Comments by "" (@neutronalchemist3241) on "The Real Reason for Mercedes’ Slow Pace | Saudi Arabian GP" video.

I'm by no mean an expert, but, when I saw the first car (the one some expert already said was "one year ahead of the competition") it seemed to me like the Ferrari F1 2009. The previous year's car adapted to completely different rules. Hardly a success. It came out it was a fake. Second car. Experts "revolutionary!". To me the sidepods were wrong. Usually you don't want your air intakes to ingest the boundary layer. That's why all the other cars have orizontal air intakes. It's obvious that Merc's engineers found a way for that design to work, controlling the fluxes of all the front end but, if that's the case, it's hard for it to work in every possible situation. A complicate solution to a not existing problem.
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AND it's not like the others are flatting out yet. They too are sparing the engines and seeing what parts wear first, before using full power. Ferrari was racing with a lot of rear wing too (that's why RB was faster on the straight) also to reduce the chances to smash the new car with few spare parts available on a wall... they too have evolution steps scheduled...
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They use the new sidepods because they think, if they manage to solve the problems, they are going to give them an advantage. The old sidepods were practically those of the previous year's car. Made for completely diferent fluxes. They think that, even if they can made them work, they'll work mediocrely.
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When did they came back? It's since 2012 that you knew they had the best car since the friday of the first GP of the season.
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Engine is not only power. It's weight distribution, both for the engine itself and the fact that it dictates the placing of several other components of the car. It's very possible that the weight distribution dictated by the Mercedes engine conflicts with the aerodynamics the new cars require. Given the shape of the engine, there was an "easy way" to assemble the car that all the clients naturally followed, with the result of them all having the same problem.
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@Rishi3404 On the other hand, they are not going to spend capped money to fix problems they don't have, so they are going to have more for further develpoment.
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Yeah. Had Bottas, Alonso and Ricciardo came to the finish line, Hamilton would have gained only three positions during the whole GP.
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Engine is not only power. It's weight distribution, both for the engine itself and the fact that it dictates the placing of several other components of the car. It's very possible that the weight distribution dictated by the Mercedes engine conflicts with the aerodynamics the new cars require. Given the shape of the engine, there was an "easy way" to assemble the car that all the clients naturally followed, with the result of them all having the same problem.
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