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People saying you picked the wrong time are forgetting that on dry Mercedes were slower than Stake

I honestly think the cost cap is the biggest factor in the downfall, they got complacent in being able to throw money at problems

People calling you out for dropping this at the wrong time. They must've forgotten that George didn't even make Q3 and it's just Ham pulling his tractor to the front row. 😂😂😂😂

Man I’d be livid if I was Russell: Merc make you spend 3 years at Williams when they’re at some of their least competitive years, finally get into Merc right as the domination ends, Hamilton still highly motivated thanks to how he didn’t get his 8th (except this year now he’s Ferrari bound) and now they’re already looking at Antonelli as the next big thing. It’s all gone so wrong

This isnt bad timing the sprint doesnt really matter and doesn't take away from the fact that Lance Stroll had more points than Lewis 3 races in

Anyone saying this is bad timing must not have noticed that Bottas in a Sauber was quicker than both Mercs in SQ2 and Hamilton was 0.058s away from being knocked out in SQ2. Half a tenth between the Merc drivers. The only reason a Merc managed a front row sprint start is purely because Lewis put in another rain masterclass. In the dry they were no better than before, rain always mixes things up.

I still remember when Hamilton pointed out that simulation is waste of time he was being branded all sorts of things

Honestly I’m shocked that Mercedes would be so short-sighted to think that Brazil 2022 was a sign of progress when I think from most people it was clear that the sprint format meant most teams had trouble with setup that painted an unrealistic picture. Cost them 2 years at least.

20:34 This! I saw a youtube short that praised Lewis in one of the last 2 seasons because he was driving a faster time on track than the "supercomputer" calculated. All the fans were goating him again, but they didn't realise that this is actually very bad. The software got fed with false/incorrect data then compromising basically their performance when the calculation lacks behind real life. I was immediately shocked hearing about this and it made then sense to me why Mercedes didn't get their setup under control. If all the calculations are lacking, how will you ever be able to extract the full potential out of the car when there is not that much real life testing anymore like back then in the 90s but more simulation testing...

with a quali that wet it's basically driver skill accounting for the majority of the time. No wonder it was close between Landon lewis Alonso max. lewis on p2 because he is still a good driver, not because Mercedes is competitive.

Mercedes needed 450 mil/yr to stay on top, introducing the costcap was brilliant.

The downfall really started in ‘13 when Toto pushed out Ross Brawn. Ross built that team and set the technical direction for the hybrid regs along with Schumi as his test driver and team lead. Just as they had both done at Benetton and Ferrari and Ross did again at BrawnGP. Toto is not an engineer, he’s a finance guy. He had absolutely nothing to do with that the ‘14 car and building the team. He parachuted in with no experience running an F1 team, pushed Ross out when he realized how good the car would be and took full credit. He doesn’t even mention Brawn anymore or the work he did. He just says Merc’s turnaround when he arrived in ‘13. James Volwes has said going into ‘14 they knew a Merc driver would win the title. They also had that lead baked in for 3 years with the regs severely limiting changes the other teams even make in an effort to catch up. Toto is not equipped to lead the tech dept for the new regs. He’s completely reliant on the engineers for direction. Whereas Ross set the direction and guided the engineers. Just as he did with James Allison. All of Allison’s success came under Brawn. Their current form has exposed both of their short comings and reliance on Brawn’s genius that he repeated at four different teams.

I think it’s also worth mentioning how much Niki Lauda meant to the team. They are definitely feeling his absence

When it comes to China's sprint qualifying (feels like the definition of recency bias)...By now, I think people should have gotten used to Mercedes' false hopes throughout this cycle, whether it's Brazil 2022 or Spain 2023. So many times we've seen them talk about how they're feeling good with the car...only for them to disappoint race after race. It's always the "what could have been." And as Verstappen has shown in Austrailia, just because you're out in front doesn't mean nothing will go wrong. If Lewis does well in the sprint and actual race, then good. But it's not a given, there's just as much a chance this is another one of those false hopes and would only be possibly disproven once the race actually ends. The fact remains that this is the most embarassing Mercedes has been so far compared to 2022 and 2023. Now there's an actual chance the W13, the car that started this mess, would be their most successful car this cycle with one race win. It's more so that one customer team is well ahead of them while the other is breathing down their neck in the standings. Makes me wonder how much effect the budget cap has on them now that it's all about resource use efficiency over simply brute forcing for solutions.

Ross Brawn built that dynasty.. Toto cant build anything competitive on his own

Time for a new team principal, but they made a mistake giving the team principal ownership stake, so they can't make changes. He let too many important people go, I guess to save money and make profit. When I saw ToTo teaching at Harvard while still being the team principal, it shows maybe the focus is off.

It tooik rain chaos for Ham to barely get P2 in China. All they need is for it to rain every race, no biggie.

The best example of Mercedes' problem is when they pushed for rule changes with pitstops and ride height. Both of these pushes ended up hurting them because it didn't address their operational problems and it shows the team foundationally lack what it takes. They complain about how the car changes so much over a weekend, then spend their time building a whole different car for next year, then get shocked when the same problems keep coming back. Unless big changes happen, the next reg change is likely going to be much of the same.

I think when they lost James Vowles to William's the motivation might have gone down as well. He's a good Mentor to Bottas and other people on that team. When he Moved to William's he Mentored Logan Sargent to at least get him to grips on the car since he was a rookie and that really boosted his confidence even if Logan did crash the car. If this were to happen in 2022 with Lafiti could have we seen a better season from him after deciding on the 2021 title!

Something that I think isn't being talked about, is Russell just not being the next team leader material. They need at least a consistent Q3 driver. Russell falls off under pressure all yhe time, I dont see him leading and winning a championship with anyone, let alone Mercedes.

Summed up in a few words “Mercedes doesn’t know how to be broke”

It is becoming more and more obvious. It was just the Hybrid. They knew something the others didnt

All Mercedes need is a manager like me! I’ve proven it countless times in F1 Manager

I like rhe jab at Stroll.. Merc is lucky than AMR is a 1 driver team.

16:14 Wow, I never really thought about it, but you're 100% right. All of the top 5 teams have at least one of the most highly-rated drivers on the grid, yet they all seem to struggle with the competitiveness of the higher midfield. This just goes to show how great the new regulations have been. If only Max wasn't there to spoil the fun 🤣

Mercedes nailed the turbo hybrid engine in 2014. Change that, and no one would remember the Mercedes team. The horsepower advantage they had made them sloppy, and shows how bad Toto is at running a team.

But Mercedes has made 500m profit, nearly 200million more than last year. And still vote against new teams. It’s a clown show.

Toto’s ability to build up a team is being tested very hard right now. He can keep a well oiled machine running, but he can’t build a team. Not to mention, they can’t throw money at every problem anymore, and it’s showing their shortcomings

they developed the MGU-H ahead of others in 2014 in part of the deal that FIA to perserve mercedes to stay in F1. Now they just perform as mid as they were in 2012 and 2013

The team has lost great personnel to Red Bull, to Aston Martin and maybe McLaren too iirc. In this era, the team just has not made cars that offer good ride quality, aero consistency, mechanical grip on all corners of the car. Add in the fact that they've been bad at pit stops, conservative on strategy. They just are not winning. They're losing even the occasional opportunities they get.

You nailed it on the head when you said their entire operation isn't operatiing at an elite level. Mirginal gains is everything in elite sport, the 1% makes a MASSIVE difference, you need to have best in class at ALL levels to be the best. Their lacklustre pit-stops is something I've been banging on about for ages, they're extremely poor and cost so much time in the race, it's mindboggling that they haven't improved or sorted that out yet.

What I think has hurt Mercedes a lot too is aerodynamic efficiency. In the previous regulations, they still relied to a big extent on their engine power. Their car has never been the most efficient aerodynamically. However Ferrari and most notably Red Bull have been more aerodynamically efficient even in the previous regulations. With the ground effect cars there's been more importance on aerodynamics than ever and it shows maybe one of the only inherent weaknesses Mercedes had during their domination years.

In the interview with Sky Germany, Wolf today said that "Lewis gave us a direction for development, that was completely off, so the car couldn't even steer around corners". Haven't heard him ever blame Lewis so openly before, thought that was kind of interesting. Lots of pressure at Mercedes these days.

Toto should give full control to James, while he takes a step back to focus on the business side

Rosberg getting no credit again 😔

People say to cost cap is bad but I will never agree with that statement because it stops the giants from just spending their way out of a mistake. Pre cost cap Merc and Ferrari would've dumped money on the problems and to stay redbulls would've done the same leaving the other team behind. Red bull getting the regs perfect first go was unfortunate but as time goes by we can see the grids closing up and redbulls development isn't giving huge gains anymore.

This is more about Totos lack of management skills.

Toto only knows to fixe shit with money, but that cheatcode isn't available anymore. Mercedes needs someone who knows.

You hit the nail on its head here mate. I am a Lewis Hamilton fan but could not be enjoying this downfall of Mercedes more! I can't wait for 2025. Christian Horner was right about Toto Wolff- He is a businessman and not a sportsperson. He is more focused on the commercial side of things rather than the sporting side of F1.

I think it's for the biggest part the engine advantage that Mercedes had in combination with new rules against the competition developing that handed them what records they had. Austin 2023 was not Mercedes' strongest track. They only looked good because they cheated on ride height and they got caught out for it. Mercedes failing now just indicates that basically, during their dominance, they just outright bought that dominance. Mercedes also did not have the wrong concept, as Red Bull proves now. Mercedes lacks execution with limited resources; e.g. being competitive. Mercedes has not solved the lack of a smooth ride (their porpoising). They lack understanding of making ground effect work and keep looking elsewhere but inwards. The Mercedes drivers are also rather lackluster at best. Neither of them seem to be able to extract the most out of the car and be able to handle modern cars that are permanently on a knife's edge to get the most out of it. And Hamilton? Like Alonso noticed, he can only drive when he's P1. Remember Hamilton is the guy who tried to assassinate Verstappen during Silverstone 2021 and he should have been stripped from the whole season like Schumacher when he tried to off Villeneuve. Neither Hamilton nor Schumacher are great champions.

Yeah this sprint quali is more about Lewis than Mercedes 😅

Sounds like merc needs a Toto recall.

Those little sound effects on the chapter headings are genius, fantastic job with the edit!!!

It’s clear to me Russell is not all people hoped he’d be. Russell is never going to lead them to a WDC. The best you can say about Toto is that he didn’t squander the gift Brawn gave him.

It’s nice to hear someone not beating the “Ferrari made a mistake” drum of stupidity

Cost cap reduced the budget push by teams.... RedBull move towards operational excellence but other big teams are struggling to change.... That is normal when they are big organization like Merc or Ferarri. Ferrari got it's concept right with ceiling levels. Merc got it wrong... RebBull nailed it.... So a strong technical team also helps. Now only thing Redbull now has to improve is driver combination if this synergy happens they will be more strong.

Red Bull paid the Merc engineers to move, before the cost cap came into force. 0.5 on a pit stop doesn’t make the car that much faster. It’s a team sport, Red Bull spent huge sums pre-cap to get the merc engineers.

Does anybody know what the music was @ 11:46?

Most fanc care more about the F1 WDC than the WCC. What makes them more exciting is a close battle between multiple drivers. Merc dominated in an Engine formula. RedBull dominated in an Aero formula. So should the F1 and the FIA develop a formula that is Engine and Aero?

The biggest reason for their downfall is that the engine of Honda AND Ferrari are equal if not BETTER than the Mercs If RedBull had Mercs engines, Lewis would not have won 7 WDC RedBull won races every year with an Renault engine with atleast 50 HP less than the Merc engine Now Merc is the 3rd team with merc engines behind McLaren AND Aston Martin

Aldas doing the videos that the access media have been doing everything in their power to avoid for months.

To make a long story short. When a team is lucky with a design, they can winn and make a lot of it. F1 is 90% the car. If you are unlucky with the design and you developed in the wrong direction, you loose. So simple as that.

The instrumental starting at ^=6:10 is fantastic. What's the name of this track?

Top video! Broad perspective, in depth analysis and thorough knowledge! You convincingly point out that - as most of the time - there is a whole complex of reasons for the Mercedes downfall (or interlude if they're back on track with the 2026 concept). Well done!

I knew this would happen after Niki Lauda died

mid-season testing has to come back.. and it can be embedded on GP weekends like 2-3 weekend at least.. limiting km distance drastically from top to down in that 2 hour or more sessions.. testing on sims is not free maybe even more expensive and when you look rationally since its hard to correlate to real life its waste of money and human energy.. it doesnt give chance slower teams to recover.. we just watch the same race all the year long.

It was never about Lewis and Toto. The foundation was laid by Brawn and Schumacher. Lewis and Toto look good because they were standing on the shoulders of much better competitors.

I know this video is about merc but people tend to forget that Adrian Newey started designing F1 cars BEFORE the end of the last ground-effect era. He is one if not the only technical person in F1 that had practical experience with ground-effect prior to these aero rules

Mercedes twisted the hands of F1 to introduce hybrid engines, which they have been working on for four year. They have good technicians, but this advantage kept them on top for a number of years.

I need a compilation of Aldas's Stroll shade 😅

When Hamilton used to dominate, I prayed for someone else to start winning. But now, I won't mind seeing Mercedes dominating once again. They're dominance didn't seem to be as fierce as Red Bull. Mercedes always seemed catchable. They always made occational mistakes. Lewis never went on a 10-race winning streak. There were always multiple race winners every season. Mercedes often messed up pit stops and strategy. Now it's so much more boring. Everyone knows that Red Bull and Max will win almost every single race, even if he's starting in P15. Everyone knows that Max will win the championship even before it starts. Schumacher's and Hamilton's records are going to be broken. It's not a question of if, but when. Red Bull are operationally exceptional. No pit stop mistakes. No strategy mistakes. No unnecessary penalties. It's almost like they're working like robots. Maybe sometimes, over-perfection can be boring. Don't misunderstand, I only have praises for the job Red Bull and Max Verstappen have been doing since September 2022. They have only dropped 2 races as a team and Max has only dropped a handful. The consistency is something I've never seen before. But, it is really boring as well. I guess the grass will always be greener on the other side. There is definitely an alternate universe where the Mercedes and Red Bull peaks would have coincided for 2-3 seasons, and boy I would have enjoyed that!

I'm drawing the line. Lewis "singlehandedly driving merc to second in the constructors" is bull. George was right there much of the time, even with bad luck and lewis shoving him off - and the team actively improved all year to try to sort themselves out. They had genuinely good weeks - and EVERYONE ELSE was struggling as well. Ferrari, aston, mclaren, etc. all had huge struggles through the year, and on and off points. George was also the one to pull in the crucial points in Abu Dhabi to actually secure that p2. Yes, Lewis was a huge part of that success - but he was not carrying anything. He was just a part of that success, not the sole driving factor.

Their bad pitstop times were due the costcap which made them cut slack in the pit equipment

F1 is an engineering championship and engineers expect to be judged on abilities and results, not socioeconomic background or genetics. The exodus of technical staff and the corresponding decline in pace can be traced to internal policy changes spearheaded by one of the drivers. Less qualified and less competent people were given opportunities that they didn't earn. The more qualified and more competent people saw the writing on the wall and bailed to teams that don't have those kinds of internal policies.

It’s amazing what can happen when skill matters more than money when building a car. Being able to make, then throw away 10 cars to get to one that works. What a ridiculous use of money and totally unfair to any teams that aren’t multibillion £ companies with money to burn.

Hi aldas. There are one thing I've thought alot about, but I've never seen any of the media bring up and talk about; Pre-costcap RedBull had about 100mill lower budget then the likes of Merc and Ferrari (iirc, about 250 vs 350mill). And still they were mostly competitive, if not for that, you know, engine-thing. This fact, do I personally think made them "jus the order" once the cap(s) came in, as they were used to operate at "about" that level anyway (250m including driver salaries and such). Remove 50 for max, 10 or 15 whatever other eriver, 10 for newey and probably about 10 for the other top2 personelle, and you are in the 150m ballpark already. Tjey really didn't need to readjust alot, compared to mercedes.

gotta appreciate the music mix, really missed the one at 18:30

Mercedes is nothing without Ross Brawn

You could also talk about the downfall of Red Bull after the years of Vettel domination, even with Verstappen joining them. Dominance comes and goes in cycles. It's hardly like the fall of Williams for example, from world championship dominators to the lengthy current state of tail-end strugglers.

Minutes saying it is not the drivers fault. Chinese GP Sprint qually: Russell screw up; Chinese GP qually: Hamilton screw up. LMAO, my only regret is still giving a view to Aldas, but it id worth to see the bad results.

Mercedes lost 2021 to strategy in the French Grand Prix. If they'd pitted Lewis after Valtteri as intended, they would've kept the lead and then they could've gone bold in the 2nd stop and won that race. One race win made the difference that season. It could've been France.

Pretty prophetic, I've been saying for months how hamilton is falling backwards down the field and this 18th place proves it, funny thing is, no one will make videos about it and make fun of him like they would Lance Stroll who will finish ahead of him in the season standings.

recently (china gp) RB had 1.9s pit stop... that is insanity

Great video! But don't agree with the captioned title. They may no longer be no 1 but merc is still a top team, they haven't fallen anywhere 😅

we had ferrari era then period of transformation to red bull era then merc era and now we have 2nd rb era

I appreciate the work you've done on this video, it is great. I wanted to hear your view on the clear advantage that the Red Bull got from bridging the cost cap and also, something that no one seems to talk about, the purpose of the new regulations in the first place, to bring the cars closer together?????

I think using points to compare Mercedes performance across the years can be a bit misleading. The Mercedes in 2023 arguably looked better than the 2022 car, and they had less points because there simply were less points up for grabs with red bull being much more dominant. Mercedes tends to start off seasons poorly and then pull themselves together towards the second half of the season.

l have to ask does all the teams have access to LMP racing ?? lf so why not use that research to aid in aero testing to assist F1 side too ?? l m sure Ferrari does along with engine development , it would be the smart thing to do to gain an advantage without going over budgets allowed .

Did bernie ecclestone push turbo charged engines just to attract these guys into the sport? They can't go down far enough. Especially with toto wolf being the prime most unsportsman character in the whole paddock.

2011 wasn't Mercedes second season in Formula One. It was their fourth; 1954, 1955, 2010, 2011.

MB social media(SM) presence is also gone. Toto , GR, and LH are no longer crying about things on SM, you don't even see them. It's going to take a long time for them to rebuild. 10 yrs +

No coincidence Stroll began helping Newey 21/22 with the RB Lewis said losing lances input was catastrophic, Now with the move to McLaren we will no doubt see the rise of McLaren

What about the downfall of ferrari , mclaren , williams ,.lotus , its happend to every top team since the start of f1 , they have a run at the top then it finishes and someone else has a run at the top

I don't wan't to sound like a old shellac but put simple: Niki was the Brain and Roto was the beauty Model. Now that Niki is gone we see how much of the success came from who: 99% Niki 1% Roto Golff. Remember which team the bad Wolff worked before. Stone dead last Williams.

The engineers at red bull should be the highest paid people in f1.....any current f1 driver would have a massive improvement if in a current red bull car

I'm not really a fan of cost caps in any sport, though I understand why they're implemented. But I'm a Yankees fan, and the most expensive rosters they've had in their history have only 1 championship pennant. So money isn't always guaranteeing a win

Mercedes was so dominant, that they could afford to rely solely on the power of their power unit. Red Bull on the other hand had to optimize all aspects of their operation (bar the engine) to even have a chance to get close. Now that RBR has the best car, Mercedes also needs to optimize it all, and they can’t just throw money at it anymore. I think they severely underestimated how much work they have to do. That’s why they’re also behind McLaren, who have started overhauling their processes 3 to 4 years before Mercedes did.

The amount of UKs tryna convince the rest that it was all Lewis and not the engine is so pathetic, gotta love it :D

Alternate title: why Lewis is moving to Ferrari

I wouldn't blame the drivers at all. Except the few mistakes during the races themselves, qualifying in this car is impossible, undo able, impossible. They have a better chance of points starting from the pits and breaking parc ferme.

Toto Wolff in yesterday's interview with Sky Germany: "Hamilton forced us into a development direction that was completely off, the car could not corner at all any more." He also said, when SLH leaves, there won’t be much loss of (development) know-how. The vibe was that he was quite fed up with his constant complaining. He said that a new driver will be "refreshing". LOVE STORY The End. 💔

Mercedes had 5 1-2 in the first 5 races of 2019 and fastest laps 192 points after 4 races or 232 points after 5 races

I think this may be your best video yet. Great analysis and videography. Well done

Is this a situation where the people capable of turning this around are terrified of confronting Wolff with the truth of the current state of affairs? Toto has that presence similar to Papa Stroll who is a force of nature. I can see this being some of what’s happening and continues to happen.

Whoever best mitigates turbo lag will have a big advantage in the beginning of the next regulations… whenever they occur…

21:35 misnomer? do you mean "misconception"?

You’ve got the wrong comparison for Mercedes being a power unit merchant. Mercedes had a massive leg up on Red Bull in the engine department until 2021. Their main competitor has always been Red Bull (as you alluded to in the beginning of your video). Ferrari have plenty of other problems that prevented them from being a consistent competitor regardless of their engine being decent. It’s disingenuous to switch the comparison when it benefits your argument.

Wow. I was there for the original downfall videos never thought Merc e would be in one in under 10 years.

The cost cap limited a team like Mercedes that was always ready to bring crazy developments. Also the FIA stepping in a banning various tech innovations Mercedes made also was an effect. Then entering 2021 the rule changes to the floors also messed up Mercedes. Internally I feel Mercedes just let go of this F1 era 2022-2025. Plus this era which is restricted shows you can not catch up