Mercedes GP - Inauguration and 1st season

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

The situation is a diaster, with the best engine in the field no less.How many times are you going to repeat this as if it's the first time you've said it?

Podiums and 4th for a team in its first year as Mercedes is not a "disaster" as you put it. And I keep saying it because, its true. 2/3rds the way through 2010 and Mercedes are in 4th, Renault are 23 points behind Mercedes with 6 races left.
So its not as if Im talking out of turn is it? Yes Renault are faster currently, but they will need to outscore Mercedes a few times yet before roles are reversed.

You're trying to poo, poo this but it is eminently sensible.That's why you see Lada being displayed on the Renault cars as well as rebranding of engines as others have said.
As for Formula One, it is merely marketing and it will follow all of the cost cutting and consolidation that the brands are undergoing themselves with Formula One teams they can ill afford. This will happen regardless of whether Formula One was discussed or not. Mercedes seemed confident that they were going to run a winning own-brand team on the cheap. They were wrong. They need other partners and input from elsewhere to make it viable to the company - which is how Mercedes have said they will view that team.

Your view that seems to think Mercedes had this grand plan to run a winning team on the cheap is not one I share.
I'll tell you why, There is no precedent for it. The BGP001 was the result of 400 millions worth of investment.

So to say they thought they would take it over to expect to win on the cheap is undermining the due diligence process of Mercedes itself.
Even an amatuer accountant know that the BGP001 had 3 times the budget and 2 the manpower that the W01 had, and you can see the results of that.

Mercedes are in F1 because it fits their portfolio, and the resource restriction enabled them to do so, because it meant IN FUTURE, they wouldnt need to spend 300million a year on F1. Haug has already said the team should be self sustaining by 2012, somthing that the new concorde agreement and resource restriction made possible.
The whole point was to make it attractive to manufacturers and Mercedes wanted in when All the rest went the other way.

Does this mean they should be lampooned for running an F1 team? [-X
Does it mean they are naive? Maybe.

But in all fairness, without Mercedes the team would be up faeces creek without a paddle, and for that alone they deserve credit.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Its Stuttgart BTW

And the F-duct is evidently not helping the Mercedes this year, as was evident at Spa.
Hence why when they go, it will be a bonus for Mercedes as teams who have made it work will no longer have the advantage on them. Red Bull Mclaren Ferrari, and now Renault and FI.

[segedunum]

Podiums and 4th for a team in its first year as Mercedes is not a "disaster" as you put it. And I keep saying it because, its true.

Podiums are a distant memory and they're miles away from the front-runners. You keep trying to re-categorise the definition of success by clinging on to fourth. BMW won a race in 2008 and look what happened there.

So its not as if Im talking out of turn is it? Yes Renault are faster currently, but they will need to outscore Mercedes a few times yet before roles are reversed.

Which they are highly likely to do on current form, and that's what the suits will look at.

Your view that seems to think Mercedes had this grand plan to run a winning team on the cheap is not one I share.

Since you're one of those that confidently proclaimed how McLaren are actually funding the team, Honda provided all the resources and the resource restriction will magically put Mercedes in an excellent position then I beg to differ. Mercedes seemed to believe they were going to take the existing winning team and carry on.

Even an amatuer accountant know that the BGP001 had 3 times the budget and 2 the manpower that the W01 had, and you can see the results of that.

I see the results of an incompetent team who are getting exactly the same results they have done in years gone by with the manpower and budget you say they lack. We've been over this many times. It's a logical fallacy to blame anything but the failure of that team - which Mercedes payed no attention to.
[...]

[segedunum]

Its Stuttgart BTW

Same difference, but a nice Freudian slip to display the difference.

And the F-duct is evidently not helping the Mercedes this year, as was evident at Spa.

Because the aerodynamics are ---. The F-duct was the same for everyone who was catching up - which part of that did you fail to understand?

Why do you keep trying to blame things that are clearly the fault of that team, as if they're somehow not their fault?

Hence why when they go, it will be a bonus for Mercedes as teams who have made it work will no longer have the advantage on them. Red Bull Mclaren Ferrari, and now Renault and FI.

The technical regulations for aerodynamics won't change for next year, and if your aerodynamics are crap then they're crap. It's the same for everyone. There's nothing there for Mercedes until they get an aerodynamicist in who can work out just what the hell is going on before they even so much as pin a drawing of a new car on the fridge. They have a crapload of drag and no downforce, so unless that improves it's logically going to get worse without a F-duct - no?

Please can you also treat my posts with a modicum of respect?

Can you treat mine and others with respect sweetheart, because you seem to believe you can keep repeating the same things over and over and over again as answers and think that we're stupid enough to believe that we won't notice?

That team is in trouble.

[marcush.]

whatever you say they have won in 2009 and someone there came up with a crap frontwing everyone and his dog has copied ,and they had the best 2009 ddd difusser .that car was not crap far from it .And you cannot claim it was dropped somehow on the desk of Mr.Bigois as well.So to claim this was all poor luck and the result of megabucks invest...the question would be why the same approach did not work for Toyota who constantly dumped horrendous sums into their F1 machine but never had a car that was the class of the field.

Also you might take in that people are learning ,and you are learning more from the things that go wrong ,unless you are a complete idiot and ignorant ,telling the world you had bad luck or whatever.....

[xpensive]

Turn back the clock 20 months and imagine that the FIA had killed the double-diffuser in its infancy, does anyone believe that Mercedes would have supplied Brawn with engines? And if Brawn as a consequence had emerged just another mid-field runner for the 2009 season, would Mercedes have bought 75% of the team?

The former perhaps, but never ever the latter if you ask me.

[marcush.]

errrm...
1)Toyota and Williams also had DDD right from the start...and were not head and
shoulders above everyone else..
2)Brawn was the one team that had understood the front aero needed all others needed time to copy or find solutions emulating the flow -possibly with the exception of RB.

[zeph]

Running around in circles. Everybody sticking to their guns. We'll have to just wait and see how MGP will perform for the rest of the season and next year.

edited for unnecessary scorn

[marcush.]

I´m fully aware how difficult this is .. look 400+ people..to pilot a ship like this is not an easy task a false information and your ship is doing 320hours in the wrong direction per day potentially..or it languishes in an expensive harbour ...

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

I´m fully aware how difficult this is .. look 400+ people..to pilot a ship like this is not an easy task a false information and your ship is doing 320hours in the wrong direction per day potentially..or it languishes in an expensive harbour ...

+1
Mercedes arent mugs, they knew it was a huge undertaking.

And still the fact that the W01 had at least half the availbale resources and half the available design lead time means nothing to some.
Jumping on the team seems to be a total lack of energy, their results reflect that.
I have tried to concentrate firstly as to why they are where they are, and secondly tried with Marcush 747 et al to see how they can push the W01 forward.

My findings thus far from quotes the team have given, speculation us posters have put forward, and ScarbsF1(really useful source IMO) Is that th W01 baseline was pretty good, they were more competitive earlier on in the season, albeit with issues of weight distribution.
As the season has progressed the car has been swamped by other cars whos initial baseline performance was not up to that of the W01.
Through updates others could catch Mercedes and be faster them in the space of 3 months.

Now Mercedes have aslo brought updates, very quickly too I might add. But the problem as I have specified before is that the car itself cannot be pushed further up from its baseline because of the flaw that was created from the onset of its inception.

Brawn has already said they cannot do anything with the front end because their hands are tied by Homologation and testing. Adding aero points to a tyre that doesnt grip past a certain point is called waste....

[xpensive]

errrm...
1)Toyota and Williams also had DDD right from the start...and were not head and
shoulders above everyone else..
2)Brawn was the one team that had understood the front aero needed all others needed time to copy or find solutions emulating the flow -possibly with the exception of RB.

1) The point is that the funny diffuser was "invented" by Super Aguri/Honda engineers, some of those much later brought the concept with them to Toyota and Williams, but those guys were probably not the brains behind it.

2) A successful front wing should be easy enough to copy compared to converting your car for a DDD, still Brawn almost lost it at season's end.

Without Button's string of Mercedes-powered victories in the early season, while McLaren was suffering badly, Haug would never had been able to sell the factory-team concept to the Stuttgart-suits. They must be cursing that decision.

And btw JET, I will bring some outrageous false eyebrows to go with that red outfit of yours, ok?

[marcush.]

to me the situation is clear:

the mercedes engine will not make a bad car a winner everay engine in the field could win a gp ,although admitting Cosworth has to prove.
Funny enough all winning engines do so in only one chassis the other chassis have no sniff at a win..
if copying a wing was such easy ,the jury is out why it took BMW the whole year ..Ferrari struggled a long time with it as well.. and Mclaren was also not too quick at getting on top of it..


Mercedes
they have a flawed design to start with and thanks to their expertise in drivers feedback they were able to extract everything that was in the package rather early until they knocked at the door of their main weakness.
thats why they cannot improve beyond this .Their frontend is a waste.Tub,weight distribution possibly stiffness.
adding front downforce is impossible because of overloading the tyres. adding rear downforce will gain them grip but destroy balance so no option that .
Adding fuel=weight to the car restores/ brings them nearer to the rest as everyone is experiencing the tyre saturation with the added fuel...

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Marcush 100% agree with all of that.

And xpensive, which GP is it next year? Hockenheim or Nurburgring?
Second, you will be paying for said outfit right?
So long as you can demonstrate some humour and drink copious amounts of beer then all will be fine!

Im happy to go along with it because Im fairly confident you will see a better challenge from them next year. [-o<

[marcush.]

I´ll come along and take the pictures!I´m sure we get Michael to loan some rabbit ears to our respected forum member to make it perfect.
I promise to really try and make this happen!

[xpensive]

Not that I'm sleepless over this, but who will supply the Nomex-suit in case Nico lucks in with a win down under?