Mercedes deny tyre pressure conspiracy. Slump in Performance since stewards enquiry

[steelstallions]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/mot...stigation.html

After Lewis Hamilton qualified fifth, 1.5  seconds slower than Sebastian Vettel in pole position, Mercedes were gobsmacked, unable to explain how they could fall so quickly. The team immediately faced the accusation that prior to this race they had been running illegal tyre pressures, and that their sudden turnaround in fortunes came after Hamilton was nearly disqualified from the last race in Monza for such an infringement.

I believe our car has improved and is just a lot better on this track than them, but could there be some truth to this? 1.5 seconds is a hell of a lot, could some of that be to do with Tyre pressure, if so BRILLIANT, its open season for hunting down Mercedes until the end of the season!!!

[IulianFerrari]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/mot...stigation.html



I believe our car has improved and is just a lot better on this track than them, but could there be some truth to this? 1.5 seconds is a hell of a lot, could some of that be to do with Tyre pressure, if so BRILLIANT, its open season for hunting down Mercedes until the end of the season!!!

I think it is the tyre pressure also. Mercs.are just 0.2 faster than williams i dont think that is normal (0.8-1.2 is normal). So yeah all stars alligned for this race, hope we win it.

[stefa]

Again something suspiciously with Mercedes and Pirelli....

[ForzaFerrariGo!]

Surely the imposition of the tire pressures have affected a lot but we do not know how much.

[KurtC]

i don't think is ferrari car suddenly much better... there's the Red Bulls also that are better than Mercedes and Lewis said they had no grip ... everything points toward the tyres... and ofcourse they wouldn't come and openly say "yeah guys the tyre is our problem we were using ilegal pressure before"

[KimiBot]

i don't think is ferrari car suddenly much better... there's the Red Bulls also that are better than Mercedes and Lewis said they had no grip ... everything points toward the tyres... and ofcourse they wouldn't come and openly say "yeah guys the tyre is our problem we were using ilegal pressure before"

It surely looks like they did have real advantage before, just like someone pointed out that Williams are almost even with Mercs now.

[Greig]

I really doubt Merc have lost over 1 second a lap due to 0.3psi in the tyres.

[KimiBot]

I really doubt Merc have lost over 1 second a lap due to 0.3psi in the tyres.

we`ll see that in next few races

[Rishu]

I'm still confused what really happened to their pace in just two weeks?

[Stormy]

I'm still confused what really happened to their pace in just two weeks?

Maybe while the others were working hard, Mercedes didn't work at all, they were taking a break?

[Rishu]

No, no way Ferrari & RedBull have gained 1.5s a lap in 2 weeks. Only thing I can think of is that perhaps street circuits are not Mercedes' strength & teams like Ferrari & RedBull have come a long way since Monaco

[Stormy]

No, no way Ferrari & RedBull have gained 1.5s a lap in 2 weeks. Only thing I can think of is that perhaps street circuits are not Mercedes' strength & teams like Ferrari & RedBull have come a long way since Monaco

They can be not as good on street circuits as on fast circuits but to be this bad is very odd.
Something very strange its going on at Mercedes, or we gained a lot while they were taking some kind of a break after being in a comfortable lead...

[flam147]

I really doubt Merc have lost over 1 second a lap due to 0.3psi in the tyres.

wasn't rosberg over 1psi bellow?

[flam147]

if the Tyre was warm to hot when the pressure was initially put in the Tyre's as the Tyre's cooled would the pressure not drop? , and every other team put pressure in cold Tyre's? just my thoughts

[evo_spook]

if the Tyre was warm to hot when the pressure was initially put in the Tyre's as the Tyre's cooled would the pressure not drop? , and every other team put pressure in cold Tyre's? just my thoughts

That was the reason for the issue in Monza, there was no illegal tyres, no matter now many are hung up on that.

Tyres were in the blankets, air put in, measured, pressure was good.

Went to grid. tyres cooled, pressures dropped and then fia measured again.

[dpiatto]

I guess we'll have to wait till Suzuka & see if our pace & RB remains dominant over Merc to put an end to tyre conspiracies.
Most likely normal service will be resumed.
Shame.

[WS6TransAm01]

I don't think Merc is going anywhere.

I fear this was a blip on the screen like Malaisia. Don't get me wrong, Ferrari have stepped up big time, but I doubt Seb and Kimi will be a second and a half faster than Hamilton in Japan. I hope to see a cooperative race. Seeing Ham cruise to the finish 25 seconds in front of everyone is boring as hell

[erikejw]

During quali Rosberg even got a radio message that they would not use the tactics of bleading the tyres.

So they need to measure the pressure after stints too.

[bobi_ve]

Come on guys - It's not about tyre pressure at all - but just a game by Toto Wolf to get new green light because of "reability issues" and get new engine update for free once again (without tokens).Thats very important before end of season and preparing for 2016.
After race he made a statement that something "was wrong" with the Lewis's PU.

[Nand0Nand0]

Personally I don't think you can put the change we saw at Singapore down to one thing, ie tire pressure enforcement.

In fact, we already know there are circumstances where we do a lot better, softer tire compounds suit us as does heat. These somewhat came into play in Singapore. The tire pressure will also be a contributing factor. I'd just like to also point out the PSI issue was a lot bigger than .3. Whilst .3 was the measurement for Lewis Nico was over 1 PSI down. Also, the PSI difference to the Ferrari is what we should look at to determine how much of an effect it would have. It was stated in Jo Bauer's report that the Ferrari's when tested were actually over the PSI min. I haven't seen the update to the instruction sent to the teams after Monza, but I'd suspect that they will have said that the team's must comply to the min PSI at any time. This would be in line with the full regulations general principles. If that's the case then Mercedes will have to be inflating their tires a lot higher to be over the legal min all times when they are stationary on the grid. So the PSI differential Merc may have had to run in Singapore may have been a lot more than .3 and probably even more than the 1.1 Nico was out by.

I'm sure at Suzuka we will see much better performance from Merc, but I think the difference will be a lot closer than we saw at Spa and Monza.

IMO things are looking decidedly better in Ferrari-ville. With 7 tokens to use this year and all of next years tokens we could be seeing Ferrari become the monster PU with the clear advantage (I'm sure Enzo would have loved that thought).

There is a distinct bad smell coming emanating from Stuttgart and its getting worse

[fmatiasii]

All I can say right now is, hang on to your seats folks, who knows we really have gained much since the last engine update. After all, we never expected to win or even qualify for pole position this year. Let's wait for the next couple of races to see where we're really at.

[abbottcostello]

The NBC-SN commentator, Steve Machette, gave a very convincing explanation that made it sound plausible that Mercs problems getting the tires working could likely be due to the pressure limits & monitoring by the FIA.

Personally, I think they got a free pass when they were not penalized by the marshals for being low & FIA covered up by "clarifying" how they would measure pressure in the future, starting in Singapore. Rather like they were insinuating that things could have been done wrong in Monza, but when you actually delve into the matter you see they are doing what they did do in Monza.
Not a big conspiracy really, look at how they handled engine mapping & flexible front wings in era of Red Bull dominance. It is their way of being reluctant to change the outcome of a completed race because that just doesn't look good for F1 in general.

Basically same as when parents warn their children, "if you do this you will get that as a punishment, then when the little brat still does it the parent says "I really mean it, if you do that again...", well you get the idea!

And, evo-spook, the only thing I'm hung up on is FIA enforcing what they told all the teams in advance of Monza, in detail, that they would start doing at every race from that point forward!

P.S. If Merc has done all of it's research & development on the car based on running pressures lower than Pirelli recommendations that are now being tightly enforced, that is a very big deal!

[Brembo]

Whatever the reason along with Seb's super win, it was great to see Kimi kept Nico off the podium. In the last four seasons, whoever won at Singapore won the championship !!!! Would'n it be nice !

[f412]

.. it Its not just the tyre pressure..its actually tyre pressure +aero .Mercedes had modeled the car's aero in such a way as to get optimum downforce with whatever airpressure they were running with before... but now with the increased tyre pressure +their aggressive downforce setup is not at all doing them any good...as it was quite obvious from the long runs they had in free practice sessions, that they had quite heavy tyre degradation .. which wouldnt have happened had they ran with low pressure as before... anyone agree with this??

[ferrari4life]

the fact that both red bull and us where ahead of them leads us to believe that it was not the engine. So it has something to do with the car. I dont buy the turn on the tires comment. Seems very fishy.

[Tony]

It was track specific characteristics that led to a Ferrari victory and an RB runner-up. In Japan, things will revert to the norm...

[darkchild]

I think it could very well be tire pressure. I have a feeling Merc has been running underinflated tires whole season long (while it wasnt checked). Underinflated tires mean lower ride hight, more compound on the ground and therefore more grip for Merc to take advantage of. Thats why they were so freaking fast, especially in qualifying. They hade plenty of power to put heat into those tires and off they went!

Problem with less tire pressure is that your fuel usage goes slightly up but their PU was always very efficient so that wasnt a problem. Simply put no set up can bring this kind of MASSIVE deficit after you dominate the whole year (and Monaco, similar track).

All I can say is that I hope its tire pressure and they get spanked in Suzuka again.

[Giallo 550]

Simply put no set up can bring this kind of MASSIVE deficit after you dominate the whole year (and Monaco, similar track.

It certainly was a stark contrast to Monaco. I wonder...

[Brembo]

It was track specific characteristics that led to a Ferrari victory and an RB runner-up. In Japan, things will revert to the norm...

The norm is Seb way up front where he's accustomed to being. His driving and his Ferrari got him pole + the win. The track wherever is the same for every driver to negotiate during the race. Nico & his Merc were whopped by Seb & his Ferrari. I also hope in Japan the race will stay already reverted to the norm of seeing Seb way up front in his Ferrari with the proper tire inflation etc.

[mirafiori]

.. it Its not just the tyre pressure..its actually tyre pressure +aero .Mercedes had modeled the car's aero in such a way as to get optimum downforce with whatever airpressure they were running with before... but now with the increased tyre pressure +their aggressive downforce setup is not at all doing them any good...as it was quite obvious from the long runs they had in free practice sessions, that they had quite heavy tyre degradation .. which wouldnt have happened had they ran with low pressure as before... anyone agree with this??

It's difficult to agree with you at this point but you do make some good comments, what I will say is if Mercedes perform the way they did in Singapore and the new tyre checks are working against them and then yes I totally agree with you. Remember these tyre pressure rules are in place to make sure each team are following the rules legally and of course for safety reasons. All eyes on Japan.