This is much more a Mercedes collapse than Hamilton, formula 1 is more team vs team than driver vs driver. People just hate on him because he's pretty overrated and the media focuses on him. He is a very good driver, POSSIBLY the best, but the Mercedes car was unreal for several years. Engine performance, aerodynamics, handling setup, all the best. This also coincided with Ferrari fucking up on engines for a few years so the only real challenger for the championship they had was redbull for a while.
Now these new aerodynamic rules allow for "ground effect" underneath the car, and mandatory 15% ethanol fuel.
The fuel is proving to be a hard transition for the teams, the Mercedes engines that several teams run are looking underpowered compared to the others, the Honda engines that redbull and some others use had issues in the first race, but they make lots of power, and the Ferrari engines are great so far.
The ground effect turned out to be much more unstable than teams expected (there's rules to limit the use of simulation and wind tunnel tests) so cars have been 'porpoising' at high speeds, ie bouncing a ton. The new cars are all very different from eachother this year with the rules just coming out, so teams are addressing it in different ways.
The Mercedes design choices are making it harder for them to address it, so In the mean time until the engineers come up with a proper fix, they are lowering their downforce to try to avoid it in the first place because it can be dangerous (see Schumacher in the HAAS today, bad crash when he lost the ground effect from going too far over the curb) . Lower downforce means less grip of course, so the Mercedes cars are not very fast now.
That being said, once Mercedes figures out the fuel change, and their ground effect problems, their car will be crazy fast again. And I say that as a redbull and haas fan. The Mercedes cars are massive ground effect cars, which is super effective if they can get it to work. You get large amounts of downforce for very little drag, so they can run smaller wings and get really fast.
Source :i am engineer that loves formula 1
Mercedes had a fantastic car that was by far the best for several straight years. Engine performance, aerodynamics, handling setup, all the best
Now these new aerodynamic rules allow for "ground effect" underneath the car, and mandatory 15% ethanol fuel.
The fuel is proving to be a hard transition for the teams, the Mercedes engines that several teams run are looking underpowered compared to the others, the Honda engines that redbull and some others use had issues in the first race, but they make lots of power, and the Ferrari engines are great so far.
The ground effect turned out to be much more unstable than teams expected (there's rules to limit the use of simulation and wind tunnel tests) so cars have been 'porpoising' at high speeds, ie bouncing a ton. The new cars are all very different from eachother this year with the rules just coming out, so teams are addressing it in different ways.
The Mercedes design choices are making it harder for them to address it, so In the mean time until the engineers come up with a proper fix, they are lowering their downforce to try to avoid it in the first place because it can be dangerous (see Schumacher in the HAAS today, bad crash when he lost the ground effect from going too far over the curb) . Lower downforce means less grip of course, so the Mercedes cars are not very fast now.
That being said, once Mercedes figures out the fuel change, and their ground effect problems, their car will be crazy fast again. And I say that as a redbull and haas fan. The Mercedes cars are massive ground effect cars, which is super effective if they can get it to work. You get large amounts of downforce for very little drag, so they can run smaller wings and get really fast.
Source :i am engineer that loves formula 1