Why it's taking Mercedes so long to fix its nightmare 2022 F1 car
Mercedes is still struggling five races into the 2022 Formula 1 season. Its battle with porpoising problems continues with the green shoots of recovery that appeared during Friday practice at the Miami Grand Prix withering once we got to the business end of the weekend. At the start of the...
Why Valtteri Bottas now has what Mercedes wouldn't give him in F1
Valtteri Bottas is experiencing something for the first time in Formula 1. After nine seasons, almost 200 races and 10 grand prix victories, he is finally top dog at a team. It’s partly a result of circumstance, joining Alfa Romeo alongside F1 rookie Zhou Guanyu, but it’s also by design....
The first evidence Mercedes won't save its bleak 2022 F1 season
Mercedes' worst weekend yet in an awful start to the 2022 Formula 1 season has led the team and star driver Lewis Hamilton to a bleak verdict on its fading championship hopes. With Hamilton now 58 points adrift of Charles Leclerc and Mercedes 47 points behind Ferrari, the chances of driver and...
Why F1 porpoising is a disaster for Mercedes but not for Ferrari
One of the big stories of the 2022 Formula 1 season so far is the porpoising struggles of Mercedes. It’s costing Mercedes significant lap time, turning F1’s dominant force of the past decade into an also-ran. Yet Ferrari’s car also suffers from porpoising. During the recent Australian...
Why Mercedes' F1 car has a big problem with no quick fix
Mercedes sneaked a podium in Formula 1’s season opener but when it comes to pure performance, the team’s in its worst shape since the hybrid engine era began in 2014. The world champion team started the 2022 season with a humbling defeat to Ferrari and was set for a distant fifth and sixth...
Mercedes' radical new F1 sidepods spark 2022's first tech debate
While Red Bull’s sidepods were the big talking point of the first pre-season Formula 1 test of 2022, Mercedes has resoundingly stolen its thunder with its ultra-narrow, super shrink-wrapped design that has appeared in Bahrain this week. But how has Mercedes achieved this, how are they...
Why Mercedes needed 'a huge internal redesign' for its 2022 F1 car
Brought to you by Aramco: https://bit.ly/3J32nMA The new Mercedes F1 car - back in its Silver Arrows livery after two years in black - was revealed prior to being shaken down at a stormy Silverstone on Friday, with George Russell the first to get behind the wheel during its filming day. Lewis...
Will 2021 F1 war put Mercedes and Red Bull on the back foot in 2022?
While the watching world focused on the racing on track in 2021, the design and development war that will shape the coming season was silently raging in parallel. All 10 F1 teams biased their resources more towards the 2022 cars last year. For some, the tradeoff was easy - but Mercedes and Red...
What Aston Martin learned from two years running a Mercedes F1 clone
Aston Martin has to stand on its own two feet in 2022, with the team formerly known as Racing Point running a car design all of its own work for the first time since 2019. That's because it spent the last two years using a car design based on Mercedes' 2019 world championship winner. So will the...
What happened to McLaren's forgotten F1 2021 restrictions
McLaren’s return to race-winning ways and a year-long fight against a rejuvenated Ferrari made it very easy to forget the big restrictions it had to work with in 2021. McLaren had a unique challenge: it was the only team changing engines and had to adapt its MCL35 to accommodate the Mercedes...
Could 'betrayed' Lewis Hamilton quit F1 over 2021 Abu Dhabi GP controversy?
Lewis Hamilton has been hit hard by his 2021 championship defeat. Following the news that Mercedes had dropped its appeal against the outcome of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the seven-time world champion skipped the FIA's annual prize-giving gala this week. Now Hamilton’s Mercedes team boss Toto...
F1 trying to fix 'tarnished' image as Mercedes drops Abu Dhabi GP appeal
Mercedes has decided not to appeal the stewards’ verdict from the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, formally confirming Max Verstappen as the 2021 Formula 1 world champion, and Lewis Hamilton as runner-up. But this is far from the end of the matter as F1 scrambles to repair what the FIA has called the...
Aston Martin's major Mercedes F1 signing and what it means
Aston Martin has signed one of Mercedes’ leading Formula 1 aerodynamic people as part of its aggressive recruitment drive. Hiring the world champion team’s chief aerodynamicist is the latest statement of intent from the organisation owned by Lawrence Stroll, who wants to turn Aston Martin...
The new F1 legality test after Red Bull's Mercedes complaints
A new legality test has been introduced in Formula 1 following Red Bull’s complaints about Mercedes’ supposedly trick rear wing. Red Bull has been pressuring the FIA for a ruling on what it believes to be illegal rear wing behaviour on the Mercedes and explicitly threatened to lodge a...
Why there’s more to come in the Mercedes F1 rear wing controversy
Mercedes' F1 rear wing was one of the major talking points of the Brazilian Grand Prix weekend, but for two different reasons. While Lewis Hamilton's disqualification from Friday's qualifying session caught the headlines, Max Verstappen's curious inspection of his rival's car in parc ferme was in...
Mercedes’ trick rear suspension on its F1 car explained
Mercedes’ 2021 car produced the biggest talking point of the United States despite the team failing to win the race. By now you’ve probably all seen the footage of the W12’s rear end sinking rather dramatically down the straight at the previous race in Turkey. This rear suspension trick is...
Why Red Bull finds Mercedes' F1 engine performance 'surprising'
Another F1 race, another round of verbal jousting between title rivals Red Bull and Mercedes. This time it's been sparked by Red Bull team boss Christian Horner raising questions about the performance of Lewis Hamilton's car on the straights at the Turkish GP, and making suggestions that it could...
The key mistake Mercedes made with Hamilton's Turkish GP strategy
Mercedes’ F1 strategic decisions were in the spotlight again after the Turkish Grand Prix, with Lewis Hamilton being unhappy that he wasn’t allowed to stay out without making a pitstop. We’ve crunched the numbers on how Hamilton’s race would have likely played out if he’d got his wish...
The Mercedes engine concerns that could derail Hamilton's F1 title bid
Mercedes has “question marks” over its Formula 1 engine after Valtteri Bottas required his third new set of power unit components in four events at Sochi, taking him onto his fifth internal combustion engine, MGU-H and turbocharger of the season. Lewis Hamilton hasn't had to take any grid...
Will Mercedes block Albon from being Russell's Williams F1 replacement?
George Russell is officially a Mercedes driver for 2022, when he will partner Lewis Hamilton as Valtteri Bottas's replacement. So with Russell's and Bottas's new deals now confirmed, what happens next in the driver market? Alex Albon to Williams is one of the big storylines that has emerged, but...
Russell to Mercedes, Bottas to Alfa Romeo - F1 2022's big driver moves explained
Valtteri Bottas has announced that he’s signed a multi-year deal with Alfa Romeo starting in 2022, meaning he’s leaving Mercedes. And while Mercedes hasn’t announced his replacement as we release this video, clearly that means Lewis Hamilton’s team-mate next year will be Nico Rosb…...
Why Mercedes hasn't announced the 2022 F1 driver decision it's already made
Mercedes is still keeping the outside world waiting for official news on who will partner Lewis Hamilton in the 2022 F1 season, but it confirmed over the Belgian GP weekend that the decision between Valterri Bottas or George Russell has been taken. So what's the hold up? In this video we explain...
Why there's fresh engine speculation in the 2021 F1 title fight
The 2021 F1 title fight has been great on track, but it's also become feisty off track. The latest episode of tension between Red Bull and Mercedes has been around engine performance. In this video Scott Mitchell details who has been whispering what about their rivals, how those rumours have been...
Did Russell’s Mercedes test hint at F1 2022 driver line-up decision?
George Russell stuck around after the Hungarian Grand Prix to take part in a 2022 F1 tyre test... for Mercedes. So was this just Mercedes taking advantage of using a third driver for the testing process as Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas had previously run the 2022 tyres at Imola, or was there...
The 'brutal' consequences of Red Bull's latest F1 wipeout by a Mercedes
Red Bull had its Hungarian Grand Prix ruined thanks to an incident triggered by a Mercedes. This time it was the first corner pile-up caused by Valtteri Bottas, which managed to impact (literally and figuratively) both Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez. In this video Scott Mitchell details the pain...
What happens to Bottas if Mercedes picks Russell for 2022 F1 drive?
Valtteri Bottas is awaiting news on his F1 future, and if growing speculation that George Russell is set to land a promotion to Mercedes is to be believed, the Finn could be about to find himself on the sidelines. In this video we look at what Bottas’s options are if he needs to start looking...
The incredible story of how McLaren and Mercedes split up in F1
McLaren returned to using Mercedes engines in Formula 1 in 2021, after six seasons apart. It's a reunion of sorts for a partnership that lasted 20 years first time around, and netted plenty of wins and three drivers' titles with Mika Hakkinen and Lewis Hamilton. Mercedes even owned a stake in...
How Verstappen fight influenced Hamilton's new Mercedes F1 contract
Lewis Hamilton has signed a two-year contract extension with Mercedes, keeping him in Formula 1 until at least the end of the 2023 season. The deal was completed in a much more straightforward manner than his protracted talks over a 2021 agreement, and it comes against a backdrop of Mercedes...
The 'wind-up' over crucial Mercedes F1 driver decision explained
Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff made some eye-catching remarks about decisions over his team's driver line-up for 2022, claiming a final decision could be taken as late as February. However, just a day later he clarified that was just a "wind-up". So what's really going on with Mercedes' driver...
How Mercedes v Red Bull tensions are escalating in F1 title fight
Red Bull won its fourth race in a row at the 2021 Styrian Grand Prix, making this the first time in F1's hybrid era that Mercedes has been on a losing streak this long. But while Max Verstappen was further clear of Lewis Hamilton than we've seen on most occasions we've seen this year, the tension...
