The British GP threw up a few surprises including the rapid pace of McLaren. They managed to outpace Mercedes and are the second customer team to do so after Aston Martin took the fight to them from beginning off the season. This has led to some questioning if Mercedes have fallen behind yet another customer team.
Link to poll: https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxTXnzXf7bROgY7bPDEV29wlpQPMatL9ft
0:00 – Are Mercedes Now Slower Than McLaren Too?
I’m your host Dillon Shelley and first up on Formula World:
Are Mercedes Now Slower Than McLaren Too?
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff, while speaking to multiple media outlets, started off by highlighting how McLaren exceeded expectations
“When the Safety Car was deployed, I was pretty sure, if not convinced,”
“That we will be eating up the McLarens and finishing with P2 and P3 or even challenging for the front”
He explained why it was a surprise
“We could’ve had a go at them in the first few laps, but they both raced very strong”
“With their efficiency and top speed through the high speed corners and on the straight, there was no way to pass them”
“That came as a surprise”
He added how Silverstone was disappointing after having high hopes from it
“I thought that Silverstone – based on [our] historic performance – this was the best shot but it wasn’t”
“The car remains a handful”
Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton revealed if he thought their performance was a blow to their aspirations
“It’s not a blow, it’s just a wake up call for us”
“Others are overtaking us and we need to do more”
He further explained why he isn’t surprised by McLaren’s resurgence
“I’m not surprised by McLaren, if you look at the car it makes sense”
“If you put it alongside a Red Bull, it looks very similar down the sides and it’s working”
Teammate George Russell, however, did appear to be a bit surprised
“I thought it was going to be clear-cut, you know, Lewis and I, P2, P3 and see you later”
“I couldn’t believe how well they turned the tyres on and got it going”
He signed off by acknowledging that McLaren are a step ahead at the moment
“McLaren clearly turned it up at two races now, two very different circuits”
“They’ve definitely been a small step ahead of us”
Even though Lewis managed to salvage a podium, many feel that with a more aggressive strategy or different luck with the safety car, Oscar Piastri could have beaten him
With McLaren outscoring Mercedes at the last two races at two very different types of tracks, this resurgence doesn’t seem to be a fluke
McLaren also seem very committed to 2023 as they will bring upgrades to the next race as well as confirmed by team principal Andrea Stella
“For Hungary, we have some further updates that will let more from the point of view of trying to improve the race pace”
“These will be available to both drivers”
It is possible that Mercedes are already giving less focus on 2023 and are instead focusing their efforts on 2024, which is something a few weeks ago that Lewis mentioned he hoped the team would do, but it seems equally plausible that the cost cap and the staggered development allowances may be helping more and more teams to keep finding relative performance throughout the year
Which F1 team/s without a podium this season thus far are most likely to score a podium before the end of the year?
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Link to poll: https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxTXnzXf7bROgY7bPDEV29wlpQPMatL9ft
0:00 – Are Mercedes Now Slower Than McLaren Too?
Before Aston martin, now Mclaren Mercedes
Mercedes might now be the slowest Mercedes driven team on the grid. If not now, they might soon be.
Challenging for the front? You have to be kidding me Toto. He keeps looking at Red Bull while missing what they need to do.
Mercedes made a solid step forward. The gap to red bull in both qualifying and race pace was the smallest it’s been all season. Aston Martin, who have been ahead of Mercedes most of the season, are now way off their pace. And Ferrari, who have also bought major upgrades, were no where near Mercedes on race pace on only on par with them in qualifying.
So basically they pulled way ahead of Aston, ahead of Ferrari in race pace and on par in quali despite Ferraris own upgrades, and have closed significantly on Red bull. And they still have more upgrades to come over the next few races.
The reason people are saying their upgrades haven’t worked is because McLaren have leap frogged Aston, Ferrari and Mercedes to become the second fasted team. Which means if you look at Mercedes positions in a vacuum it appears no progress has been made. But compared to their constructors rivals, and looking at the time delta, Mercedes have made a good improvement and there is more to come.
Alex albon & Williams will get a podium before the end of the season
George needs to come back down to earth
andrea stella is killing it. so happy to mclaren back in the mix.
Yes
Mclaren's car has still got big issues and that is shown in the weekends' race because the track and weather favoured them the opposite can be said of the Aston Martin team – the track and weather were against them
mclaren upgrades floor > "the sidepods look same as redbull" did i miss something there?
I want some of whatever toto was smoking that made him think merc might be fighting at the front. Must be some strong stuff.
Just the tracks suiting them, even during Merc dominance there were tracks where RB could win despite not being competitive anywhere else. I highly doubt McLaren can hold onto this pace.
Mercedes needs to drop their misplaced pride and just change their car if they keep suggesting that other teams are fast because they copy RB and how it's no surprise there are faster.. but they're too stubborn and believe they just know better and ended up driving a shitbox for over a year refusing to admit fault.
😂😂😂😂 a few weeks ago, they were saying mclaren was slow now they say wow they are so fast…😂
I hope they are slower and stay slower
I don't think so, even with the upgrades making an impression car performance is extremely track dependent this year. Just look at how consistently bad Aston Martin are at high speed circuits for example.
it's over for Hamilton.
Lewis: the mclaren is fast because it looks liek a redbull (waah waah nevermind that we made our car look like a red bull as well. just ignore that fact)
If McLaren continues to perform well in Hungary, it will prove that McLaren has made a car that is actually fast at all kind of tracks
I don’t know. Feels like this will be McLaren’s only big update, whereas Merc constantly bring new updates. I hope I’m wrong though 🙏
its the mystery mercedes engine.
If you notice back in 2021, mercedes complained about their engine degrading faster than expected and thus explain their dwindling performance after dominating the earlier part of the season.
This could explain Aston Martin's current performance drop.
Later on in 2021, Mercedes had a resurgence completely obliterating the competition in Brazil and dominating the races thereafter.
This could explain why Mclaren and even Williams could suddenly have incredible pace.
Anyone should wonder why these sudden gains in performance only involve teams utilizing Mercedes engine.
This isn't a wake-up call, this is like the 3rd or 4th time the alarm rang after hitting snooze.
Hold my williams
Imagine Williams is next!
No. TRACK THE DETAILS. They confessed that the update they brought to Monaco looked more advanced that it looked. I said as much when I saw that the rear suspension was not changed and the front suspension only changed the orientation. Not the actual performance where they need it (for the most part). I do like the potential in their sidepods though. The next update was the front wing and they deployed that at one of the windiest circuits on the calendar. They did not bring the rear suspension, new sidepods and other changes that were originally planed. Mclaren deployed more changes. With that said, when looking at all other cars on the grid except for Red Bull, Merc performance is more consistent. If it was not for the saftey car, Lewis and George would have most likely been 2-3.
The Mclaren car is not consistent either and Lando confirmed that they are having the same issue as Merc in the mid/slow corners. But they have a lot of speed. All we saw in Silverstone is them utilize their trump car to their best ability. I think Merc will bring the "missing" upgrades to Hungary or Spa.
I wish we could have McLaren, RB, Ferrari, and AM all fighting for wins 😢
I can see Aston Martin and McLaren outshining Mercedes this season. That was just my opinion.
When McLaren went to hard tires I thought they were done. That was a gutsy call and Oscar and Landon got them up to temp and racing. I'm a longtime RB fan, it was great to see McLaren coming around. 👍👍🏁
Relax it's just one race…consistency is everything.
Goes to show that in the aero era, customer teams can make it. The engine performance is negligible beyond just not failing.
Red Bull better hope ford builds a f1 engine better than they do there cars and trucks.
Without the safety car they’d have lost to Ferrari also, not just Oscar.
Every time someone from Mercedes has gone online and made huge predictions about how fast they were going to be that weekend , they were embarrassed. It never seemed to work out. Toto, Lewis, George… not one of them got it…. I see just a little braggers karma there. Maybe the going faster part should be done before the talking about it part.
I guess Hamilton is going back to McLaren!
It's not Mercedes that is slower…but McLaren that is faster. Either way Lewis already whining about "rocket ship" McLaren being faster, probably for Norris beating him in harder tires.
In recent history, has any team almost a second ahead of the paddock at testing, ever been caught up in that season? (A question not relative to the video. I know)
Maybe,but when they are then McLean they are faster than Aston.and vice versa.
I'm impressed with Piastri's pace!
These customer teams outperforming Mercedes shows that Toto and co. are clueless when they can't just throw money into every problem but they actually need to use their brain instead of credit card.
Same engine, world champ driver, slower car. Oops
2 customer team beat the supplier bruh thats hilarious
There isn't much more merc can do to improve the 2023 car. Its fundamentally flawed.
I don't think McLaren will keep their pace up for the rest of the season. It will still be RB at the front, then quite a bit of distance to MB, Aston and Ferrari, then the rest of the teams.
GEORGE. is insufferable and way to arrogant for his own good
It’s not the aero, it’s the engine.
Toto saying : even p1 😂 what a joke