25 replies to this topic

[SWAN]

Re-watching the race - there is A LOT of talk about making sure a DNF didnt decide the championship....

 

Maybe what they were talking about and we were all worrying about was 'make sure a DNF didnt deny Lewis the championship...'?

 

Ok perhaps that is a bit far - and because Lewis appeared to have the race under control - the issue was ok and not so much talk about it.

 

However - lets be clear - even after ALL THAT EFFORT and talk to make sure the cars did not fail in the race - Nicos car STILL had a failure. I think that is quite a worthy talking point. All the other big teams had two cars coming home...

 

Surely Merc need to put more resources into their reliability for 2015 - if others become competitive - it could make a difference...

Edited by SWAN, 24 November 2014 - 21:47.

[Clatter]

Well there wasn't a DNF. Both Mercs finished the race, and NR's problems didn't affect the championship result. Really not worth worrying about unless you truly believe it was a conspiracy.

[Ricardo F1]

I think it's a fair comment, one that Toto Wolff spoke to after the race.  It affected nothing in the end, but through the season their unreliability scuppered likely wins at every race.  It will undoubtedly be a focus of the off season.

[Timstr11]

Re-watching the race - there is A LOT of talk about making sure a DNF didnt decide the championship....

 

Maybe what they were talking about and we were all worrying about was 'make sure a DNF didnt deny Lewis the championship...'?

 

Ok perhaps that is a bit far - and because Lewis appeared to have the race under control - the issue was ok and not so much talk about it.

 

However - lets be clear - even after ALL THAT EFFORT and talk to make sure the cars did not fail in the race - Nicos car STILL had a failure. I think that is quite a worthy talking point. All the other big teams had two cars coming home...

 

Surely Merc need to put more resources into their reliability for 2015 - if others become competitive - it could make a difference...

 

http://careers.merce...es/details/8683

[Burtros]

I saw it as a nugget of hope for the rest in 2015, not much more than that though.

[DarthWillie]

ah, just imagine the number of pages this thread would have had if Hamiltons car had failed 

 

Very poor showing by Merc. they have put themselves in the position were a lot of people outside this BB don't believe it was a coincidence.

[maximilian]

ah, just imagine the number of pages this thread would have had if Hamiltons car had failed 

 

Yeah, there would have been a gigantic sh!tstorm, especially if Hamilton had finished JUST outside the position he needed WITH double points applied...

[Jon83]

They do need to improve their reliability, as do Red Bull. 

 

I hoped that reliability and double points didn't decide the championship in the final few races and I don't think either did. Even if Rosberg's car stayed healthy, I'd have been surprised if he had passed Hamilton and astonished if Hamilton didn't at least hold on to second.  

[SophieB]

Very poor showing by Merc. they have put themselves in the position were a lot of people outside this BB don't believe it was a coincidence.

 

You have to admire their cleverness in covering their tracks. To divert suspicion, they were careful to also give Hamilton a car that failed to finish 3 races, exploding brakes for one qualifying session and - my favourite - having it catch fire in another. 

 

Classic Mercedes, always playing the long con.

[redreni]

If effort could prevent ERS failures, ERS failures wouldn't occur at any race. What, do you think they're not really trying for the first 18 races, and then in the last race they're suddenly going to be able to guarantee perfect reliability?

[P123]

The continuing niggling reliability issues have really been Mercs only weakness through the season.

But whilst we are kicking them for that I think the pit-crew deserve praise for the flawless stops. There must have been huge pressure on them.

[charly0418]

I don't remember Force India having any ERS failures after the beginning of the year when everything was new, its weird maybe its their aggressive packaging or something that causes the failure

[Timstr11]

It was not the ERS itself that failed.

It was the cooling system for the ERS that failed.

The ERS overheating then started having a knock-on effect on other systems as well.

[Kristian]

Well Gary Anderson I think was saying that in the old days before parc ferme, the engineers would fiddle about so much trying to make everything perfect that invariably there was more chance of mistakes being made. I'm guessing this could be similar - mechanics are so paranoid about getting it right for the last race, something was fumbled at some point. But I guess it was just an unlucky failure of ageing components at the end of the season. There was a 1 in 4 chance of a Mercedes failure based on the rest of the season, so it was overdue..... 

[SWAN]

ah, just imagine the number of pages this thread would have had if Hamiltons car had failed 

 

Very poor showing by Merc. they have put themselves in the position were a lot of people outside this BB don't believe it was a coincidence.

 

 

yes thats the thing - in retrospect they came VERY close to what would have been a disastrous PR result...

 

 

If effort could prevent ERS failures, ERS failures wouldn't occur at any race. What, do you think they're not really trying for the first 18 races, and then in the last race they're suddenly going to be able to guarantee perfect reliability?

 

 

obviously effort can be made to prevent any failure - in the design - which is why all the other top teams didnt suffer failures...

[Fastcake]

[HP]

Well there wasn't a DNF. Both Mercs finished the race, and NR's problems didn't affect the championship result. Really not worth worrying about unless you truly believe it was a conspiracy.

Well if you look at the incident in isolation that's fine. But it's IMO still a convenient view. Had the faulty part been mounted on Hamilton's car, there would have been a huge outcry.

 

So the goal is always 100% reliability, with maximum power. Systems can be made like that. The current engine regulations in F1 make things more complicated though. The design is too complicated with ERS.

[RoutariEnjinu]

I don't understand how a DNF in the last race is any more significant for a championship than one at the start of a season.


A championship is the culmination of the whole season, and so if DNFs decide it, they should be tallied over a whole season too.

Less dramatic put this way, but I don't see the logic in getting so hung up on the last race. It's not like the double points had any effect at all.


All in all, both drivers had their fair share of car issues that affected their points. I don't think any one incident can be realistically be nominated as the decider.


Given the pace if the Mercedes at the last race, relative to all others. The only way Nico could have been champion is exactly IF something unusual went wrong to Hamilton's car.


All things being equal, in the fairest of fights, it would have always been a 1-2. Even if Nico absolutely decimated Hamilton.


To say reliability cost Nico a chance at the championship at the last race is indefensible. It was only ever reliability that could have given him a chance. Had the same fault affected both cars, which at the time were going for it, it could quite easily have worked in Nicos favour. As it did when the ERS failed on both cars last time.

In a way, that problem in the last race was as close as Nico got to the championship.

[Atreiu]

I think they were reasonably reliable, given the knew package and all.

As a matter of fact, the last decades excess reliability makes me want to see dropped scores again.

[Brazzers]

Mercedes race cars are hell a lot reliable than their road cars, that's me being generous too... 

[HP]

Mercedes race cars are hell a lot reliable than their road cars, that's me being generous too... 

The team can afford the repair and maintenance costs ..

[jimjimjeroo]

Were mercedes the most unreliable of the mercedes teams?

[Brazzers]

The team can afford the repair and maintenance costs ..

 

It isn't about the affordability rather the inconvenience it causes and the reputation. 

[george1981]

Is this a repeat of the problems Mercedes suffered in Canada? Was the cause of that problem ever announced?

[Timstr11]

Is this a repeat of the problems Mercedes suffered in Canada? Was the cause of that problem ever announced?

 

Canada it was the CE unit which overheated after a pit stop, which then affected the ERS.

 

Don't know what caused the overheating, but was likely insufficient cooling of the CE unit under those conditions.

[Clatter]

Well if you look at the incident in isolation that's fine. But it's IMO still a convenient view. Had the faulty part been mounted on Hamilton's car, there would have been a huge outcry.

 

So the goal is always 100% reliability, with maximum power. Systems can be made like that. The current engine regulations in F1 make things more complicated though. The design is too complicated with ERS.

I agree, but there have always been engine\system failures in F1 and there probably always will be. There would have been just as big an outcry if LH had a tyre failure that buggered his race. Pirelli would have got a lot of grief even if that were the only failure in the race.