Our reaction to the Mercedes F1 car launch

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changes everything. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the People on Podcasts with Matt and

Tommy. If you're noticing a gravelly voice, it's when you go to places and talk to a lot of people

and you project your voice and know it sounds like this. If you missed it, we're going to

just start it and say right now, we went to the Autosport Awards last night, not hungover.

Neither of us are hungover. We were very sensible because we knew about this Mercedes-Carloge.

However, my brain decided, you know what? You need Matt at 7am after going to bed at like

half two. It's some adrenaline. Why don't you just remember everything that happened at the

Autosport Awards? We won. We won. We won. And it's thanks to you because it was the fan

vote. We are creators of last year, I guess. I still haven't processed it. My brain is very

sleepy. But thank you. Yeah. Can't thank you enough. We did a little video on P1 Extra. Go

check that out if you've not seen it and subscribe to that channel because we just

wanted to share our thoughts while it was still fresh in the mind and it's still very

much fresh in the mind. It was an amazing night. Apologies that were a little bit

groggy and tired, but we're going to be chatting about the Mercedes, of course.

Can we call it a launch? It's a render. So Mercedes, they are doing a car launch.

I believe they're doing it after when they get a car. But obviously,

so many of the teams are just doing these livery launches so they can say, like,

here's our design. They have the moment in the sun, but it's so secretive at the

moment. There's so much going on with the new rules. There'd be so much changing.

Mercedes are a prime example. When we went into 2022, I remember them dropping those

renders of their car. Of course, they ended up with that zero side pod concept. It looked

completely different. And remember, everyone's sharing those renders of side by side versus

the real car. So don't be surprised if Mercedes have a six-wheeled car when it comes to testing

or something, and it's completely different. Yes, because I don't want to give away

any secrets. This is not to show off what innovations they've done. It's to show off

their livery and that's about it. Well, let's speak about it. Let's speak about it. I

really like it. I'm a big fan. I wondered whether Tommy is going to say, I don't like this,

I don't like this, I don't like this. That's fine. I rolled over in bed, saw that the

Mercedes had launched and went, oh, oh, damn, that's hot. So that was my initial reaction.

And I like it. I've got it up here on the phone just to have it. I like the stripes on the side.

I think that really does just sit quite beautifully. And it's flowing. I enjoy it. You know, they've

got the little sort of symbols at the back, which they've kept, haven't they? They have the

stars. Yeah, the stars. When did they bring that home? Was it last? Oh, a long time. No,

in like 2019. I guess they've had different colors to complement. Yeah, because they did

the AMG logo for a while, which was very bold. Definitely different. But I'm a fan of it. I like

it. I think it's a good looking car. And they haven't ruined it. We're going to start our post-award

era with a different car. Yeah, here we go. I remember, I'm sorry I went, I don't think Tommy's

going to like that. No, I don't. I don't. And I think Mercedes have actually, they're getting

there with the whole silver and black. And actually, I think last year was really good.

They don't have the red anymore for the Ineos. And I think that really helps with the overall car.

But looking at this, the front angle, great. Some of the side angle. And I think

when we see it on track, I'll know a little bit more as well of how much the silver pops.

Ring the Tommy when we see it on track. Because it can change your opinion. But for me,

I'm looking at that going, graphic designer, calm down. You don't need to have too many

ideas on one thing. Because the stars, as you mentioned, on the back, I don't like the stripes,

basically. I don't like the stripes. No, I think they're really cheesy. I think they are

too garish. And the bit on the back that I think is the coolest bit about the Mercedes is the

faded stars. So why you'd put stripes on it as well, stars and stripes? Are they American?

I don't know. Very weird. No, they're not. Exactly. They're not. It just screams like

too many ideas. And a lot of the time with the best F1 liveries, in my opinion,

it really is less is more. And I really don't like the stripes at all. That is the one thing that

I saw. And I was like, particularly the rear three quarters, when you can see the stripes

and the stars together, it's like, that's a lot going on. So that's kind of my thoughts on that.

I didn't, it didn't wow me. I think initially, like you see it from certain angles, it's like,

that's really cool. But I was just like, those stripes, not for me. No, not for you. There's

lots to Adidas, I would assume. I don't know. People have been saying, you would say,

yeah, you assume, but I don't, Adidas, I don't think it's four. No, it's not,

it's three stripes. So I don't really understand why. Like if it had been,

ironically, I'd even say the Adidas stripes would have looked cooler because it's like the

three stripes and they're bigger and it's like a pattern. But why there's like four or five,

maybe it's, is it four? Yeah, four. So four, eight championships, four on each side,

I don't know, maybe that's what it is. Oh, the popo are out. The police are here to arrest me,

for my opinion. Yes, I was going to say they've had Tommy's terrible opinions.

The graphic designer is called for your arrest. But no, not a fan to me. I do think the

Mercedes normally is one of the best, but the stripes are just too much for me.

I like it a lot. I like the stripes. I see, I understand your point about the fact that it

takes away from the stars, like it does take away the focus slightly. But I'm a fan of the stripes,

I really am. I think it's a really good looking car. They've had worse, for sure.

Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. As you say, like the red's been taken out now. So I think it's

cleaner from that side of things. Yeah, I think it will look good on track, personally.

It will. I know this is such a cliche as well, but when you see certain cars, and I think you've

felt it from the red bull in years gone by, where you're just like,

you know, that looks like a championship winning car. I don't know, there's just

something about it. Maybe it's like the aura of it or just that we know that they're going

to be very strong. But when I saw that car, it's like, well, yeah, they mean business.

Yeah, and obviously we went to the Autosport Awards, as we mentioned last night. And

all I'm going to say is coming out of the Autosport Awards, I am now even more concerned

that there's going to be a Mercedes-dominated era. That's all we're going to say. That's the concern

has been greatly heightened, and I think Ferrari are finished. So good, I've lost all hope immediately.

That's fantastic. So of course, no car launch, renders at 9am, as Tommy said.

Nixie underscore one asks, should teams be obliged to do a live stream when revealing their car?

Should they? I don't know. The renders, maybe the fact that it could have been a video

would have been nice. Like in this day and age, Haas is a great example. They dropped renders,

don't they? They had the renders of the car. It's not the real car. It is easy enough for teams.

They dropped a video. Yeah, they dropped a video. And I like that. So even though it's

not a car launch, you don't have the build-up and a physical car, it is a little bit nicer to have that

anticipation, obviously, where you can watch a video. Even if it's 30 seconds of

lights and teasing a little bit, it's like, oh, this is because that's what Haas obviously did,

rather than just going, here's the car. But yeah, they dropped it. They do love a little

9am launch Mercedes here in the UK. I don't know if it's the Mercedes admin just gets into working.

He's like, no messing about. Come on, post it. I know what, clocked out. See you later.

But yeah, they do love dropping some renders. And yeah, sometimes Mercedes do do a big

extravagant car launch. Maybe they're scarred because the one memory I have of a Mercedes car

launch was when Lewis announced that he was leaving Mercedes for Ferrari. And then it was just kind

of like, they had to do this car launch and all the pressure, they just wanted him to ask him about

Ferrari. They're probably like, let's just, yeah, they didn't want me to come out just then, did

they? I think with the renders, it's kind of lazy. I'm not going to lie to you. It feels

lazy. The fact that they, as you say, they haven't made a video, they haven't done an

like an anticipatory one minute 30, like Haas did or one minute 15, whatever they did.

Now that's, I think the least you can do, of course, as we mentioned, they are going to do a

car launch from what we understand later on, the early Feb. So like, that's the thing that

doesn't make sense to me the most is, why would you do a car launch? And they've done this several

times now. Why would you do a car launch when we all know what it looks like? And that's the

main thing everyone tunes into is what is the car going to look like? Now I don't know what

plain and say that like, you know, there's always this this divide of some people saying like,

oh, you know, there's a car launcher, a livery launch, they're two separate things. But

it's so hard to understand, you know, even the most the tech experts looking at it,

everyone's interpreted everything different. So looking at a car, you don't know how fast

it's going to be. So the main takeaway for 99% of people is what the livery looks like. So to

do a car launch again, where it's like, here's the same livery you've seen, but the barge boards are a

bit smaller, or there's a little end plate here, here and there, which will probably change by the

next test anyway. It's kind of a little bit, yeah, it probably underwhelms people a bit,

doesn't it? It does, yeah, because apart from obviously the tech nerds out there, the,

and we said, Tommy, you talk about compression ratio, you know, like, you know, there's

not I don't think there's many people that would tune into the car launch to be looking at

these innovations that actually again, feel like a little bit of a waste of time when we

actually get to testing and they've had private private testing and they're trying all different

things. It's not going to be the car that we see in Australia. So what is there really to

learn? I don't know. I mean, it's obviously cool to have the car launch, but I just feel as though

I personally am tuning in for the livery the most, because that's the biggest, most

visual change we're going to see at this point in the year. And it's unusual as well this

year with with how the testing has fallen, where you've got the secret test and it's

very early. So some cars releasing before some cars releasing after you've seen someone like

Cadillac, for example, not reveal their livery yet. And I think personally I quite like that idea of

if you do really want to kind of do something before and reveal the car or whatever and have

it on testing, do some like really funky cool testing livery and then do a car reveal later.

So it is a little bit different because, you know, I'm calling it now. Let me say these

all do a car launch and you bet 99.9% of the Twitter comments. I've already seen this.

Yeah. Well, yeah, exactly. So yeah, it's not as if Mercedes don't have money either. That's

my main gripe, like with Hass and smaller teams, I can understand maybe why they would just put

a video out there and be like, cool, see you this season. This obviously is the first of

two parts as we mentioned, but it feels like I've known that the movie ending before we even

tune it out. It's it's all tiny and we'll forget about it come come Australia, but this is what we

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Next question comes in from P1P. Remember Lex Wakeman with the rumored Mercedes

engine advantage this year. How many potential race wins could Ansonnelli have? Podium in his

first year maybe eyes on the championship in the second. I think that sort of trajectory

makes sense for me. I think Kimmy, what we saw last year were moments of brilliance,

but not nearly enough to suggest that he can win a world championship yet. I think that's doing

George Russell a massive disservice if we say that Kimmy, from what we have seen last year,

will be able to beat George. Imagine predicting him for the world championship crazy.

Imagine predicting Charlotte Gleather win the world championship. I'm already massively

regretting that. I genuinely think there's more chance of Nika Holkenberg winning the world

championship. Back to Mercedes, back to Kimmy. I think this makes perfect sense. I would

expect him to get a few wins. I'd expect him to be on the podium a lot. What kind of step-up we're

going to see this year and I think we've sort of explored that a little bit is unknown. If we see

an Oscar Piastri-esque step-up then perhaps. Kimmy does have the talent. He has the raw speed.

I'm in two minds whether these new regulations will actually play into the hands of the

rookies and the not as much experience because they don't have as much muscle memory to

overturn. There's that side of things that's again an unknown, a bit of an exciting prospect for

for Kimmy Antonelli fans. I don't think he's challenging for a championship in the first,

but if we see a big step this year then why not in 2027?

Yeah, obviously I predicted him champion and that mainly was at the end saying that it's

because for me George Russell is the obvious choice and I didn't want to do a predictable

choice which again like it is so odd that it's the predictable choice when he's never won the

world championship. But I am like and no offense to George I've said it again like I hope I'm wrong

in the case that you know if he wins it it's not a whitewash but it feels like going into the

season you're almost like so convinced so I hope it's not going to be a whitewash from

Mercedes and they're going to be so clear because we want a close championship. We've been

scarred by 2014 and how dominant they were and when a new regulation change comes in

particularly I think as well like it's a new regulation but it's a really really really

complicated one. There's a reason why they're doing a secret test for five days and they're only

allowed to do three of them of those five days because they think they're going to be breaking

down a lot the cars aren't going to be starting up there's so much to learn and this is the

thing with it so Antonelli you know if Mercedes are clear he's going to win he's going to win races

surely and the championship is whether he's got that consistency because the consistent we know

George Russell is one of if not the most consistent driver on the grid like that's something he's

always been even when he was that kind of like Williams and stuff so yeah I think I think

George is obviously the favorite but Antonelli I surely you know if the car's good he's

going to have a great season because he's got a very high ceiling and he showed those moments

last year where you know towards the end of the season like Brazil he you know he was was amazing

in that race and the whole weekend it was clear of George Russell it just you know it needs to

be more than two or three races a year. Exactly so I think it's quite clear where we both stand

on how Mercedes are going to do this season. I will sort of say on top of this that

we can't discount McLaren we really can't discount McLaren I think as well not for the championship

but for great results again Williams it's the Mercedes powered cars that genuinely it's not

we are thinking of course Mercedes will have the advantage because they're the ones developing

the engine they're always going to have first dibs in terms of the information and everything

as it comes in but I think it would be very silly to say that McLaren don't have a chance

of winning the world championship back to back you know they're not being spoken about we've

sort of of course said that we think it's unlikely just from what we've been hearing but we've heard

many a rumour in the last 25 years of watching Formula One and a lot of them are involving

Ferrari being the fastest car after testing and then ending up not being the fastest car

after so you know there are plenty of rumours that go around especially into new regulations

that don't come true yeah you never you never know and yeah even if Mercedes are clear

you've got McLaren as you say you've got you've got Williams who are an amazing

trajectory as well who are going to have and have put everything into this regulation

you've got McLaren who you could argue were very obviously like very very very good last

year and maybe that that's helped them in being able to put more focus onto the new year because

you already had a really good car from the get-go and you can't count count them out

it is funny there how like all the talk is that Mercedes engine and you know it goes back to

the the prediction that I made about Max Verstappen not winning a race and I know like it's

triggered a lot of people but it is my concern that you know we are going to get a situation

where we if that if that Mercedes engine is clear it's an engine formula if they have found

this trick that makes them half a second clear you've got three tenths or whatever clear clear

but clear but yeah it's a it's a huge margin you've got Mercedes McLaren Williams and Alpine

with his engine that's the top eight so it's going to be very hard for people to get a sniff

and there's going to be like people breaking down and things and I hope that for other like

people and other teams and with their engines and things like they can develop and catch up if

that's the case but look we're going to find out and we said this when we did our our predictions

we're going to we're going to even though that test is secret there's going to be there's

going to be rumors there's going to be things like they will know stuff like we're in it we're

in a world now where there's social media it's not as it can't be secret in this world you

you will know what's happening they had a secret test before we saw pictures we knew everything

that was going on and times and everything basically like I think even in those like first

couple of days we are going to go oh okay it's not as bad as we think or we're going to go

I thought yeah oh no our fears are here we told you so my word in the 30s I have yeah something

amazing yeah yeah and then we will be launching a podcast in a different sport because we can't

do 2014 or over again absolutely not but yes we will keep obviously our ears to the ground and

see see what we can find out over the coming weeks when testing finally starts of course

more car launches coming your way some live streams will be back for our live streams

from sort of well today onwards we'll be back to do any any events that that happen

looking forward to see how just just how many points Ferrari aura farm when we when we get to

our word yeah because that's that that is the one championship we do win is is aura farming

so well they do a 50 minute car launch where they're just constantly like you know catwalks and

cool lights and good destruction and good distraction from the actual car and then

don't reveal the car they're just like oh by the way here's a render okay bye all right there you go

thank you everybody for tuning in to this Mercedes livery reveal chats and looking forward to proper

racing in the in a couple of months but until then or month and a half until then we will see

you soon for more car launches thank you again for voting for us for the August congratulations

thanks for that crazy scenes and we'll see you soon bye bye

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Our reaction to the Mercedes F1 car launch

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Mercedes

livery launch

zero side pod concept

AMG

Ineos

Ferrari

compression ratio

Dodge Charger

Pontiac Grand Prix SJ

Formula 1

McLaren

Williams

Formula One

Alpine

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