[Keith Collantine]

Simple question.

We’re eight races into a 21-race championship and Mercedes haven’t been beaten yet. They’ve won on fast tracks and slow tracks, temporary circuits and permanent road courses.

Are they going to end the year undefeated? If not, where are they most likely to be beaten, and by who?

[Phylyp]

No, I expect them to lose a(t least one) race.

I don’t expect to see reliability, operational or strategy errors hampering them. That said, I’d still wager the odds will eventually go against them. They lucked into a win at Bahrain, and despite dice having no memory, I’d say the situation will reverse. i.e. some manner of bad luck will wrong foot them – an ill-timed safety car, etc. So I can’t predict where it’ll happen, but if its an SC-induced problem, then Singapore looks to be a reasonable location.

Now, all of that speculation centers on how the leading Mercedes might slip up in a race. Whether there’ll be a non-silver car behind them to exploit that moment of weakness remains to be seen. Ferrari no longer give me confidence in this regard, so I’d predict it’ll be Max seizing the moment, chased down very hard by one or both Mercedes.

[KaIIe]

I’m pretty sure they will be defeated at some point. It does require some special circumstances though, for example, an off-day for one of the Mercs (a poor qualifying session, and that the top three teams are running relatively close) and mechanical trouble for the other. The number of 1-2 finishes they have does mean that the opposition really must make the best of every opportunity: imagine if in France Hamilton had really run into tyre trouble (for example, a delamination at the start of a lap, losing him plenty of time limping round), Leclerc should have been all over the back of Bottas to take advantage of it.

[Jeanrien]

Though call and looks more and more likely Mercedes will win every race this year. However, I still see a chance for Ferrari at Belgium out Italy GP’s given their straight line speed advantages… If Ferrari is not handing it over to Mercedes.

Otherwise, we have to rely on a Mercedes slip up as @phylyp mentioned. But Mercedes has been the perfect execution this year, difficult to imagine that slip coming from the team. Maybe one driver or both colliding, that wouldn’t be a first.

[Canderous]

Doubtful. Only if something outside their control such as a safety car. These cars are bulletproof.

[Jeanrien]

Didn’t take long to put that at risk… Mercedes will have to fight for it today.

[Jeanrien]

@phylyp Nice pick for Verstappen winning but it wasn’t by much and more surprisingly it was due to lack of pace from Mercedes…

Keith probably knew something when asking his question, the timing feels odd ^^

[Phylyp]

@jeanrien – ha ha, I knew that post would come back to bite me, right after I pronounced the Mercedes car as infallible.

I agree, I share your suspicions about Keith. I also heard his favourite colour is orange ;)

Seriously though, very cool timing on his part about this question – he asked, and it happened.

Now let’s see if Max needs an engine change after pushing his PU that hard for 30 laps.

[Author]

Posts