Lewis Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes, Hungaroring, 2018

Mercedes were exhausted ahead of summer break – Wolff

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In the round-up: Mercedes’ team principal Toto Wolff says Formula 1’s gruelling schedule this year has left the team exhausted at the mid-point in the season.

What they say

Wolff was asked if, following five race weekends in six weeks, the team were exhausted ahead of the summer break:

Yes. You see the team in the weekends, 21 weekends during the year, with all the flying that most of you know that. But the job doesn’t stop Sunday night.

On the contrary Monday morning, that’s really when it matters. Performance is 90% of the performance is made in the factory. And so we come back late Sunday night or early Monday morning and we have a normal office routine.

That with 21 races is extremely difficult to manage for all of us in the teams or any other teams.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

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Comment of the day

Is Ross Brawn being complacent about the threat Formula E poses to F1?

Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Blackberry and the like were happy with their position when Apple started making smart phones too. Just because something is smaller now doesn’t mean it won’t eclipse your product if it’s better. Keep up or be left behind.

He should be championing his planned long-term revisions for the sport. He wouldn’t have the need to comment on Formula E’s supposed inferiority if it wasn’t a credible competitor with interest being shown.
Tristan (@Skipgamer)

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On this day in F1

  • Born on this day in 1992: Williams young driver Oliver Rowland

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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21 comments on “Mercedes were exhausted ahead of summer break – Wolff”

  1. Agree with COTD. The same was said with the big motorbike manufacturers when the Japanese started making things like the Honda Super Cub. And now you know what happened, Yamaha, Honda, Suzuki, Kawasaki and the likes own the market…

    1. @fer-no65 There’s a huge flaw in your and @skipgamer COTD reasoning, and it’s written in the COTD: “Just because something is smaller now doesn’t mean it won’t eclipse your product if it’s better”

      IF it’s better, yes. But FE isn’t better. In my opinion it’s lame in every meaningful way. And even many of those fans who, unlike me, like the concept of FE, concede that it has serious problems in its present form

      The examples you both cited are of newcomers coming in with a new product to the old market. The product in question(be it Iphone or Japanese motorcycles) was as good or better than the products from resident manufacturers, who overestimated the value of their seniority in customer’s eyes. FE’s nothing like that. The more apt analogy is countless newcomers who came up with new products that were interesting in concept phase, but in reality turned out to be awful so the company closed and we barely even remember them. Those companies that flock now to FE because of the fact it’s trendy now to be involved in the electric scene, will move on to the next big thing the moment it arrives, because, again the FE product is crp.

      1. You forget that Formula 1 doesn’t want to be popular, so it puts its races behind a paywall. Formula E, on the other hand, does want to be popular, so its races are on Free to Air TV. Maybe F1 has better racing, but FE has better audience participation! So the question “Is F1 better than FE?” depends on your viewpoint. If you want better racing then yes, F1, but if your question is “Which racing series has the fastest growth?”. Formula E! As far as I can tell FE’s viewing audience doesn’t exceed that of F1 yet, but it will … unless Formula 1 has a change of heart and decides it too wants to be popular.

        1. “FE has better audience participation”
          This is false.

          1. Don’t they have a thing called “power boost”, or such like name, which is where fans vote to give a car more power?

        2. You forget that Formula 1 doesn’t want to be popular, so it puts its races behind a paywall. Formula E, on the other hand, does want to be popular, so its races are on Free to Air TV.

          @drycrust I think you mistake facing the reality that not many are going to pay for FE with the purpose of wanting to be FtA in that line.

          When it started, FE was available almost everywhere for free – either on TV or through the internet. By now there have been broadcasters picking up the signal who do have a pay gate though. And FE is taking the money just like any other sport is taking money if offered, despite that meaning they risk missing audience because ppl do not have that subscribtion.
          For example – in countries where Eurosport has bought the rights you can only watch it on Eurosport (legally) but over here Eurosport is only available through (Paid) satellite or probably through one of the IPTV subscribtion services. I am sure that if FE gains popularity we will see more channels buying the rights – I could see the likes of Amazon, Disney, Netflix, AppleTV or classic ones like SKY etc doing so if they think the content is worth the money to bind viewers/subscriptions.
          There is no inherent wish by FE to stay free to air, it is just the reality they face as a startup sport.

      2. @montreal95 the lesson was not to underestimate newcomers. It wasn’t mean as a perfect accurate analogy. We all know, and it’d be daft not to realize that, that petrol engines are not the future, so Formula E has a lot going for it. F1 needs to change completely to adapt to what’s going on in the industry for the next generations. I hate Formula E just like you, I think from a sporting point of view it’s just ridiculous, and I hate electric cars anyway. But it’d be shortsighted not to see them as a threat. F1 will have to become Formula E or something similar in the future anyway.

  2. I don’t look at things that way as an ‘outsider’ who doesn’t have all the information, though. I indeed don’t base my judgment(s) on any given driver’s performances over a single race and or an entire season just on the final results as they indeed don’t necessarily give the full picture of it, but I get his point nevertheless.
    – The article about the FIA’s super license points system is interesting as well and has some good points in it although as a whole I think it’s been working decently well ever since its implementation.

  3. FIAsco, as usual.

  4. The ”Japanese (”BBC”) link appears broken – or stuck at the linkstop with a bad url change. At least, it’s not an unsafe release.

    1. @jimmi-cynic Thanks for the heads-up, it’s fixed now.

  5. FE is a Deloren, looks like the future but is built by the past.

    1. “Built by the past”?! When the original car was launched it was cutting edge technology, a lot of which designed and engineered by Formula 1 teams.

      1. Really?
        After a design mistake they couldn’t get the V8 in there as the engine bay was too short, and settled with a V6 Renault ending up way underpowered.

  6. I have to admit, I really want to like FE and have tried to watch many races, but the cars are simply too slow. As commented elsewhere, if you’re after racing then watching touring cars, rallycross, F4, etc. are much better spectacles. FE seems to be in this middle ground, and as soon as electric PUs are the norm, F1 will adopt them. I agree with Brawn to be honest.

    1. @john-h The new season 5 cars are quicker so hopefully you will like the speed a bit more.

  7. COTD fails to fully comprehend what Ross Brawn said, if he was adverse to change that would be a reason to be worried, but he isn’t, he is completely open to have all electric F1 in the future. But today he is absolutely right, FE is quite a few steps bellow F1.

    If anyone fails to see it, I’m sorry but it isn’t F1’s problem, it is just lack of awareness. And you can include in that that tweet from FE, if they think they are at the same level, they are wrong, as simple as that.

    And this is not a dig to FE, I follow them too, but there are levels to this, and while they make a lot of good things they are still trailing and I believe with the right management at F1, they will keep doing so.

  8. Let’s be brutally honest- some FE races have had some excitement, but most of this past season has been a snooze. The order hardly ever changes at the start – usually stays stagnant because the tracks are so darn narrow.

    FE qualifying on the other hand has been riveting, seeing everyone slide around risking it all for one lap, with many ending in the wall.

    Ross was basically speaking the truth from my standpoint.

    1. Adub Smallblock
      10th August 2018, 20:13

      Tracks too narrow, cars too fragile, power train can’t even make it thru one race, have to change cars (ok, that should change next year, one car – one race. But how?? Isn’t it by shortening an already short race?

  9. FE may be lame now, but is becoming a sanctuary for F1 rejects that aren’t there anymore merely for monetary reasons.
    Or does anyone think that drivers like the Williams duo are more worthy of a seat than Sebastien Buemi, Jean Eric Vergne, Lucas Di Grassi, Felipe Massa and others?

  10. @alianora-la-canta hope you are ok now and enjoyed the Hungarian GP. :)

Comments are closed.