George says Brazil F1 win put Merc on wrong development path

[John S]

Whilst George may be right their car flattered to decieve with results towards end of last term, it's still Porpoising - or rather avoiding it - that is Merc's real problem with zero sidepod concept.

Ride height changes, furiously argued for by Toto last season to defeat Porpoising, have turned into their real achilles heel. 23 regs have now moved floor edges up beyond best working window for Merc concept; how sad. 

Looks like it'll be a long year for Merc, cost cap makes it virtually impossible to implement a new full chassis/floor concept - or does it?????

Any bets that they can find over a second a lap they lack to front runners before Brazil come round again? 

https://www.motorsportweek.com/2023/03/18/russell-2022-brazil-win-led-mercedes-down-the-wrong-path/

[Jericoke]

The way opponents are going through power unit/drive train parts, if the Mercedes power train is reliable, but 'slow', that gives their teams budget to work on the body of the car.

I'm still pro 'budget cap', but definitely on the fence about it.  If it's going to lead to season after season of predictable action, changes will have to be made.  At least remove the silly penalties for replacing power unit parts.  The limit on parts was to stop rich teams from simply buying more engines.  Now that there's a cap, and each engine comes out of the cap, why not let a team buy a bunch of engines instead of aero or fancy lunches if they want?

[Monty]

Every regulation that makes racing more ‘artificial’ is easy to criticise but racing series need to be entertaining. One of the most successful series in Europe (and my favourite for many years) is the British Touring Car Championship. This is completely ‘artificial’ but the racing is amazing.
I think the budget cap was a really good idea - stopping people ‘buying’ success. It was always going to be hard to police but (in my opinion) should have been policed hard, with draconian penalties for cheating. It is easy to keep below a limit, the skill would be to get as close to the limit without exceeding it. If everyone knew that tough penalties were going to be imposed, nobody would have broken the rules. The cheating in 2021 (and I anticipate for 2022) was grossly unfair for the teams that complied and resulted in (at best) a suspicion of advantage or (at worst) real competitive advantage.