142 replies to this topic

[icecream]

It doesn't seem that crazy to me that they might turn down the wick to undermine the arguments of those calling for regulation changes. If they're as far ahead as they've looked up until this weekend, then there's basically zero risk for the WDC/WCC.

 

Discuss. 

 

[InvertedLift]

  5 star thread.

[jstrains]

I was thinking of it as well especially after Toto's comments but why would they do it at the home GP for Petronas?

[Dmitriy_Guller]

To be honest, that thought occurred to me during the race.  Now is about the worst time for the sport to be dominated by one team so comprehensively.  Dialing it back for a while may be in the longer term interest for Mercedes.

 

That said, sometimes the most obvious explanation is the correct one.  Mercedes could simply still be a tire-eating design that works best under most conditions, with the tires as they currently are, but suffers when it gets really hot.

[Wirra]

Don't be ridiculous, next you'll be questioning Maldonado's win on Frank's 70th birthday!

 

F1 is not about TV ratings, money nor greed.

[Hamandeggs]

Grief,

[hollowstar]

The thought also crossed my mind when I realised they gave Hamilton hard tyres on his last stint. 

 

All in all I don't think they spontaneously planned to do that, but seing the race unfold, they may have thought "this could be an opportunity to shut up critics".  That's actually the only way giving Lewis these hard tyres (with such a stupid radio explanation) makes sense to me. 

[RustyRuss]

Nope, they just got beat! Tanking a race won't help for long, when they win a couple of races easily, the bitching will return. 

[thegamer23]

The thought also crossed my mind when I realised they gave Hamilton hard tyres on his last stint.

All in all I don't think they spontaneously planned to do that, but seing the race unfold, they may have thought "this could be an opportunity to shut up critics". That's actually the only way giving Lewis these hard tyres (with such a stupid radio explanation) makes sense to me.

He would have not reached the chequered flag with used mediums from quali while Ferrari saved one set in q1.
Mercedes just got outsmarted all weekend.

[GoldenColt]

Why would they pick one of their most important races to do it?

 

Nonsense.

[Lemans]

Someone needs to start a new thread called 'Have F1 forums jumped the shark?'

[TomNokoe]

[Nemo1965]

Consciously? No. Subconsciously? Perhaps. If a tennisplayer feels he doesn't really deserve to win, he won't. Many tennisplayers were in the process of beating Björn Borg at his height. It is interesting that usually they lost. And afterwards they said words to the effect of: 'But then I realised it was Björn Borg on the other side of the net. I can't beat Borg!'

 

I have the impression that the constant nagging of Renault, Red Bull did weaken the resolve of Mercedes - at least, the not-drivers side of the team. Both drivers seem genuinely upset at losing. Wolff, Lauda... not so much.

Edited by Nemo1965, 31 March 2015 - 07:17.

[Nemo1965]

Someone needs to start a new thread called 'Have F1 forums jumped the shark?'

 

Or another good idea: please introduce your avatar. (Talking about avatars: who in earth is YOUR avatar?)

Edited by Nemo1965, 31 March 2015 - 06:19.

[Sash1]

I wonder why Mercedes cooked their tires earlier compared to Ferrari. It could be a setup flaw. I guess we will see when we come to a cooler country. But I doubt that it was on purpose.

[GrumpyYoungMan]

Or another good idea: please introduce your avatar. (Talking about avatars: who in earth is YOUR avatar?)

his/her misses?   lol!

[GrumpyYoungMan]

While I can see the benefits if they did, I do not think it was planned if they did.

 

With the limited running Hamilton had and with the track temperatures I think it was just a perfect storm but the possible result would may have been worth it.

 

They are already discussing changes to engines for 2017 so it is possible that Mercedes stand to loose all there R&D for the 2014 rule set if they radically change the rules and Mercedes could stand to see all there investment ruined in just 3 years and that isn't something they would want to do...

 

I nulled my vote, as I can not decide what way to vote...

[ConsiderAndGo]

What is it with some of these threads recently!!

[teejay]

As a Merc board member I would definitely spend several hundred million dollars to purposely lose to a automotive sales competitor.

 

DEFINITELY

[topical]

A few million as backhander from Bernie and a plea to do it "for the sake of the show"? Not impossible. Within two weeks all the media have switched from "F1 is in dire straits" to "F1 is revitalised, this could be a classic". Could be seen as suspicious. We'll see what the next races bring...

[teejay]

The number of cars they sell based off a win would outweigh a back door million or two.

[DaddyCool]

It seems to me that some people have a really hard time understanding that a fast car alone does not win you races. You need a driver, strategy, pitwall, pitcrew, etc. Ferrari and Merc had the car and the driver, but Merc did not have the strategy, that!s why Ferrari won.

[MJ999]

Even though i have no evidence to suggest otherwise but fact is 2 weeks ago they had 7ths in hand over Ferrari and in Malay regardless of tire wear Vettel was matching them on pace or even faster plus the Merc was slow in a straight line .. .really slow which can only mean they the engine was turned down.. Who knows had Merc won, an engine equalisation ruling may have been passed.

Edited by MJ999, 31 March 2015 - 07:18.

[Nemo1965]

The number of cars they sell based off a win would outweigh a back door million or two.

 

I. seriously.doubt.that.

 

I think that a world-championship ramps up the brand-awareness, and after a couple of years, that translates into more sales. But immediately after a Grand Prix win? I would like to see the figures.

 

DaddyCool, on 31 Mar 2015 - 09:07, said:

It seems to me that some people have a really hard time understanding that a fast car alone does not win you races. You need a driver, strategy, pitwall, pitcrew, etc. Ferrari and Merc had the car and the driver, but Merc did not have the strategy, that!s why Ferrari won.

 

That is called cognitive dissonance reduction. Fans of Vettel/Hamilton/Alonso/Schumacher/Fill in name can't believe someone was just better on the day. There must be 'another' explanation. Not necessarily a conspiracy, but hidden motives of 'the powers that be' behind the scenes. Or some hidden gremlin. Like: 'The car was set-up by the inferior team-mate.'

Edited by Nemo1965, 31 March 2015 - 07:26.

[rasul]

Even though i have no evidence to suggest otherwise but fact is 2 weeks ago they had 7ths in hand over Ferrari and in Malay regardless of tire wear Vettel was matching them on pace or even faster plus the Merc was slow in a straight line .. .really slow which can only mean they the engine was turned down.. Who knows had Merc won, an engine equalisation ruling may have been passed.

There's a far simpler explanation: heat isn't good for Mercedes PU. It's not only the Mercs that looked worse, but their clients too. Ferrari has an innovative cooling package.

[MJ999]

There's a far simpler explanation: heat isn't good for Mercedes PU. It's not only the Mercs that looked worse, but their clients too. Ferrari has an innovative cooling package.

1 lap of qualifying will not over heat the engine to the degree that it will blow up. Vettel was 1.3 seconds off pole in Aus and here matching Ham and beating Ros in quali  i dont think this turn up of speed is down to heat only.

[rasul]

1 lap of qualifying will not over heat the engine to the degree that it will blow up. Vettel was 1.3 seconds off pole in Aus and here matching Ham and beating Ros in quali  i dont think this turn up of speed is down to heat only.

Um, qualifying was in wet conditions. You do realize that, right? 

[RedBaron]

This reminds me, I think Vettel tanked his 2014 season.

 

Can someone please start a new topic 'Are Honda so dominant they're tanking the first half of the season?' I've got a lot of views to get out there.

Edited by RedBaron, 31 March 2015 - 07:40.

[Seanspeed]

To be honest, that thought occurred to me during the race.  Now is about the worst time for the sport to be dominated by one team so comprehensively.  Dialing it back for a while may be in the longer term interest for Mercedes.
 
That said, sometimes the most obvious explanation is the correct one.  Mercedes could simply still be a tire-eating design that works best under most conditions, with the tires as they currently are, but suffers when it gets really hot.

Agree with just about everything, but Mercedes do not have a tire-eating design. Their wear was no worse than anybody else's apart from Ferrari. Looks more like a case of the Ferrari having exceptional wear rather than the Mercedes having exceptionally bad wear.

Anyways yea, thought occurred to me, but I cant really believe that's what happened. Voted 'not likely'.

[MJ999]

Um, qualifying was in wet conditions. You do realize that, right? 

ummm you do realise that Q1 was not wet and mercedes used medium and ferrari was on hard?

[rasul]

ummm you do realise that Q1 was not wet and mercedes used medium and ferrari was on hard?

So what? Drivers usually don't push too hard in Q1 if they use softer tyres. They just do a lap good enough to get into Q2.

[Seanspeed]

1 lap of qualifying will not over heat the engine to the degree that it will blow up. Vettel was 1.3 seconds off pole in Aus and here matching Ham and beating Ros in quali  i dont think this turn up of speed is down to heat only.

Q3 was wet. It was hardly a representative comparison. And of course Vettel, even with a fresh set of inters on his last lap, did not manage to beat Lewis' initial Q3 time. Both Lewis and Rosberg seemed to stuff up their final laps for various reasons. That was not an accurate look at the dry pace difference between the two in qualifying.

[Nonesuch]

No; due to the strong Petronas backing Malaysia is their second home race, as Nico Rosberg will be glad to remind everyone who asks.

 

I'll quote this one again:
 

“At least among some samples and for some conspiracy theories, the perception that ‘they did it’ is fueled by the perception that ‘I would do it,’” University of Kent psychologists Karen Douglas and Robbie Sutton write in the British Journal of Social Psychology.

“These studies suggest that people who have more lax personal morality may endorse conspiracy theories to a greater extent because they are, on average, more willing to participate in the conspiracies themselves.”

The reasons people persist in believing conspiracy theories — even when there is overwhelming evidence debunking them — have long been debated by psychologists. One credible theory contends convincing ourselves of conspiracies allows us to avoid acknowledging the terrifying arbitrariness of life.

[RubberKubrick]

All these wanna-be explanations are neat. But no, it wasn't scripted by Mercedes. They were weaker. Simple as that.

Following question is important, in my opinion:

Is the Ferrari now also "only" better because of tyre management (I mean, in 2012, the Allison-car was also only a car worth of ca. three wins by merit during the season and they would've won three times, if it wasn't for the rubbish strategy in Bahrain2012 or if a lesser driver than Hamilton had been driving the McLaren in Hungary2012) or are they as good or better than Mercedes constantly throughout the season?

By the looks of it, right now, it seems so popular to answer "because of the former reason". I say it's "because of the latter one".

[sergey1308]

It's nonsense! In the end of the year just 1 or maybe less points can separate from winning in WDC/WCC. And such conscious fail can cost a lot. No one in his mind never do this. The only thing they could do is to let Ferrari and others was pretty close to them but never beat them.

[MJ999]

So what? Drivers usually don't push too hard in Q1 if they use softer tyres. They just do a lap good enough to get into Q2.

by that logic how do we find out who was pushing more hamilton or vettel ? 

[MJ999]

Q3 was wet. It was hardly a representative comparison. And of course Vettel, even with a fresh set of inters on his last lap, did not manage to beat Lewis' initial Q3 time. Both Lewis and Rosberg seemed to stuff up their final laps for various reasons. That was not an accurate look at the dry pace difference between the two in qualifying.

with all due respect Vettel did make a few mistakes on his qualy lap..... my point was that in a matter of 2 weeks its impossible for a team to gain a second a lap on sheer pace compared to the opposition unless the opposition does a really bad job.

[EthanM]

Or another good idea: please introduce your avatar. (Talking about avatars: who in earth is YOUR avatar?)

 

Christina Hendricks aka Joan from Mad Men

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0376716/

Edited by EthanM, 31 March 2015 - 08:14.

[Nemo1965]

No; due to the strong Petronas backing Malaysia is their second home race, as Nico Rosberg will be glad to remind everyone who asks.

 

I'll quote this one again:
 

 

Nice line: 'The reasons people persist in believing conspiracy theories — even when there is overwhelming evidence debunking them — have long been debated by psychologists. One credible theory contends convincing ourselves of conspiracies allows us to avoid acknowledging the terrifying arbitrariness of life.'

 

You can change that for the occassion: 'The reasons people persist in believing conspiracy theories — even when there is overwhelming evidence debunking them — have long been debated by psychologists. One credible theory contends convincing ourselves of conspiracies allows us to avoid acknowledging the terrifying arbitrariness of Formula 1.'

[rasul]

by that logic how do we find out who was pushing more hamilton or vettel ?

Vettel was on hard tyres. Of course he had to push harder on them to get into Q2, because many were on mediums. If you're on harder tyres in Q1, you always push more, because it's  riskier.
 

with all due respect Vettel did make a few mistakes on his qualy lap..... my point was that in a matter of 2 weeks its impossible for a team to gain a second a lap on sheer pace compared to the opposition unless the opposition does a really bad job.

You do realize that Vettel qualified 2nd last year too, setting almost the same time as Lewis in wet conditions? And that's with all his struggles with the car last year. Maybe he's just very, very good in wet conditions.

Edited by rasul, 31 March 2015 - 08:18.

[kimster89]

Based on genuine shock on their faces and how stunned the Mercedes pair were on Podium after they got destroyed by Seb on pure merit for the first time in V6 hybrid turbo era, i would say NO.

[Zava]

A few million as backhander from Bernie and a plea to do it "for the sake of the show"? Not impossible. Within two weeks all the media have switched from "F1 is in dire straits" to "F1 is revitalised, this could be a classic". Could be seen as suspicious. We'll see what the next races bring...

F1 is not in dire straits, only a small part of it... namely Luca Badoer:

 

 

[MJ999]

Vettel was on hard tyres. Of course he had to push harder on them to get into Q2, because many were on mediums. If you're on harder tyres in Q1, you always push more, because it's  riskier.
 

You do realize that Vettel qualified 2nd last year too, setting almost the same time as Lewis in wet conditions? And that's with all his struggles with the car last year. Maybe he's just very, very good in wet conditions.

LAst years car was fully designed under the leadership of adrian newey and it did produce alot of downforce and as we know wet is a great engine equaliser Moreever Aldo costa the mercedes designer went on record as saying in fast corners redbull is faster whereas in slow to medium the merc is quicker. even in aus last year ricciardo was 2nd fastest.

[rasul]

LAst years car was fully designed under the leadership of adrian newey and it did produce alot of downforce and as we know wet is a great engine equaliser Moreever Aldo costa the mercedes designer went on record as saying in fast corners redbull is faster whereas in slow to medium the merc is quicker. even in aus last year ricciardo was 2nd fastest.

Last year in Malaysia Qualifying Ricciardo was only 5th, more than a second slower than Vettel in the wet, so Vettel's qualifying was certainly not down to Newey's brilliance.   Some people just can't give credit when it's due. Neither last year's Red Bull nor this year's Ferrari was good enough to be P2, much less so close to the dominant Merc.

[Exb]

haha.

I can see why the question was asked, I was chatting to our work experience student at work before the race and we were talking about the advantages of Mercedes throwing a race or 2 to the opposition 'to help the show' (although we went with Canada and Monza as it would be easier to throw with Williams and Ferrari faster in straight lines)

 

If I was Mercedes I would definitely 'mess' with results in order to stop any talk of engine equalisation and keep my advantage although I think that says more about me than Mercedes.

 

Anyway - to answer the question - NO!

for several reasons. The 1st being that this was pretty much a home race for the brand and with no German GP it becomes more important.

The 2nd - they didn't need to lose the race to shut the critics up - just dial back the performance enough to race with Ferrari but use the extra performance to ensure the win - it would still have been a great race that showed Ferrari 'had caught up'

The 3rd reason - Mercedes still seemed to have a similar advantage over the rest of the field (the other teams were just as far away as Melbourne and last year so it suggests Mercedes were not going slower) - it was Ferrari that moved forward (when compared to Williams for example) Whatever the reason Ferrari were able to extract more out of their car in those conditions than everyone else.

[Diablobb81]

Same answer as in the did Vettel throw 2014 : it's the tire management (or lack of it).

[Lotus53B]

Or another good idea: please introduce your avatar. (Talking about avatars: who in earth is YOUR avatar?)

There's an addon for firefox called Tineye which is your friend - I used it to work out Newbrray's avatar.  Lemans' I knew before I did a search 'cos, well, redhead...

 

Back to the topic.  F1 is money driven, not winning a race costs -a team- money, there's no way that they'd deliberately lose a race.  There's a faint inkling of a smidgen of an iota of a hint of a possibility that they may, in extreme circumstances, consider the vaguest possibility of influencing the order of their drivers, not that I'm suggesting that any team would ever stoop to such actions, but deliberately tanking a race - not a flipping chance.

[EthanM]

if you compare Malaysia to Australia the only difference was Ferrari moving forward relative to the rest of the Grid, not Mercedes moving backwards. In Malaysia, Williams, the first non-Merc/Ferrari car, finished the race a full minute and 10 seconds behind Vettel and a full minute behind Hamilton. That's not Mercedes being slower, that's Ferrari being faster

[MJ999]

Last year in Malaysia Qualifying Ricciardo was only 5th, more than a second slower than Vettel in the wet, so Vettel's qualifying was certainly not down to Newey's brilliance.   Some people just can't give credit when it's due. Neither last year's Red Bull nor this year's Ferrari was good enough to be P2, much less so close to the dominant Merc.

last year in the wet during the hungarian grand prix vettel was a second slower than ricciardo in the wet and even had a spin while under pressure from hamilton   

[rasul]

last year in the wet during the hungarian grand prix vettel was a second slower than ricciardo in the wet and even had a spin while under pressure from hamilton

Don't switch topics again. First you said "Vettel was 1.3 seconds off pole in Aus and here matching Ham and beating Ros in quali  i dont think this turn up of speed is down to heat only" as a proof of the conspiracy theory. When I pointed out that the qualifying was wet, you switched topics and said "ummm you do realise that Q1 was not wet and mercedes used medium and ferrari was on hard?" When I pointed out that the top teams don't push hard enough in Q1 if they're on softer tyre, you went back to saying that "its impossible for a team to gain a second a lap on sheer pace compared to the opposition unless the opposition does a really bad job" despite the fact that the Australian qualifying was dry and this qualifying was wet, and Vettel has already proved in the past that he can outqualify his car in wet here in Malaysia and put it in P2 in an inferior car. 
Your arguments are therefore invalid. If that's your proof of the conspiracy theory, you should find better ones than the wet qualifying.