree with this too, and it is making it easy for Hamilton to notch up easy records where he isn't properly having to dig deep and push. He's winning at a canter and it's boring, even though I have nothing against Hamilton personally.

Well I guess if you consider Vettel to be no competition as well, Vettel did make it quite easy for Hamilton since 2016, in particular last year.

Exactly, it's all been too easy for Hamilton who has won over half the races in the hybrid era. Imagine if Rosberg and his equal number one status hadn't been in play, and instead a Bottas-type driver was there in 2014-2016, Hamilton's numbers would be even scarier.

F1 Racer wrote:

pokerman wrote:

F1 Racer wrote:

pokerman wrote:

KingVoid wrote:What I find annoying is when Ferrari and Red Bull was dominating, FIA tried every trick in the book to slow them down. Mercedes has been more dominant for a longer period of time, and FIA have just let it happen.

We are currently in a period of the sport where one team has won everything since 2014, and only 6 drivers have a realistic chance at a podium. If that isn’t a sign of an unhealthy sport then I don’t know what is.

They have changed the regulation of the cars twice and with the engines we are seeing convergence, Ferrari seemed to have the best engine last season and a car good enough to win the title these past 2 seasons especially last year.

Vettel was pretty much out of title contention with 5 races to go last year, that was not a close fight. Ditto with the year before too. It doesn't matter if he led the title race in the early or middle parts of the season if he falls away spectacularly well before the end.

How many points did Vettel lose of his own making, a car at least the equal of the best is not good enough for him perhaps?

Like I said, it's about the overall package and the Vettel/Ferrari combo came up well short last year. There were races where Vettel delivered but the car did not, for example Austria, Russia and Singapore, and races where Vettel made some mistakes through desperation partly from the car not being quick enough, so both parts of the package were found wanting in different moments.

Vettel fell behind through his own mistakes, he crashed from the lead in Germany were he would have opened a nice points lead over Hamilton and then spun in Italy, a race that he should really have won. He did also crash when he didn't have the best car on the day but Hamilton also had days when he didn't have the best but he didn't crash.

These mistakes by Vettel actually ramped up the pressure on Ferrari so any mistakes they did make late in the season certainly were not helped by him, is Vettel a driver that needs the out and out best car to be Champion if you are thinking that last year's Ferrari was not good enough?

F1 Racer wrote:

pokerman wrote:

F1 Racer wrote:

KingVoid wrote:

pokerman wrote: They have changed the regulation of the cars twice and with the engines we are seeing convergence, Ferrari seemed to have the best engine last season and a car good enough to win the title these past 2 seasons especially last year.

They weren’t particularly big regulation changes. An example of an extreme regulation change would be to change the engine rules altogether, or maybe horsepower parity (the max power your engine is allowed to produce is 850 hp) or something like that.

We certainly haven’t seen any regulation change comparable to the extreme measures taken in 2005, for example.

Red Bull is the only team that can beat Mercedes on the chassis front, and they have been held back with the new PU’s since 2013 now. FIA have done nothing about this in 6 years.

Not enough has been done to slow down Mercedes.

Yeah, I agree with this too, and it is making it easy for Hamilton to notch up easy records where he isn't properly having to dig deep and push. He's winning at a canter and it's boring, even though I have nothing against Hamilton personally.

Well I guess if you consider Vettel to be no competition as well, Vettel did make it quite easy for Hamilton since 2016, in particular last year.

Exactly, it's all been too easy for Hamilton who has won over half the races in the hybrid era. Imagine if Rosberg and his equal number one status hadn't been in play, and instead a Bottas-type driver was there in 2014-2016, Hamilton's numbers would be even scarier.

I'm not arguing about 2014-16 that would be silly but that's when any Mercedes car domination ended, if you can't give Hamilton credit for winning the 2017 and 2018 titles then why should Vettel be given credit for winning the 2010, 2011 and 2013 titles when he clearly had a much better car in those years than those Mercedes cars of 2017 and 2018?

Also when I said that Vettel has to considered no competition then if Hamilton had it so easy then I actually do mean Vettel and not his car.

pokerman wrote: Vettel fell behind through his own mistakes, he crashed from the lead in Germany were he would have opened a nice points lead over Hamilton and then spun in Italy, a race that he should really have won. He did also crash when he didn't have the best car on the day but Hamilton also had days when he didn't have the best but he didn't crash.

These mistakes by Vettel actually ramped up the pressure on Ferrari so any mistakes they did make late in the season certainly were not helped by him, is Vettel a driver that needs the out and out best car to be Champion if you are thinking that last year's Ferrari was not good enough?

When up against a better driver than himself, of course he needs a better car to win, and that goes for the other drivers on the grid too. Bottas needs a better car than Hamilton if he is to beat him, as does Danny Ric, this isn't just a Vettel issue.

The bottom line is that it is hurting the sport.

pokerman wrote: I'm not arguing about 2014-16 that would be silly but that's when any Mercedes car domination ended, if you can't give Hamilton credit for winning the 2017 and 2018 titles then why should Vettel be given credit for winning the 2010, 2011 and 2013 titles when he clearly had a much better car in those years than those Mercedes cars of 2017 and 2018?

Also when I said that Vettel has to considered no competition then if Hamilton had it so easy then I actually do mean Vettel and not his car.

When have I not been giving Hamilton credit? On the contrary I've done the exact opposite, but it's still hurting the sport having all this domination going on, the pack is not being shuffled enough.

sandman1347 wrote:Any change that is made to the regs; Merc will be able to throw more money and resources at it than anyone else. They are a far larger corporate entity than any of the other teams. They make Ferrari look like a mom and pop shop.

Mercedes isn't significantly larger than Renault, and isn't larger than Honda at all. What they are, however, is more committed than those two manufacturers. It's not that they can throw more money at F1, it's that they're willing to do so.

Exediron wrote:

sandman1347 wrote:Any change that is made to the regs; Merc will be able to throw more money and resources at it than anyone else. They are a far larger corporate entity than any of the other teams. They make Ferrari look like a mom and pop shop.

Mercedes isn't significantly larger than Renault, and isn't larger than Honda at all. What they are, however, is more committed than those two manufacturers. It's not that they can throw more money at F1, it's that they're willing to do so.

That is all true. In terms of market cap; Honda are by far the biggest corporation involved, however, they do not have an F1 team. They are only an engine supplier and Renault are only willing to invest so much into the sport. Daimler are 100% committed to winning and that makes all the difference.

sandman1347 wrote:

Exediron wrote:

sandman1347 wrote:Any change that is made to the regs; Merc will be able to throw more money and resources at it than anyone else. They are a far larger corporate entity than any of the other teams. They make Ferrari look like a mom and pop shop.

Mercedes isn't significantly larger than Renault, and isn't larger than Honda at all. What they are, however, is more committed than those two manufacturers. It's not that they can throw more money at F1, it's that they're willing to do so.

That is all true. In terms of market cap; Honda are by far the biggest corporation involved, however, they do not have an F1 team. They are only an engine supplier and Renault are only willing to invest so much into the sport. Daimler are 100% committed to winning and that makes all the difference.

You could argue that FIAT is as big or bigger than Daimler

Mercedes look the business bigtime. RBR and Ferrari appeared close but Max has had impressive race pace seemingly forever now.

They say don't read too much into Australia but the Mercedes advantage was huge. This can't be ignored.

I suspect Ferrari are still second fastest. Vettel, as with Hamilton, was hampered by stopping too early and running too long on the medium tyres.

Mercedes clearly on top this weekend though.

There's not much in the engines anymore apparently. Merc seem to have the best package but we need to give it another race or two to be certain.

KingVoid wrote:

sandman1347 wrote:

Exediron wrote:

sandman1347 wrote:Any change that is made to the regs; Merc will be able to throw more money and resources at it than anyone else. They are a far larger corporate entity than any of the other teams. They make Ferrari look like a mom and pop shop.

Mercedes isn't significantly larger than Renault, and isn't larger than Honda at all. What they are, however, is more committed than those two manufacturers. It's not that they can throw more money at F1, it's that they're willing to do so.

That is all true. In terms of market cap; Honda are by far the biggest corporation involved, however, they do not have an F1 team. They are only an engine supplier and Renault are only willing to invest so much into the sport. Daimler are 100% committed to winning and that makes all the difference.

You could argue that FIAT is as big or bigger than Daimler

And they're now paying for two teams. If they are only giving Alfa 150m which I think is low balling it, their expenditure is well over £650m per year. (Actually might be dollars or euros to be fair, I've forgotten what Brawn said when he made his Mercedes and Ferrari spending over half a billion each per year comment last year)

I kinda agree with all of you, all the EM's are probably big enough to match that expense but only Daimler and FIAT want to and are doing so, although Mark Hughes alluded to Honda F1 programme being given a blank cheque by the higher ups after the split from Macca so it wouldn't surprise me if they are actually the biggest spenders on PU alone.

Merc/Ferrari's 500m+ is split between race team (350-450) and engine (150-200). Honda can easily put in over 200m after the split as they again allegedly put both the Macca chassis contribution (50-100m) and the severance payment (20m per year) straight into an already topping 120m engine budget after the split.

Renault are spending about 300-350m for both (200 team and 150m engine) so you can see the issue they have. With the benefit of hindsight Renault and McLaren should've partnered up after Honda's initial struggles and Red Bull and Renault's falling out. Then they could have a potential budget right now well in the ballpark of the big three as to go along with Renault's 300-350 you'd have McLaren's 250-300.


(All figures are based on articles read over the past year or two and are for both race and engine divisions so are very roughly and should be taken with the normal pinch of salt as currency shown in those articles tended to differ and I'd be lying if I said I remembered what it was in each case)

F1 Racer wrote:

pokerman wrote: I'm not arguing about 2014-16 that would be silly but that's when any Mercedes car domination ended, if you can't give Hamilton credit for winning the 2017 and 2018 titles then why should Vettel be given credit for winning the 2010, 2011 and 2013 titles when he clearly had a much better car in those years than those Mercedes cars of 2017 and 2018?

Also when I said that Vettel has to considered no competition then if Hamilton had it so easy then I actually do mean Vettel and not his car.

When have I not been giving Hamilton credit? On the contrary I've done the exact opposite, but it's still hurting the sport having all this domination going on, the pack is not being shuffled enough.

Pray tell what needs to be done to shuffle the pack when you have open competition?

KingVoid wrote:

pokerman wrote:

KingVoid wrote:What I find annoying is when Ferrari and Red Bull was dominating, FIA tried every trick in the book to slow them down. Mercedes has been more dominant for a longer period of time, and FIA have just let it happen.

We are currently in a period of the sport where one team has won everything since 2014, and only 6 drivers have a realistic chance at a podium. If that isn’t a sign of an unhealthy sport then I don’t know what is.

They have changed the regulation of the cars twice and with the engines we are seeing convergence, Ferrari seemed to have the best engine last season and a car good enough to win the title these past 2 seasons especially last year.

They weren’t particularly big regulation changes. An example of an extreme regulation change would be to change the engine rules altogether, or maybe horsepower parity (the max power your engine is allowed to produce is 850 hp) or something like that.

We certainly haven’t seen any regulation change comparable to the extreme measures taken in 2005, for example.

Red Bull is the only team that can beat Mercedes on the chassis front, and they have been held back with the new PU’s since 2013 now. FIA have done nothing about this in 6 years.

Not enough has been done to slow down Mercedes.

Disagree. Last season was decided on better driving. This season you have Mercedes engines in the front, middle and back of the pack. Let the teams innovate and if the Mercedes works engine/chassis/driver package continues to be the best then that's fair competition, they are not cheating. I don't want to see a spec series, that's not Formula 1 but Formula Bland !

An interesting read on the problems of the Ferrari PU

https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comme ... ower_unit/

Before anyone points out that “Vettel said the engine was fine”, Ferrari have always prided themselves on their PU and would never admit to engine problems.

KingVoid wrote:An interesting read on the problems of the Ferrari PU

https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comme ... ower_unit/

Before anyone points out that “Vettel said the engine was fine”, Ferrari have always prided themselves on their PU and would never admit to engine problems.

It definitely sounded like Vettel was dropping off the revs at the end of the straights when we rode on board with him. I'm staring to think there's some merit to these rumours.

Binotto’s head shaking in quali was telling. Wether Mercedes pace is significantly better than Ferrari or the red team were underperforming only time will tell, the reality is likely somewhere in between. Having said that RBR look strong though I suspect an on-form Hamilton in a fully compliant car would have been way ahead. Dominance is never a good thing but you can’t blame Mercedes for doing a better job, it’s what all teams strive for. Roll on the development war, it may come sooner than we think.

mas wrote:

KingVoid wrote:

pokerman wrote:

KingVoid wrote:What I find annoying is when Ferrari and Red Bull was dominating, FIA tried every trick in the book to slow them down. Mercedes has been more dominant for a longer period of time, and FIA have just let it happen.

We are currently in a period of the sport where one team has won everything since 2014, and only 6 drivers have a realistic chance at a podium. If that isn’t a sign of an unhealthy sport then I don’t know what is.

They have changed the regulation of the cars twice and with the engines we are seeing convergence, Ferrari seemed to have the best engine last season and a car good enough to win the title these past 2 seasons especially last year.

They weren’t particularly big regulation changes. An example of an extreme regulation change would be to change the engine rules altogether, or maybe horsepower parity (the max power your engine is allowed to produce is 850 hp) or something like that.

We certainly haven’t seen any regulation change comparable to the extreme measures taken in 2005, for example.

Red Bull is the only team that can beat Mercedes on the chassis front, and they have been held back with the new PU’s since 2013 now. FIA have done nothing about this in 6 years.

Not enough has been done to slow down Mercedes.

Disagree. Last season was decided on better driving. This season you have Mercedes engines in the front, middle and back of the pack. Let the teams innovate and if the Mercedes works engine/chassis/driver package continues to be the best then that's fair competition, they are not cheating. I don't want to see a spec series, that's not Formula 1 but Formula Bland !

Before I missed the part about the engines being built to a spec HP, why is it alright for a driver to have a superior car but not a superior engine, why is alright for a team to have a superior budget, special payments but not a superior engine?

F1 has always been an open competition apart from a brief period with the engines, the 2.4 V8 engines which the engine manufacturers didn't like because they are also in F1 to compete and develop their technologies.