How Fast Would the F1 2020 Mercedes W11 Lap Qatar GP?

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]Today we are taking the dominant Mercedes W11 from 2020 around Lel International Circuit in Qatar to see just how fast we can go around that track. Now on screen, I will flash up the 2021 qualifying times with Hamilton taking pole. I'll leave the lap time in the top left for the remainder of this video as we begin our first lap. We are also using the 2021 version of Lasel before it kind of got reworked into what it is nowadays. So, let's get our first lap on the board and kind of get comfortable and see what we can do.

[00:00:40]Again, a lot less runoff on this version. A bit more unforgiving. So, we have to get things right. And of course, surrounding is a bit different. Can also affect breaking points, reference points. So, let's build it up.

[00:00:52]Currently, we're on 98% track grip. And that I think is fair.

[00:00:58]That's usually the go-to setting. Oh, lots of under steer there through the hairpin as we miss our apex. Well, let's keep chipping away here. Decent first lap. We're on the C2 medium tire. They had the hardest compounds this weekend.

[00:01:12]So, the the the soft is a C3. That's the softest they went on this particular race weekend because they were concerned about tires blowing up, which they were right to do. There was a lot of blowups on that particular weekend. So, here we go. into the fast stuff. The W11 flat through the first one, flat through the second, flat through the third, but that is technically invalid. So that's something we'll have to work on. Round to the last corner.

[00:01:42]Got the pit entry there, of course, earlier on. And now DRS to the line.

[00:01:48]Finish line, I believe, a bit further down as well. First lap 124.6.

[00:01:57]Okay, let's build. Now, track limits back in 2020 were definitely a bit more forgiving than now. Even still, the way we ran off just now was probably fine.

[00:02:07]We lost time as we are now going to run a higher battery mode. We're going to run MGK balance. Before it was in low.

[00:02:13]And the only change I've made is now we're on a set of soft compound tires.

[00:02:17]So, we've got a delta reference. So, let's go and try to improve on this second lap. Here we go.

[00:02:24]Turn one. Breaking about 90 mters.

[00:02:27]Decent bit of inside curb there as we now bring it over to the left for turn two. Back on the power nice and early.

[00:02:33]Can definitely carry more speed. I think my brake b also is quite front heavy.

[00:02:39]Breaking the 50 into this double right.

[00:02:42]Try to open up so you can get a good line through the second one. Bit out of shape there.

[00:02:48]through the hairpin. Still suffering from under steer, but not as bad as before, though. We do kick on over steer on the way out right through this long right.

[00:02:59]Struggling to hold on to the car. And we have our first spin of the video. Right, bringing the car back around nice and gently to cool the tires. I'm going to move my brake bias to 52.

[00:03:10]And we're going to go again. So, here we go. Let's give that one another crack.

[00:03:15]Rear left. Still a little bit hot, but hopefully we'll be okay. Right, let's begin over the line. Full commitment on these soft tires once more.

[00:03:28]Carrying a bit more speed into the first corner. Can probably do even more than that to be fair.

[00:03:34]Turn two. A little bit wide of the apex, but I'll do right now into the double right.

[00:03:41]Come on, let's carry some speed here.

[00:03:44]The curbs are your friend around here.

[00:03:46]You have to lean on them. You have to use them. That's a lot tidier this time.

[00:03:52]Nice and tight at the hair pin. Watch the exit. We'll short shift just to be sure that we don't lose the back end.

[00:04:00]This time we stay a bit tighter. Bit more patient on the throttle on the way out. And now we can look to find some time into this left. Got no reference lines, brake markables, or anything to kind of guess where to break and turn in. So, doing everything based off instinct right flat out through the first two.

[00:04:20]Let's see if the car can hold on. I'll take a little lift through this one.

[00:04:24]That's a bit premature turning. Taking a bit of grass, but we'll make it work.

[00:04:29]That one was nice and easy. Front right will comply. And now the final corner.

[00:04:34]Trying to turn in a bit earlier.

[00:04:36]Suffering with overheating and under steer. Absolutely chronic, but we're going to shave off a little bit more time.

[00:04:45]Was hoping we'd just sneak into the 22s, but didn't quite get there. 1230. So, we are 2.2 seconds off right now. The 2021 Pol. So, first runs complete. We can start to ramp this up a little bit. So, tires I'm okay with for now. fuel. We're going to drop this to 10 L and make it a bit quicker. Electronics will run high on the MGK for this particular run, which will help. Now, arrow, this is important. Okay, I am going to bump this up. I'm going to go up one on the rear and max on the front. You want a lot of downforce around Katar tow and camber.

[00:05:25]Not too keen on using these because we're going to overheat a lot. So, we'll come back to that at a later stage. I'm going to also do that bias. I think I'm going to try 51. That felt okay on 52.

[00:05:37]So, I think we can push that a little bit more. And then elsewhere really at suspensions. I I really think these ride heights could actually go down almost to minimum. It's a flat track. So, I'm going to run minimum on the front, which is 100. And then the rear, I mean, it's now into negative digits. I will leave on zero because that makes sense to me in my head. And then roll bar on the rear. That can come down quite a bit from 14 down to five.

[00:06:06]The front can stay on six for now. And then I'm just going to invert these wall rates so that the front is a bit sharper. I'm also going to drop it on the rear so the rear has better traction. I'll up it on the front. And this altogether should give us better performance. Right. This feels serious now with the increased downforce. I think this could be a lot of fun. Right.

[00:06:25]Here we go. Into height on the MGUK DRS open. Just got to try and optimize my shifts. I'm trying to look at the rev lights on the steering wheel dash, which is the most accurate way to do this. We bleed a lot of time down the straight as you would expect.

[00:06:40]But into turn one, we just throw the car in. And wow, that went a bit sooner, easier than I thought. We'll try again.

[00:06:49]I will say the car does feel a little bit towel happy. So, we may have to adjust things. So, I'll try one more time to get a lap out of this. Also, you can hear the car scraping a little bit at times. Right, here we go.

[00:07:02]Breaking way later for turn one, using all the track.

[00:07:08]Just got to be careful. Car does feel a bit nervous. So, trying to keep it nice and tidy on the inputs and not be too nervous.

[00:07:18]Wow, so much downfalls. I just turned in and the front end just did exactly what I asked for some reason. always going to under steer through the hair pin it seems. Right, let's keep at it.

[00:07:32]Well, we're not finding the the sort of lap time I was hoping for. I'll be, you know, expecting a bit more than this by now.

[00:07:44]Oh, watch the exit there. Car getting loose, right, should all be flat, but will the back end hold on? That's the big question. Can we keep the car together?

[00:07:58]There we go. All flat through there.

[00:08:02]Not that one though. Interesting. That invalidates the lap. Right on the corner. This time the car does hold on. But it's only going to be a second quicker. We need a lot more than that. So maybe 98 track grip isn't the plate because right now we're 1.4 seconds off. Okay, I've reset the session with a 100% track grip. So, it's a 2% increase. So, now it's set to optimal, optimum, whatever you want to call it. So, let's see if we can get into the ballpark. I should have my delta update, but the reference time will still be the previous time because lap we just did was invalid. So, into turn one.

[00:08:46]Still a bit cautious.

[00:08:48]Was not carrying enough speed through there. That's a bit better for turn two.

[00:08:52]Just got to really let let it go. I'm just kind of, you know, being a bit hesitant really at the end. Now we've got the grip. Now the car is just glued to the road and it feels like the W11.

[00:09:06]That hair though is still going to be an issue and we've just thrown it all away.

[00:09:09]So we are not finding like bucket loads of time. Although I'm sure we can still tweak the car to find a bit more. We still got a few little engine mode tweaks to unlock.

[00:09:22]This corner is so awkward, man. I don't know where to start turning or breaking cuz there's no reference. Right, let's try and keep it all together. We know we can do the next three corners flat and then the the left hand needs a little bit of a lift, I think. Just to keep it on track. But here we go. Using all the track through here. Nice and tidy, nice and smooth.

[00:09:42]Keeping it in seventh. No downshift. And now just a decent final corner should get the job done for us. And basically we'll get that second. But now the lap is going to be valid. We've used up all our batteries, so we're going to lose time over the line. But that's a valid 22. So 22.2 basically what we've done before. So yeah, now we can try and see if we can find the time. Right, we're going to go to 5 L. We don't have a accurate fuel read, but maybe actually we could run I think 3 L we could even run to be fair. But yeah, I I'll go four. I'll go in the middle. We're going to run MGH and motor. Of course, the current cars no longer have an MGH, but these did. And that was a very powerful part of the battery. So, we're going to run that on motor. Engine brake. I often liked running a bit of engine braking with these cars. So, we'll go for nine.

[00:10:31]And that should give the rotation. Now for the arrow, I feel like I can take a bit of front off and a bit of rear off as well. I think we can get away with it and we'll be okay in terms of balance.

[00:10:43]Again, alignment, I'm not going to change too much here for now. Dampers, I want to add a bit of front bump, which just helps the car react and be a bit sharper over curbs, which is always a good thing. Bias, I will try 50 and see if we can run that without having any major issues. I'll also up the bump on the heath damper for the exact same reason. And then here I will just drop the roll bar on the rear to two on the front to four. I'll up the wheel rate to four to compensate. And yeah, this is pretty much it. Full send time. Let's lock in into height. Full commitment. We might turn the battery down midway through the lap to try and have battery for this pit straight at the end. So I'm also going to use a bit of overtake, override, boost, whatever you want to call it, which is a bit more efficient.

[00:11:28]Look at that time gain already.

[00:11:32]fourth for fifth gear through there. But that's already a significant time gain through turn one.

[00:11:39]Back on the boost as we look to gain more time, right, let's try and commit a little bit here through the middle part of the lap. Sixth gear.

[00:11:49]Obviously got a bit less wing on the car, so need to account for that loss of downforce. Short shift to third.

[00:11:56]Traction horrible at the hairpin, but this is a good lap so far. Car feels lively. The setup is coming together really well. Still got a nervous rear end, but this car feels like a proper now W11.

[00:12:10]Just got to try and put it all together here. This is a good lap. This will be a good reference.

[00:12:15]Burning Barry. When you see the number go yellow cuz I'm burning it. Just going to gain lots of time, but we might have to lift now because we're carrying more speed through here. Something to factor in. Little micro lift there.

[00:12:29]Same for that one.

[00:12:31]Back on the battery. Now the final corner. Going to go awesome. Go fifth.

[00:12:37]But under steer. Had to dip to full gear to turn the car. We've used our battery.

[00:12:42]So now the the downfalls are saving us because we trim the wings. Suddenly we smash the 2021 pole lap by 6/10. We put it all together and the W11 has come to life. Come to life. Come alive.

[00:12:59]Wow. Right. I guess now we have to get into the sub120s, right? Let's send it.

[00:13:21]H couple of off tracks on that lap.

[00:13:28]It's an insane lap though. And we are going to get into the 119s, but I think I can do a little bit better. I think I can match that keeping it on the track.

[00:13:39]But that is now officially 1 second quicker than the 2021 pole lap, which makes a bit more sense. Heat.

[00:13:58]Heat.

[00:14:19]Heat. Heat.

[00:14:28]Yeah.

[00:14:44]Heat.

[00:15:14]Oh, there we go. What a lap. What a machine. I love Katar as a track. It's so fun to drive. And a 195 smashed. Absolutely smashed.

[00:15:48]Oh, heat.

[00:16:34]Oh, hello.

[00:16:39]Oh.

[00:17:03]Now, I've just done a quick check and the alltime track record in qualifyings, not just in 2021, but also 22, 3, 4, and 5, is 2020. 24 stappen in qualifying did a 1 minute 20.5.

[00:17:17]So yeah, we went a second quicker. Damn.

[00:17:21]Right. Well, feel free to pause the video. Setup is not too far different from what I showed you a moment ago, but you know, C3 tire with default pressures on 3 L of fuel, which is approx three estimated laps. High MGUK motor on the MGH with the 911 engine brake. 75 on the Aero default alignment dampers. We just up the bump on the front. That was it.

[00:17:42]49 brake bias is what I used on that lap to not lock up at the hair pin on the rear. Heath dampers, we just up the front bump suspensions. And like I said before, I actually upped the front ride height to 110 before my best lap just to stop bottoming out on the curbs a little bit. So yeah, the rest of it is similar to what we done before. Rear roll bar on zero as well. Suspension advanced default, various default, and pit strap also irrelevant. Now guys, if you want to see another video like this one, I did the exact same challenge, but trying to see what the W1 could do around Jedha in the first episode of this miniseries.

[00:18:17]So, check out the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix edition video on screen now. In the meantime, leave a like, subscribe for more, a massive shout out to my members, and I'll see you guys in my next one very soon. Take care and let's goodbye from me. Cha chow.