Quote:
Originally Posted by ///M Power-Belgium
Mate , what's your objective view of the Mercedes dominance in the last 7 years ?
BTW : Your forgot 5 things in your statement :
• Driver Skills
• Racecraft
• Born on the track
• B@lls
• The 2021 F1 World Champion
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My objective view on Merc being the champs for the last 7 years? Umm I don't really care lol, it could've been haas for all I care.
Remember I'm only really here for the engineering behind these cars, and that's why I like watching the Merc alot because their ingenuity is unrivaled. Every year they bring in some cool stuff for me to geek over. I used to really like watching the RB cars too with the blown diffuser tech, but now RB seems to have gone stagnant with game changing developments. They more so just improve on already present concepts like making the floor work harder etc, so it's not too exciting to me and RB doesn't publish alot about their tech unlike Mercedes with their debriefs on YouTube.
In terms of driver skills it doesn't help too much on the first lap when there are so many unknowns, like I said before it's just a huge gamble into the first corner and if you have a good car you have the confidence to gamble more just like if you have a good hand in poker.
In terms of driver skills I still think Lewis Hamilton is the best driver based on his credentials and past experience - his first season in formula 1 showed he was ready to be a world champion on day 1 and he was against Alonso, same goes with his junior career. However I think max is a close second if not at the same level as Lewis right now. But this second half of the statement isn't objective, they're in different cars so it's near impossible to determine this accurately.
Rave craft fits with the above.
Born on the track? Well they all races from a young age so they all kind of are.
Balls? Well that again relates to the car and the confidence it inspires. There's a difference between confidence inspired courage, and "balls". If you put me in an F1 car I could easily just not hit the brakes into turn 1 and bin everything infront of me. Does that mean I have "balls" sure, but I would be a stupid idiot doing that. The difference between max and Lewis into turn 1 was the rb16b giving more confidence to the driver allowing max to brake later, this is due to it having more downforce, it stopping on the grid that but later, and the brake setup being different. It all plays a part. If it comes down to it, I'm absolutely certain all F1 drivers are insanely couragous and willing to completely bin turn 1 by not braking,
so courage would all be equal. but that's not how you win, what separates them is how much confidence the car inspires to make them push that but further. This is mostly down to turn 1 of lap 1, once the car warms up and you're able to predict braking feel and distance reliably then that's when race craft and experience to brake later comes into play, it doesn't occur on the first lap because you never really know what the brakes will feel like.
2021 WDC? Maybe, it looks like it but if the Honda pu blows up then maybe not. Who knows.